It appears that Argyle inserted a secret microchip in all Argyle pink diamonds that sends them an incessant message from Rio Tinto: Come back home to Australia.

I’ve never seen so many Australian jewelry dealers at the Hong Kong Show as I did this year. And since so many of our Australian clients wanted to buy Argyle pink diamonds, I should be considering starting an Australia pink diamond fan club!
Actually, we don’t just sell diamonds, we also buy them.

Shmulik Polnauer purchasing Argyle Pinks

Shmulik successfully seeks out Argyle Pink Diamonds for our clients at this year's Hong Kong show

In Hong Kong we bought nearly 40 stones but the Argyle stones are unique, just like my grandmother’s hot pancakes that went faster than she could cook them. In fact, out of the 17 stones we won at the 2012 Argyle tender, only three are left!

The 17 Argyle Tender Diamonds LEIBISH won in the Argyle Pink Diamond Tender 2012

They are all hidden in Shmulik’s safe as he cannot bear to part with them. The first is a 0.53 Carat, Fancy Intense Purplish Pink Diamond. This beautiful radiant shaped stone, Lot #28 from the 2012 Argyle Pink Diamond Tender, has great color saturation and it's a 3PP on the Argyle scale.

Lot #28 from the Argyle Pink Diamond Tender 2012 - A 0.53 Carat, Fancy Intense Purplish Pink Radiant-shaped Diamond

The second one, and slightly rarer stone, is the Argyle 0.29 carat, Fancy Red. This diamonds, Lot #4 from the 2012 Tender, has a fabulous Fuschia color and an amazing color saturation, hence the 1PP color grading which is the highest grading from Argyle. It is an absolute gem!

Lot #4 from the Argyle Pink Diamond Tender 2012 - A 0.29 Carat, Fancy Purplish Red Radiant-shaped Diamond

A real rarity but generally unknown even to people in the trade is the violet collection of the Argyle Pink Tender. The 0.33ct Fancy Violet Gray diamond we won at last year’s tender, Lot #60, is one of the prime stones of that collection.

Lot #60 from the Argyle Pink Diamond Tender 2012 - A 0.33 Carat, Fancy Violet Gray Round-shaped Diamond

The stone has a mysterious violet bluish color face up and tremendous color presence, despite its small size and is completely eye-clean.

However, not all the extremely rare stones we have from the Argyle mine are Tender diamonds. For example, this 0.42 carat Fancy Gray Violet with an insane violet color is much rarer than any of the Argyle pink diamonds of a similar size. The stone is not even on our website, I think Shmulik keeps it in his Pajamas pocket so that no one can take it... just don’t tell him I told you.

One of the finest stones we sold at this year’s Hong Kong show was the 1.68 carat Prosperity Pink. We actually purchased this beaut at the 2011 Tender as a 1.71 carat stone with a Fancy Intense color. Shmulik felt from the very first moment he saw the stone that we would be able to recut it and finish with a better color, and we did. He managed after only losing three points to come out with a fantastic 1.68 carat Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink diamond.

People of the Chinese persuasion have a strong belief in the significance of certain combinations of numbers. Loosely translated into English, the combination of 168 means "to keep being rich”, “to keep making money”, “want smooth prosperity”, or "road to prosperity”, hence the diamonds name – The Leibish Pink Prosperity.

The Leibish Prosperity Pink Diamond - A 1.68 carat Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink Radiant-shaped Diamond

But that wasn’t the only important vivid pink we sold at this year’s show. The second was the 2.02 carat Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink cushion. We originally bought this stone as a 4.96 carat rough pink, which we spent over four months cutting it down over a very slow, meticulous process. Once finally released to the public, it was sold so fast that some of the people in our company didn’t even get the chance to see it. The buyer reserved the pink stone at the beginning of day one of the Hong Kong show, where it was released for the very first time, and negotiated with us for four days. During that time, the stone waited patiently in a closed safe so nobody could even look at it.

The Pink Promise - A 2.02 carat Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink Cushion-shaped Diamond

Such a large percentage of our Argyle Pink Diamonds are sold to clients in Australia I wouldn't be surprised in the least if every one of these eventually made it back to their homeland.

One of my old friends in the industry said to me, “Leibish don’t worry, with enough persistence you will crack this Argyle Pink diamond microchip. Eventually, these stones will make their way over to you and you won't have to go searching for them.”

That same morning we purchased a lovely 1.52 carat Argyle Pink Princess cut diamond set in a platinum ring. Shmulik, our chief diamond buyer, examined the stone for a long time because it could not be removed from the ring. He finally declared that we would recut that stone to an Intense Pink. He said "it's an old Argyle stone (#205740). The color is hidden in the material and we will turn it into a real gem." After purchasing the stone, we polished it down and removing seven points we sent it in for GIA testing.

The 1.45-carat Fancy Intense Pink, Princess-cut Diamond

Our new Argyle favorite, a 1.45-carat, Fancy Intense Pink Princess-cut Diamond

Well, there we were. The other night at dinner we got a message from the GIA that our 1.45 carat was graded Fancy Intense Pink with a VS2 clarity. With our new favorite Argyle Pink from Australia we feel that we at least temporarily cracked Argyle secret microchip code as we bought the stone from an Australian dealer and now it made its way over to us.

The only question is who knows how long this beauty will remain with us?

Leibish Polnauer