Origin of name
The "Rob Red Diamond" gets it's name from it's owner Mr.
Robert Bogel, who had been a dealer of colored diamonds in New York city for
more than 30 years. The color of the diamond is also included in the name,
because of the rarity of it's occurrence.
Characteristics of the
diamond
the diamond is a fancy intense red, VS-1 clarity,
pear-shaped stone, weighing just 0.59 carats, with the potential of
becoming one of the most important red diamonds in the world, even
surpassing the 0.95-carat round brilliant Hancock Red, in terms of purity
and saturation of the red color.
History
The origin of the "Rob Red" is most probably one of the
alluvial deposits of the diamond mining areas of Brazil, such as Minas,
Gerais, Bahia, and Mato Grasso. Mr. Robert Bogel, the dealer of colored
diamonds, had spent most of his youthful years in the diamond mining
districts of Brazil, searching for rough colored diamonds, and as if by
coincidence the Rob Red diamond, that originated in Brazil, had this time
come in search of him, and he became the proud owner of this unique stone,
which was a symbolic reminder of his past experiences in Brazil.
According to Mr. Stephen Hofer, the renowned gemologist
and colored stone specialist, the Rob Red diamond is the most saturated and
purest red diamond measured visually and instrumentally to date in the
world. He also said that the color grade of fancy intense red given to the
diamond is fully justified given the purity and saturation of the red color
that even exceeded the famous Hancock Red diamond.
The Hancock Red diamond with a color grading of fancy
purplish red, was the highest color grade recorded earlier for a natural red
diamond, making it exceptional among all red diamonds. But, the Rob Red is
the only red diamond in the world with the highest color grading of fancy
intense red, making it unique among all red diamonds, in respect of color
saturation and clarity. As such the Rob Red diamond is the most saturated
and cleanest red diamond in existence in the world today.
Rarity of occurrence and
reduced size
The phenomenon of red color in diamonds is extremely
rare, that the actual number of certified red diamonds in existence in the
world today may be less than twenty. Therefore to be able to see a red
diamond in public is an extremely rare event let alone a red diamond being
available for sale. The last red diamond discovered was sold for almost $
1,000,000, twenty years ago. This is an indisputable statistical evidence
for the rarity of the red diamond.
Besides the rarity and beauty of red diamonds, another
important aspect is their restricted size, when compared to other colored
and colorless diamonds. The world's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd largest red diamonds,
the "Moussaieff Red", the "Red diamond", and the "De Young Red" have weights
of 5.11, 5.05, and 5.03 carats respectively. In comparison the weights of
the world's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd largest D-color diamonds, the "Cullinan I", "Cullinan
II", and the "Centenary" diamonds have weights respectively of 530.20,
317.40 and 273.85 carats.
The combined characteristics of rarity and beauty make
red diamonds the most expensive of all diamonds and several of them are
amongst the most famous diamonds in the world. Most red diamonds are less than one carat in size. The most famous Brazilian red diamond the "Hancock Red" that belonged to
Warren Hancock, a collector and connoisseur of diamonds, weighed only 0.95
carats and fetched a price of $ 880,000 at a Christie's auction in 1987,
which works out to a record price of $ 926,000 per carat.
The Argyle Diamond mines in Australia have become a
consistent source of rare fancy colored diamonds such as pink and red.
However their occurrence is less than 0.1 % of the overall production of
rough diamonds in the mines. The occurrence of red diamonds are even much
less than 0.1 %. The Australian pink and red diamonds are renowned for the
intensity of their colors. At a Christie's auction in New York in 1989 a
3.14 carat Argyle pink diamond sold for $ 1,510.000.
Chemistry of red diamonds
Red diamonds are type IIa diamonds, free of Nitrogen
impurities. Type IIa diamonds with perfectly formed crystals are absolutely
colorless and are known as D-color or top-color diamonds. But a very small
percent of these diamonds have undergone a distortion in the crystal
structure due to twisting and bending of the crystal units as they rose to
the surface of the earth from deep inside the earth's crust. The
distorted areas in these crystals impart rare fancy colors to the
diamond such as pink, red, purple, etc. by absorbing light in different
regions of the spectrum. Therefore red diamonds are plastically deformed
type IIa diamonds.