Black diamonds are rare polycrystalline diamonds which originate from Brazil and the Central African Republic. Traditionally, they have been seen as unattractive for use in fashion and jewellery and until recently their primary purpose has been industrial with the Carbonado diamond used commercial drills due to its hard, compact nature.
In recent years however, the prominence of black diamonds in use as jewellery pieces has increased significantly and it is now a much sought after and fashionable stone. Black diamonds are typically a distinctive black or dark grey in colour with the best diamonds demonstrating a metallic caviar hue.
Black diamonds, like all coloured diamonds are extremely rare and distinctive with just one in every 10,000 diamonds mined being coloured. Black diamonds get their colour from the presence of miniscule mineral particles such as magnetite and haematite and as they are so hard, they take significantly longer time to cut, up to five times as long in many cases and this, further adding to the value of the diamond.
The most famous black diamond, the Black Orloff or the Eye of Brahma, weighs 67ct and sold for auction at Sotheby’s in 1995 for US$1.5 million.
