Published December 2024
Tucked away in Merthyr Village, Cameron Robinson from Bruce Robinson Diamonds has just bid in an international race for some of the last pink diamonds from Western Australia’s Argyle mine.
“It’s thrilling and exciting, and it’s also depressing and it’s also numbing, because… in one day you can immediately be at the lowest of lows, and the highest of highs within seconds,” Mr Robinson said.
“It’s the exhilaration of it all, for something that’s taken millions of years to get into my hands.”
Like his father Bruce before him, Mr Robinson is one of 32 select ateliers worldwide for Argyle pink diamonds, which account for 90 per cent of the world’s diamonds.
“They are Picassos in the making, because they don’t mine them anymore,” he said.
Mr Robinson bid in Rio Tinto’s Beyond Rare Tender, which included pink, red and violet diamonds from the Argyle Diamond Mine, and white and yellow diamonds from the Diavik Diamond Mine in Canada.
How does he decide which diamonds to bid for?
28 years of spreadsheets, a close analysis of each stone, and also, by accounting for Chinese superstition.
His spreadsheets, with data dating back to when his father first started purchasing the stones, consider the depth of colour, weight, shape, cut, and rarity.
The four ‘C’s of diamond quality are cut, colour, clarity and carat. But that does not guarantee a standout diamond.
“They can all be identical in those four criteria… but wouldn’t you want a diamond that is bright and sparkly and blinds you as you look at it? …everything is about cut,” he said.
He is competing with buyers the world over, with a consistent US interest and a growing appetite for the stones in Europe and Asia.
Mr Robinson said the belief in many Asian cultures that eight is a lucky number can also influence pricing, with some stones with the number eight in their measurements considered by Asian markets to be more auspicious and therefore more valuable.
It is a high stakes game of chess when bidding for such expensive items. Diamonds in this tender might start at $600,000 AUD and can go up to tens of millions of dollars.
“Everyone is expecting to win, but the only way is to pay too much,” Mr Robinson said wryly, “that’s a quote of dad’s.”
The bids are in US dollars, meaning the prices fluctuate with the exchange rate, so Mr Robinson must stay on top of world events that can influence the economy and therefore his bid amount.
An extreme example of this was just before the global financial crisis in the late 2000s, when Bruce and Cameron decided not to make a bid – wisely, it turned out, when the share market crashed and the price blew out by 40 per cent, which would have meant paying 16 million for what was originally an 11 million diamond bid.
Pink diamonds are classified into four colour tones: purplish pink, pink, pink rose and red.
These pink-coloured gems are miracles; a scientific mystery that researchers have not been able to explain.
However, Mr Robinson said there is a widely accepted, unproven theory about the colour.
“All diamonds form in a cubic system, but they feel the geology of Argyle in Western Australia is different to usual diamond mine geology, and there is a twisting of the crystal lattice,” he said.
“It is about what light is being absorbed, so there is a separation of white light from the spectral colours.”
He submitted his annual tender last month, and has just received the news that this year, he has not secured any diamonds.
Nonetheless, he still has an array of diamonds already in his portfolio.
“It’s a privilege and an honour to be a custodian of these rare Australian diamonds,” he said.
Photo caption: Cameron Robinson with some of his current diamond collection and the Argyle pink diamonds colour chart. Photography: Kate Lockyer
