Historic Sales of Pink and Blue Diamonds from the Argyle Mine
In October 2021, nearly one year after the end of operations at the Argyle mine in Western Australia, Rio Tinto sold its final production of pink and blue diamonds. The company announced that the 37th Argyle pink diamond tender collection of 70 rare pink and red diamonds delivered record-breaking prices across individual diamonds and for the overall collection. This year’s edition was conducted in a series of virtual and face-to-face viewings. Highlights from the sale (shown left to right in figure 1) were the 2.03 ct Fancy Deep pink Argyle Lumiere, the 1.79 ct Fancy Vivid purplish pink Argyle Stella, the 2.05 ct Fancy Intense pink Argyle Solaris, the 3.47 ct Fancy Intense pink Argyle Eclipse, and the 1.01 ct Fancy red Argyle Bohème. (For more on Argyle’s pink diamond sales, see J.M. King et al., “Exceptional pink to red diamonds: A celebration of the 30th Argyle diamond tender,” Winter 2014 G&G, pp. 268–279.)
Along with the pink diamond tender, Rio Tinto sold its final collection of Argyle blue and violet diamonds (figure 2), which the mine has produced sporadically over the years (see C.H. van der Bogert et al., “Gray-to-blue-to-violet hydrogen-rich diamonds from the Argyle mine, Australia,” Spring 2009 G&G, pp. 20–37). The entire lot of 41 diamonds totaling 24.88 carats was purchased by a single bidder.
