Unlike white diamonds that are valued for the absence of color, fancy color diamonds are prized for the saturation of color and rich shades of blue, yellow and pink are exceedingly rare in nature. Here we look at the world’s premier fancy colored diamonds, distinguished for their remarkable color, clarity and impressive size and their jaw-dropping price tags.

The Pink Star

The Pink Star, previously known as the Steinmetz Pink, is the largest diamond to have been graded a Fancy Vivid Pink. Its color and size rank it among the top three in its pink diamond class. After five minutes of bidding at a 2017 Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong, the oval-shaped 59.6-carat pink diamond broke the record for the highest price ever paid for a jewel: a whopping $71 million USD.

The Spirit of de Grisogono

When the Spirit of de Grisogono rough diamond was first discovered in Africa, it weighed an astounding 587 carats, an enormous black diamond. The rough diamond was cut down to 312.24 carats by Swiss jeweler, De Grisogono. Even after being cut and faceted, the Spirit of de Grisogono still holds the title as the largest black diamond in the world and is the world’s fifth largest diamond overall. The Spirit of de Grisogono is currently set in a white gold ring, surrounded by 702 white diamonds that total 36.69 carats. It’s value has not been disclosed.

The Hope Diamond

Believed to have been discovered in India in the 1600s, the Hope Diamond was bought by King Louis XIV in 1668. After hundreds of years of grinding, cutting and polishing, the stone weighs 54.52 carats, and is classified as a Fancy Dark Grayish-Blue diamond. (For more on the cursed history of the Hope Diamond, read our post on the topic here.) The third most expensive colored diamond in the world, the Hope Diamond is valued at an incredible $250 million and sits amid high security at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

The Ocean Dream

Mined from central Africa, the Ocean Dream diamond is a fancy deep blue-green, triangular brilliant (or trillion-cut) diamond. It is the largest naturally colored fancy deep blue-green diamond in the world. Thus in spite of its relatively small size (5.51 carats) compared to other famous diamonds, the Ocean Dream earns the distinction of being one of the rarest diamonds in the world.

The Oppenheimer Blue

The Oppenheimer Blue, at 14.62 carats, is the largest Vivid Blue diamond ever to appear at auction. This diamond, named after its previous owner, Sir Phillip Oppenheimer, stunned auction-goers, when it sold for an incredible $57 million USD in 2016. The buyer remains anonymous. Following the auction, the Oppenheimer Blue held the title as the most expensive jewel every sold at auction, until it was unseated by the Pink Star Diamond in 2017.

The Incomparable Diamond

For being such an impressively named stone, The Incomparable Diamond has a humble origin story: this fancy colored diamond was found in 1984 by a little girl playing in a pile of rocks and rubble outside her uncle’s house in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The rubble, which had been dismissed as being too bulky to bother scanning for diamonds, hid the largest brown diamond in the world. The Incomparable Diamond was cut down from 890 to 407.5 carats to have fewer internal flaws and emphasize its fancy brownish-yellow color. The stone is valued around $20 million USD.

To learn about more rare and expensive gemstones, read our post The World’s 10 Rarest and Most Expensive Gemstones here.