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FANCY COLORED DIAMONDS

ALROSA MAKING A PLAY TO BECOMEWORLD’S LARGEST FANCY COLORED DIAMOND SUPPLIER

 

Alrosa, the Russian state-controlled mining company that for most the past decade has been the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds, is positioning itself to also be the leading supplier of fancy colored stones, aiming to capture the position held since the mid-1990s by Argyle, the Western Australian producer that earlier this year announced that it would be ending mining operations.

In September last year, at the Hong Kong Jewelry & Gem Fair, the Russian company presented its first assortment of large colored diamonds. Called the “True Colors Collection,” Alrosa described it as a stepping stone in a new strategy to become the world leader in the production of colored polished diamonds. 

Speaking to the media in Hong Kong in 2018, Evgeny Agureev, Director of Alrosa’s United Selling Organization, reported that, on annual basis, the company produces at least 7,000 carats of Fancy colored diamonds per year. 

Fancy colored diamonds are extracted at the all company’s various mines, but the two areas that have yielded the highest numbers are the alluvial mines of JSC Anabar Diamonds in Yakutia, in the northeast of the country, and the open pit of PJSC Severalmaz,  located in the Arkhangelsk region in the northwest of Russia.

TRUE COLORS RETURNS TO HONG KONG IN 2019

The first True Colors auction, which was held in September 2018, sold 210 unique diamonds and brought into the Alrosa coffers some $9 million in income. 

The company will be unveiling its second True Colors collection at this year’s September Hong Kong Jewelry & Gem Fair. It includes about 200 polished diamonds certified by the Gemological Institute of America, which will be available for viewing at the show from September 16 to 20. 

They collection be then be auctioned on Alrosa’s online platform from September 16 to 23, with the results announced on September 24.

Among the auction’s star offerings are an internally flawless intense yellow pear-shaped diamond of 18.07 carats; a 6.78-carat vivid yellow square emerald-cut diamond of VVS2 clarity grade; and a pair of vivid purplish-pink pear-shaped diamonds, one being a VVS1 stone of 0.54 carats and one an IF stone of 0.55 carats.

The 14.83-carat pink Spirit of the Rose, which when it comes up for auction in November could become one the most expensive diamonds ever sold.

Rough fancy colored diamonds discovered at the PJSC Severalmaz mine in the Arkhangelsk region, Russia’s northwest.

SPIRIT OF THE ROSE 

One stone that Alrosa is a promoting individually is a 14.83-carat pink diamond that pundits are forecasting will fetch one of the highest prices ever paid for a diamond. It will not be part of the September auction, but rather will  be auctioned in November.

Certified by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) as a fancy vivid purple-pink with excellent clarity, excellent polish and very good symmetry, it has been called the Spirit of the Rose, named after Carl Maria von Weber’s ballet Le Spectre de la Rose. The stone was reportedly cut and polished in Alrosa’s own factory in Moscow.

The diamond was cut from a 27.85-carat rough stone discovered in the JSC Anabar Diamonds alluvial fields in 2017. It was named the Nijinsky, after ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who was the lead dancer when Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes company premiered Le Spectre de la Rose at the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo in Monaco in 2011.

Larger vivid pink – purple diamonds very rarely come to market, encouraging speculation that the Spirit of the Rose could fetch much as $65 million when it is auctioned later this year. If it does so, this would still be lower than the $71.2 million paid by the Chow Tai Fook Jewelry Group for the 59.6-carat Pink Star at Sotheby’s in April 2017, but higher than the $50.6 million paid by an anonymous buyer for the 14.6-carat Oppenheimer Blue, at a Christie’s sale in May 2016.

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