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| The "Purple Orchid" diamond |
A fancy intense pinkish purple VS2 diamond will be shown to the public for the first time during the September Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair. The 3.37-carat gem, named the “Purple Orchid,” has an asking price of $4 million, or nearly $1.2 million per carat. Leibish & Co., an Israeli firm that owns the diamond, says it’s a “once-in-a-lifetime” find.
The diamond will be on view at the AsiaWorld-Expo near Hong Kong International Airport September 15 – 19. The jewelry tradeshow is only open to qualified jewelry professionals. The Hong Kong jewelry show is also located at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre from September 17 – 21.
Leibish & Co., which sells its fancy colored diamonds and jewelry online at www.leibish.com, says the gem originated from an unnamed South African mine, one of the very few in the world where purple diamonds can be found. The company purchased the diamond as a rough of more than 4 carats and spent four months cutting and polishing the gem.
Leibish Polnauer, president of Leibish & Co., says it is a “once-in-a-lifetime” find. “There is nothing more unique on the market right now than color diamonds, and this incredible purple diamond is more than a cut above the rest. There are very, very few diamonds on the market above 3 carats with purple as the main color, which is what makes this exquisite diamond so rare.”
There isn’t a lot of documentation on how purple diamonds get their color, but it is believed that it is the combination of crystal lattice distortion (which is also involved in the creation of pink diamonds) and high amounts of hydrogen.
Leibish & Co also views this diamond as a fashion-forward statement as it says the color of the diamond is associated with “Radiant Orchid,” the Pantone color of year for 2014.
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