The Pink Legacy, a pink diamond of just under nineteen carats, raised an amount of more than 50 million Swiss francs (over 44 million euros) at an auction at Christie’s in the Swiss city of Geneva. According to Christie’s, the American jewelery house Harry Winston, part of the Swatch Group, is the buyer. The expected yield of the diamond was estimated at 27 to 44 million euros.
The jeweler’s house has renamed the diamond to The Winston Pink Legacy. In 2014 Winston also bought a rare blue diamond for 23.8 million dollars, which was renamed The Winston Blue.
A colored diamond was once a deviation from the traditionally transparent gems. Meanwhile, however, this type of diamond has become an exclusivity. The gems get their color from nature. A diamond becomes yellow due to the presence of nitrogen, blue diamonds contain boron. But how does a diamond turn pink? Scientists do not agree on that yet.
The pink Pink Legacy is considered by connoisseurs as extremely unusual because of its weight and its intense, almost completely uniform color. Only one in 100,000 diamonds would have such a quality. A hundred years ago the diamond was found in a mine in South Africa. The diamond was once owned by the Oppenheimer family, a wealthy South African family that for generations dominated the trade in diamonds. The pink diamond with 18.95 carat is not only gigantic – there have previously been sold only four pink diamonds of more than ten carat – the stone is also very clear.
Normally, pink diamonds have imperfections. If not the Pink Legacy. Or, as Rahul Kadakia, head of Diamonds at Christie’s, says in the video: “It’s like finding a treasure”.
The high demand for these extremely rare colored diamonds has led to a sharp rise in prices in recent years. The Diamond Pink Star, an even bigger pink diamond, was auctioned by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong last year, for a record amount of $ 71.2 million (66.8 million euros). This is the highest price ever paid per carat for a pink diamond.
The Swatch Group is the largest watchmaker in the world. Well-known brands such as Swatch, Omega, Longines and Brequet are part of the company.
Yakymour 