Will Jennifer Lopez's Second Engagement Ring from Ben Affleck Cause Another Jewelry Craze?

Photo credit: Kevin Winter - Getty Images
Photo credit: Kevin Winter - Getty Images
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A love story in multiple chapters marked by historic jewels. We could be referring to one great pair—Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton—or another—Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. The first told their tale in jewels with a past—the La Peregrina Pearl, the Taylor Burton diamond—the second predicted the future—first in pink, and now, in green. In a video, Jennifer Lopez seems to announce her engagement to Ben Affleck through a green stone on her finger. It looks, if blurry screenshots are to be believed, like a four to five carat center stone. And it appears to be an exceedingly rare green diamond. Affleck has sought out the exquisite before. The pink diamond he proposed with the first time they got engaged twenty years ago is credited with setting a trend in colored diamonds and with soaring prices for pink at auction. Will that happen again? Probably not.

“He does now how to create a really great narrative with jewelry,” says Greg Kwiat, CEO of Kwiat Diamonds and Fred Leighton. “Twenty years ago he did something not many people were doing. Green diamonds are even rarer than pink but I do think they will now have their moment. It will be more a moment of interest though. Supply is very very limited. But this will at least make people aware that green diamonds even exist.” Kwiat explains that green is among the rarest of colored diamonds along with violet, red, or orange. And stones larger than a few carats even more so, especially in the vivid green color. “We have owned three green diamonds over the last decade. One was four carats, one half a carat. And we have one now that is a carat.”

To give you a sense of the market-these are impressive numbers. The ring seen in that blurry image has a slightly more minty color than many green diamonds which are a bit darker but Kwiat notes that “there is a wide range. The color comes from a total twist of fate in nature-when radiation hits the stone.” And say you see this ring and just become desperate for a green diamond? “I could show you five or six today because I know where they are. But if you are looking for a specific color green diamond or a specific carat weight then you need to give me six months to a year.” We also have a lead on one: head to Sotheby’s Hong Kong on April 29th where a fancy vivid bluish green diamond will be for sale. Will Ben Affleck, jewelry psychic strike again?

And though etiquette says not to, let’s talk amongst ourselves of course about price. “In the elite world of fancy colored diamonds, green is by far the rarest color, making it incredibly hard to find a stone weighing more than 1.00 carat,” Sotheby’s Frank Everett shares. “Green diamonds often have modifying colors like yellow or gray, so it’s difficult to estimate value without knowing all the color/clarity details, but if her ring is a straight green, either intense or vivid, the price tag is in the millions, definitely upwards of $3 million!”

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