If you're fortunate enough to live in a location with four seasons, Fall is almost certainly your favourite. Yes, the weather is beautiful, but Fall also marks the beginning of the holiday season, when the Pumpkin Spice Latte returns, Halloween arrives, and you can finally wear the layers you've been yearning to wear. There is one hue that makes you want to celebrate Fall and Halloween more than any other. No other hue depicts the shifting of the leaves and is as prevalent in seasonal design as orange. Simply looking at the hue makes you want to carve pumpkins, drink hot apple cider, and walk through crunchy leaves on the sidewalk.
This mood-inducing colour may be found all around nature, yet the most uncommon natural occurrence of orange is the most gorgeous. Natural orange diamonds are not only the most uncommon hue in nature, but they are also among the rarest colours of all natural diamonds. Two remarkable orange diamonds stand out among the rest that have ever been unearthed. The first, and maybe most well-known, is fittingly titled The Pumpkin Diamond. The Pumpkin Diamond was discovered in the mid-1990s as an 11-carat rough diamond with a brownish-orange hue. The raw stone was then acquired by legendary diamond cutter William Goldberg with the expectation that he might optimise the beauty of the hue in the art of diamond cutting. Often, the true potential of raw colour diamonds cannot be recognised until they are cut. Diamond cutters will occasionally buy rough in the hopes of turning it into a more valuable finished product once it has been cut, but this bet does not always pay off.
However, in the instance of The Pumpkin Diamond, William Goldberg was able to transform this brownish-orange rough diamond into a "fancy bright orange," the highest and most sought-after colour classification for an orange diamond. According to the Gemological Institute of America, "the Pumpkin diamond is one of the biggest fancy vivid orange, naturally coloured diamonds in the world." The risk taken by William Goldberg had paid off. But where did the moniker The Pumpkin Diamond come from? On Halloween Eve 1997, Sotheby's auctioned off the now 5.54-carat cushion-cut diamond, which was acquired by Ronald Winston of famed New York jeweller Harry Winston. Its form, colour, and purchase date were undoubtedly Ronald Winston's inspiration for the appropriate name.
Winston fashioned a traditional three-stone ring to put the exceptional stone, surrounded by two lesser colourless diamonds, after purchasing it. Halle Berry later wore the ring when she collected her Oscar for Best Actress for the film Monsters Ball in 2002. The Pumpkin Diamond was shown as part of the Smithsonian's "Splendor of Diamonds" Exhibition in 2003, which is still regarded as one of the most stunning diamond presentations in history. Winston allegedly sold the ring to an unnamed bidder for more than $3 million in 2005.
The Pumpkin Diamond was the biggest fancy vivid orange diamond ever unearthed until 2013, when a 14.82-carat fancy vivid orange pear shape diamond was unexpectedly revealed to be auctioned at Christie's. This natural wonder is so distinct that it is simply known as The Orange Diamond. The GIA stated of The Orange Diamond in an attached document to the grading certificate, "Pure orange diamonds are exceedingly uncommon in nature." Because so few have been graded in the globe, the origin of their hue remains a mystery. The current diamond is the GIA's biggest Fancy Vivid Orange diamond graded to date: 'In the Laboratory's experience, intensely tinted orange diamonds seldom reach three or four carats.
