Pastor-Geneve recently acquired a collection of rare colored diamonds, including a green, blue, pink and a large yellow diamond. Colored diamonds have become popular in recent years as an alternative asset class because they hold their value during recessions and have shown returns of 10-15 % a year over the long term. (PRWEB) November 11, 2005 -- Pastor-Geneve recently acquired a collection of rare colored diamonds, including a green, blue, pink and a large yellow diamond. [Colored diamonds have become popular in recent years as an alternative asset class because they hold their value during recessions and have shown returns of 10-15 % a year over the long term. Pastor-Geneve is a European dealer who specializes exclusively in colored diamonds. The managing director of the firm, Stephen Hershoff, has over forty years of experience in the market and the chief scientific consultant, Stephen Hofer, has written an eight hundred page book on the subject, “Collecting and Classifying Coloured Diamonds, and is recognized as one of the foremost experts in the field of colored diamonds." Pastor-Geneve works closely with a selection of international financial newsletters who provide their readers with a diversified and balanced selection of financial options for developing their long-term investment portfolio. http://www.investmentu.com/investmentu2005.html [Pastor-Geneve attends a number of wealth seminars including the Investment U seminar sponsored by the Oxford Club newsletter in Delray Beach, Florida in March 2005. Stephen Hofer gave a lecture to the attendees on behalf of Pastor-Geneve and convinced the attendees of the benefits of investing in colored diamonds. His lecture concentrated on the prospects for pink diamonds, which have historically have doubled in value every six to seven years. The major source of supply for pink diamonds is the Argyle mine in Australia. Over 90 % of the worlds pink diamonds come from this Rio Tinto owned mine. In 2004, supply decreased by 40 % and in the February issue of JCK magazine it was announced that the mine is expected to cease operations by 2007. At the annual Argyle tender for pink diamonds, Rio Tinto offers fifty or sixty of the best stones to dealers, who bid on the stones through a sealed-bid process. At the last tender in 2004, the average priced was estimated to be over $100,000 per carat and most of the stones were less than one carat in size. Pastor-Geneve has been marketing rare pink diamonds from the Argyle mine since the 1990’s and they can be contacted at their headquarters in Antwerp, Belgium. www.pastor-geneve.com, Brusselstraat 51, B-2018, Antwerpen, Belgium. Tel: 32 3 244 1871 Fax: 32 3 244 1873