What is the difference between a fancy yellow diamond and a ‘bad’ regular diamond?
The letter diamond color scale ends with ‘Z’, but color saturation doesn’t stop at ‘Z’; colors continue to increase in color and are considered Fancy Colored. Fancy Colored diamonds are graded on a broader scale that starts with ‘Fancy Light’, then just ‘Fancy’, then ‘Fancy Intense’ and lastly, the very rare ‘Fancy Vivid’. We don’t consider any diamond to be a ‘bad’ color, however, more common colors are the least costly and rare colors are the most costly. To understand how price relates to color grades, think of the entire color scale, from ‘D’ to ‘Fancy Vivid’ as a bell curve. The rarest and most costly diamonds – completely colorless and brightly colored – are at each end, and the more common slightly tinged diamonds – ‘O’ to ‘S’ – are in the middle.
