The Yellow Diamond

Yellow is one of the most common colors found in diamonds. Yellow diamonds range from very pale yellow to vivid fancy yellow depending on the quantity of nitrogen atoms absorbed during the crystallization phase.

Most diamonds are faint or light yellow. These stones are the most affordable diamonds and are becoming more and more popular because of their warm coloring and their ability to blend nicely with white diamonds and white gold.

Vivid fancy yellow diamonds, as like any fancy colored diamond, are rare and rather expensive. One of the largest known yellow diamonds is the Tiffany Diamond. Discovered in a South African mine, this famous gem weighed almost 280 carats before being cut into a 128 carat stone.

About 25 percent of the world’s largest and most famous diamonds are yellow, but only a few are fancy vivid yellow. Because of the rarity of vivid yellow stones, color enhancement treatments are often performed to meet the demands for these beautiful gems. Color enhanced yellow diamonds are more affordable than natural fancy stones and much easier to find.

Laboratory grown fancy yellow diamonds are also growing in popularity. Conditions similar to those found beneath the earth’s surface are recreated in a lab, producing gem-quality colored diamonds in just days.

Yellow diamonds are found in mines worldwide but most often come from South America or South Africa. Only one out of every 1000 diamonds is a fancy colored diamond. The occurrence of a natural vivid yellow diamond is even more rare.