Super-Rare Fancy Vivid Orange-Yellow Diamond Earrings Headline Christie's Sale

The California Sunset Diamonds, a super-rare matched pair of fancy vivid orange-yellow sparklers, are set to headline Christie's Magnificent Jewels sale in New York on December 6. The fancy-color diamonds weigh 12.20 carats and 11.96 carats, respectively.

Orange diamonds are highly coveted, yet hardly ever come to auction. Appropriately, Christies's assigned the gems with a pre-sale estimate of $7 million to $12 million, reflecting the size, color saturation, clarity and extreme rarity of the oval mixed-cut fancy color gems.

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) monograph accompanying the stones emphasized the rarity of fancy vivid orange-yellow diamonds with this statistic: Only 1/3 of 1% of fancy-color diamonds submitted to GIA's grading lab over the past 10 years were graded as "fancy vivid orange-yellow."

The website naturaldiamonds.com describes orange diamonds as "the most infrequent occurrence of orange in nature," and colored-diamond specialists Leibish affirms that orange diamonds are the second rarest colored diamonds, with red being the rarest.

Set as dangle earrings in platinum and 18-karat rose gold, the California Sunset Diamonds are complemented by oval brilliant-cut white diamonds weighing 3.03 and 3.02 carats, as well as white marquise-cut accent stones each weighing .73 carats. The larger of the two orange-yellow diamonds boasts a clarity grade of VVS2, while the other has a VS1 rating.

Another top lot in the same auction will also feature an orange-hued diamond. The pear-shaped, mixed-cut fancy vivid yellowish-orange diamond seen here weighs 5.16 carats, is set in an 18-karat yellow gold ring and carries a pre-sale estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million.

Orange diamonds are rated on a color scale from pale orange to deep orange with the following designations from light to dark: Light Orange, Fancy, Fancy Intense Orange, Fancy Vivid Orange and Fancy Deep Orange.

Scientists are still somewhat baffled about how orange diamonds get their color, because their hue on the spectrum is sandwiched between yellow and red.

Unlike yellow diamonds that owe their color to the presence of nitrogen in their chemical makeup, pink and red diamonds owe their color to the effects of intense pressure, heat and twisting while they were still deep within the Earth. So there could be multiple factors at work to generate the rich orange hue.

The New York auction's second-priciest lot is expected to be a fancy vivid blue cushion modified brilliant-cut diamond weighing 3.49 carats. The internally flawless gem is set in a brushed platinum ring and is predicted to fetch between $4.5 million and $5.5 million.

Credits: Images courtesy of Christie’s.

Topaz: November's Birthstone Presents a Myriad of Vibrant Color Options

November's popular birthstone, topaz, is widely admired for its vibrant array of colors, including yellows, oranges, blues, greens, reds, browns, pinks and purples.

The topaz in the photo, above, are part of the Smithsonian's National Gem Collection and can be seen up close and personal in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Originating from Russia, Japan, Madagascar, Ukraine, Brazil and the US (Texas), the topaz in this grouping range in weight from 18 to 816 carats.

Topaz — especially the yellow-to-orange varieties — has been misunderstood and misidentified for more than 2,000 years. Topaz gets its name from Topazios, the ancient Greek name for a tiny island in the Red Sea. The island is now known as Zabargad Island, the largest of a group of islands in Foul Bay, Egypt. It is very likely that the “topaz” mined there in ancient times was actually a yellow-green variety of peridot.

Before 1950, many “gem experts” shared the misconception that all yellow gems were topaz and that all topaz was yellow. In fact, citrine (November’s alternate birthstone) and even smoky quartz are still mistaken for topaz even though quartz and topaz are unrelated minerals

Today, we know that topaz is allochromatic, which means that its color is caused by impurities in the gem's chemical makeup or defects in its crystal structure, according to the Gemological Institute of America. For example, the presence of the element chromium results in natural pink, red and violet-to-purple colors, while imperfections at the atomic level can cause yellow, brown and blue colors. Pure topaz will be colorless.

Brazil is the largest producer of quality topaz, but the gem variety is also mined in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Russia, Australia, Nigeria, Germany, Mexico and the US (specifically California, Utah and New Hampshire). Topaz rates an 8 on the Mohs hardness scale, making it a durable and wearable gem.

Topaz is a talisman for the sign of Sagittarius and is the suggested gift for the 23rd or 50th wedding anniversary.

Credit: Photo by Chip Clark/Smithsonian and digitally enhanced by SquareMoose.

'Engagement Season' 2023-24 Should See Strong Rebound in Marriage Proposals

Next week marks the beginning of “engagement season,” the especially blissful time of the year that stretches from Thanksgiving until Valentine’s Day and accounts for nearly 40% of all marriage proposals.

About 19% of all proposals take place during the month of December, which is more than twice as popular as any other month. For many years, Christmas Day has been the most preferred day to get engaged, followed by a frosty mix of favorites that include Christmas Eve, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve.

Engagements tend to occur during the holiday season because couples love to celebrate in a relaxed atmosphere surrounded by friends and family.

About 2.8 million couples get engaged every year in the United States, according to data compiled by jewelry chain Signet. But for the past few years, the jewelry industry has experienced an "engagement gap" due to the relationship-busting effects of COVID-19. Many singles were forced to isolate themselves and stepped out of the dating pool.

Signet noted that couples get engaged about 3.25 years after they begin dating, so the COVID disruption resulted in the number of engagements thinning out at 2.1 to 2.2 million in 2023.

With a gradual return to pre-pandemic lifestyles, the coming season should reflect the beginning of a rebound, with 2.4 to 2.5 million engagements expected in 2024. Signet predicts the upward trend will continue over the next three years, as the company has identified 14 million people right now in the "dating funnel."

States, such as Texas and Florida, which were the first to drop pandemic restrictions, are 10 points closer to pre-pandemic engagement levels than other states that opened later, according to Signet.

Credit: Image by Bigstockphoto.com