Extremely rare red diamond worth millions is unveiled in New York

Red diamonds are one of the rarest precious stones in the world.

At any given moment, there aren’t more than a handful available in the market for sale, and finding examples that are over one carat in size is a rarity within a rarity.

So it should come as no surprise that collectors and connoisseurs are preparing to part with serious amounts of cash when a 2.11-carat specimen goes under the hammer this summer.

The stone, dubbed the Argyle Everglow, was revealed in New York as part of the 2017 Argyle Pink Diamonds Tender, the annual event where Rio Tinto diamond mine show off their best pink diamond finds of the year.

The mine is based in Western Australia and produces 90 per cent of the world’s pink diamond supply.

The annual showcase invites diamond collectors from around the world to view the rare gemstones by invitation only, and offer private bids on the collection.

Since 1984, the mine has sold fewer than 20 carats of certified ‘Fancy Red’ diamonds, the grade given to these rare red stones by diamond experts.

The stone has been polished into a radion-cut and is rated as VS2 clarity by the GIA. It’s expected to fetch bids into the millions, and “represents rarity within rarity and will drive global demand from collectors and connoisseurs in search of the incomparable,” according to Josephine Johnson, Argyle Pink Diamonds manager.

Pink and red diamonds get their colour from an atomic deformity. Scientists speculate that the stress and strain experienced by rough diamonds when they are in the Earth’s mantle causes the diamond’s lattice to be distorted. This distortion creates graining and pink color zones to occur within the diamond.

The Argyle pink diamond mines are expected to be exhausted by 2021, and so these increasingly rare specimens are attracting record prices.

The largest red diamond in the world, the 5.11 carat Moussaieff Red, was discovered in Brazil in the 1990s and is currently owned by jeweler Moussaieff.

The world record for the most expensive diamond ever sold at auction is a 59.60-carat Pink Star diamond, which sold for £57.3 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in April.