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A 118.28-carat D-flawless diamond fetched $30.06 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong Magnificent Jewels sale Monday. It is a world record price for any white diamond at auction.
The unmounted, oval-shaped diamond is the largest white diamond ever sold at auction and the largest oval D-flawless diamond in the world as graded by the Gemological Institute of America. GIA graded the diamond, reportedly about the size of an egg, as D color, flawless clarity, with excellent polish and symmetry. The diamond was also graded as a Type IIa, making it among the most chemically pure type of diamond with exceptional optical transparency.
The diamond was cut from a 299 carat rough diamond discovered in 2011 from a mine in Southern Africa.However, there was a disappointment for the evening as a 7.59-carat round fancy vivid blue diamond failed to sell. Known as the Premier Blue, this brilliant-cut internally flawless gem is the largest round fancy vivid blue diamond ever graded by the GIA. Sotheby’s said the round brilliant cut is rarely used in colored diamonds due to the high waste involved in the cutting process. The diamond is mounted on a platinum ring and surrounded by brilliant-cut pink diamonds together weighing approximately 1.70 carats.
The auction held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre took in nearly $95.5 million, making it the highest total for a sale of jewelry in Asia.
In addition to diamonds, jadeite was very popular during the sale. The top item in this category was a double-strand jadeite bead necklace that sold for more than $5.4 million.
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| The "Royal Blue" diamond |
A 10.6-carat fancy blue diamond known as the “Royal Blue” is available through M.S. Rau Antiques in New Orleans. The asking price is $9.8 million.
Blue diamonds are among the rarest in the world so it seems unusual that this cut-corned, modified brilliant cut gem is the second significant blue diamond to appear on sale in August. A week earlier, Sotheby’s Hong Kong announced that it is offering a 7.59-carat round fancy vivid blue diamond that is estimated to fetch $19 million.
This stone has a VVS1 clarity grade, notable for having “very, very slight” inclusions, according to the report from the Gemological Institute of America. It is one step away from being graded as “internally flawless” under the GIA scale. The chemical that creates the blue in diamonds is boron, which this gem has.
The diamond is set on a platinum and rose gold ring surrounded by vivid pink and colorless diamonds.
Fewer than 0.3 percent of all colored diamonds graded by GIA were predominately blue. Gem expert and dealer Robert Procop, also the co-designer of Style of Jolie jewels with Angelina Jolie, knows as much as anyone when it comes to the rarity and historical significance of these gems.
“Blue diamonds are rarely discovered and only a few have been found over centuries of mining, making it one of the rarest gems of the world,” he said. “(They) have also been the most gifted by royalty and historical figures making them the most mysterious and precious of jewels. I rarely see a blue diamond that I do not admire.”
Large fancy blue diamonds have been sold for record-breaking figures at auctions and other sales, several have had illustrious provenance through its mine origins and ownership throughout centuries. The most famous blue is the Hope Diamond, last purchased by famed luxury jeweler, Harry Winston, who donated it to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in 1958.
The asking price for the “Royal Blue” ring is more than $924,500 per carat, which seems a bit steep, particularly since it has no known provenance. However, it is only about half of the per-carat price of a 5.30 blue diamond purchased by another famed jeweler, Laurence Graff, at a Bonhams auction in London in April 2013. The final price was $9.6 million or $1.8 million per carat.Please join me on the Jewelry News Network Facebook Page, on Twitter @JewelryNewsNet and on the Forbes Web site.
