Glad You Asked

What color of diamond is the rarest?

—Terry E., Portland, OR

Diamonds come in all the colors of the rainbow, and blue is the rarest of them all. Nearly all the world’s supply of blue diamonds came from the Premier Mine of South Africa, which closed in 2002. There’s debate about whether De Beers, which owned the mine at the time, truly ran out of blues or is stockpiling them for release at a future date. The scarcity of blues has pushed the per-carat price to dizzying heights. A comparable blue diamond would easily be ten times the price of a D flawless diamond. At a Southeby’s auction in Hong Kong in October 2007, a 6.04-carat, internally flawless fancy vivid blue diamond sold for $7,981,835—over $1.3 million per carat. Even at that astronomical price, the bidding battle was fierce!