Are Champagne Diamonds Valuable?

It used to be that when you heard the word diamond, you immediately thought of the sparkling white stone coveted by jewelry lovers the world over. Nowadays, a diamond can be any color from black to red to canary yellow. A lot of brides are even opting for champagne diamond rings. The question is, are they just as valuable as white diamonds?

How Diamonds are Formed

The first step to understanding the value of champagne diamonds is to learn how they're formed. Actually, the very first step is to understand how diamonds in general are formed.

The first thing you need to know is that what you've probably thought your whole life--that diamonds come from a metamorphosis of coal--is not always the case. Coal is an organic substance that comes from the decay of plants, and many diamonds have been dated and found to be older than the first plants on Earth. So where did those diamonds come from, if not from coal?

About 100 miles beneath the surface of the Earth lies the upper mantle, which is very hot and under a lot of pressure from the rock layer on top of it. The combination of high temperature and high pressure causes diamond crystals to grow. This is, of course, educated speculation as the mantle is too far down for us to drill into or study.

How Champagne Diamonds are Formed

Colorless diamonds are formed from pure carbon, but even a small amount of another element can create an impurity, which in many cases, can lead to the formation of a colored diamond crystal. For example, boron results in a blue diamond, like the famous Hope Diamond. Brown diamonds, of which champagne diamonds are simply a lighter shade, result from the presence of nitrogen.

Because diamonds of all colors have the same basic crystalline structure, they all display the diamond's inherent characteristics, regardless of color. They're all the hardest stones in the world, measuring a 10 (the highest level) on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. They're able to cut glass, and are used in drills to cut other materials such as tile, porcelain, and stone. And only a diamond can cut another diamond.

For hundreds of years, colored diamonds were discarded as low-quality stones, or they were used only for commercial purposes, such as drills. That all changed in the mid-1980s when jewelers began to see the beauty of colored diamonds, and began using them in their jewelry pieces. They've only grown in popularity since then.

All of this to say, yes, champagne diamonds (as well as blue, black, yellow, pink, or any other color) are real diamonds, and they're unquestionably valuable. They can make a beautiful engagement ring, and can add natural-hued shimmer to any piece of jewelry they adorn.

Shop our hand-picked collection of champagne diamond rings, and find the natural beauty you seek.

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