Your Guide to Gray Diamonds

Just like the other colored diamonds, gray diamonds got their color due to the mixture of foreign elements while they’re being formed on the surface of the earth. In the case of the gray stones, they got their color from the inclusion of hydrogen while it may also be caused by boron as well. Regardless of its origin, gray diamonds comes in different hues and shapes which are the reason why it was able to acquire such a unique color for it.

For the intensities of the gray diamond, it comes with the charcoal gray, slate, steel, pigeon, and silver varieties. As for the tones, it ranges from pewter and nickel to deeper hues such as lead and graphite. The most common places that gray diamonds are mined include Russia, Brazil, India, South Africa, and Australia, also home to the Argyle mine. An interesting fact about gray diamonds is that they’re also a bit similar to their blue counterpart, wherein it is well-known for its ability to conduct electricity. This is a unique trait about these 2 colors because the other colored and colorless diamonds are non-conductors.


About The Color Of The Gray Diamond

The majority of the gray colored diamonds got their color from the high presence of hydrogen, but there are also some rare cases that boron causes it just like what blue diamonds are also made of.

According to the GIA, the most common modifiers for the gray diamonds are bluish, violet, yellowish, and greenish. It means that the actual colors include: Fancy Dark Violet Gray, Fancy Dark Greenish Gray, and Fancy Greenish-Yellow Gray. Judging by the different colors that were mentioned, even in the tight niche, there are endless options for the gray colored stone. To be more specific, the literature states that the human eye is able to distinguish up to 500 shades of gray, which means that this could be the total number of gray diamonds to have ever existed.

Gray Diamonds And Their Prices

These gray colored diamonds are among the relatively affordable color of all diamonds. But if it is mixed with other colors such as violet and blue, which are known to be extremely rare, it can be quite hefty. Thus its prices can increase to tens of thousands.

This combination can also come in both ways since the color gray can also serve as modifiers for the blue and violet diamonds. Having this addition to the blue diamond can significantly reduce its price especially when you compare it to a pure blue one. So if you are looking for a blue diamond but can’t afford it, then this is the option that you should go for.

Famous Gray Diamonds From All Over The World

The most famous diamond in history is The Hope Diamond wherein it has been classified as a Fancy Gray Blue. There are no famous gray diamonds known in history since they weren’t that popular. However, the famous blue stones have some color designations in them such as the Grayish Blue thus giving the gray color some sort of value.


The Hope Diamond

The Hope Diamond, previously known as the “Le Bleu de France,” is considered to be the largest deep blue diamond in the entire world. It weighs in at 45.52 carats and has been classified as a Fancy Deep Grayish-Blue VS1 and was mined in India.

According to legend, the Hope Diamond used to have an original form wherein it was stolen from the eye of the statue of goddess Sita from a Hindu Temple. The priests from the temple then casted a curse on anyone who came in the possession of the stolen stone and thus, came the curse of the Hope Diamond. With its curse, the Hope Diamond has caused many fatalities on those who owned them which includes the beheading of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. It was in September 1812 where the Hope Diamond’s history can be definitively ascertained.

It was recorded that a blue diamond with the same shape, color, and size to that of the Hope Diamond was in the possession of a diamond merchant in London named Daniel Eliason. It also appeared in a published catalog of the gem collection back in 1839 in the hands of a prominent British banker by the name of Henry Philip Hope who also died in that same year. It was his oldest nephew, Henry Thomas Hope, who inherited the diamond. After some issues with its inheritance and several changes in ownership, the Hope Diamond ended up in the hands of a diamond merchant named Harry Winston in 1948.

Winston then donated the Blue Diamond to the Smithsonian on November 10, 1958. The Hope Diamond has been set in a necklace that was displayed in The Smithsonian wherein it has an oval setting and it surrounded by several white diamonds but was later on displayed as a loose gem in 2009. The Hope Diamond was then displayed on a new setting on November 18, 2010 wherein the design came from an online vote of more than 100,000 participants. It was shown in this kind of setting for a year and was returned to its original one after that.

The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond

This piece of diamond weighs in at 35.56 carats and is classified as a Fancy Deep Grayish Blue VS2 type. The earliest record for this diamond was that it was given by Philip IV of Spain in 1664 to his daughter Infanta Margareta Teresa for her engagement to Emperor Leopold I of Austria. However, in 1675, Infanta died after she was weakened by having too many miscarriages. Due to this, her husband inherited all of the jewels and later on left them to his 3rd wife, Empress Eleanor Magdalena, who also passed the Great Blue Diamond to her granddaughter named Archduchess Maria Amelia.

It was then bought by a private collector in 1964, and by 2008, the Wittelsbach Diamond was sold during an auction at Christie for $24.3 million to the famous jeweler Laurence Graff. Graff then did a re-cut on the diamond which causes it to lose 4.45 carats wherein the reason for this is to remove the damages that were made to the girdle and enhance its color. It now becomes a Fancy Deep Blue IF diamond.