Who Says Diamonds Should be White?

"Who says diamonds should be white?"

That was the question Eddy Elzas asked back in the 1970s. And that's why he, more than anyone, has been credited with "inventing" the modern-day colored diamond market.

At the time nobody in the industry saw the potential of colored diamonds like Elzas.

"They thought I was crazy, but I knew better," he recalled in a 2007 interview with Gulf News.

"In a world of colourless diamonds, they were a rarity. I found this strange and started building a collection of them," he said.

Over time he became known as the King of Colored Diamonds, and he would forever be associated with his iconic Rainbow Collection of more than 300 colored stones amassed through his 40-year career as a dealer, collector and connoisseur.

Elzas passed away in November 2021, aged 79, and now that collection, which he put on public display numerous times, is to be auctioned as a single lot by Christie's Geneva next week (11 November) as part of its Magnificent Jewels auction.

Pic courtesy Christie's

The buyer will take possession of an estimated 350 carats, spanning the entire spectrum: including red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and grey, in a multitude of different shapes and cuts, ranging in size from 0.24 carats to 4.89 carats.

Christie's estimates the collection will sell for $2m to $3m. That, incidentally, is a mere fraction of the value put on the collection in press reports over the years - from $60m to $100m.

At one point Elzas famously turned down a huge, though unspecified, offer from a Saudi prince, who wanted to buy the whole collection as a wedding gift for Charles and Diana.

Elzas was born in the south of France in 1942. His family moved to Antwerp after World War II and he started work as a diamond cleaver, before moving into trading and brokerage in the 1970s, working with major South African sightholders.

It was while he was working in Johannesburg that a manufacturer showed him a cigar box filled with "unsellable" colored diamonds, in the hope that Elzas, a larger-than-life salesman, would see that as a challenge. He did. And he became a true innovator.

He was so far ahead of anyone else that the GIA issued him with a certificate in the 1980s, stating that of the 8,000 fancy color diamonds they'd graded, he'd submitted 6,000 of them.

Today fancy color diamonds account for just 0.01 per cent of all natural diamonds mined, but the market last year was worth $4.5bn, according to the New York-based Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF).

It says prices for all sizes and intensities of pinks, blues and yellows, the three most popular colors, have increased by a staggering 212.5 per cent since 2005, when it started collecting data. (Pinks up 398 per cent over that period, blues up 251 per cent, yellows up 59 per cent). White diamonds are today worth less than they were in 2005.
 
"Eddy Elzas recognized an opportunity when it was presented to him," said Max Fawcett, designated global head at Christie's jewels.

"He had an eye for business opportunities but more importantly he collected with an ever-growing passion and deep knowledge. The Rainbow Collection… will be offered as one single lot in our upcoming Magnificent Jewels auction.

"Has he created the coloured diamond market? Eddy certainly played a driving role in establishing it."

Have a fabulous weekend.