Pretty in Pink: Pink diamond auctioned for 44 million euros

 

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.

 

 

 

 

World’s most expensive diamond sold

The ultimate gift! On November 4, Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau won the Sotheby’s auction for the ‘Blue Moon’, a cushion shaped fancy vivid blue diamond, for US$48.4 million and has renamed the 12.03-carat stone the ‘Blue Moon of Josephine’ in honor of his 7 year old daughter. It is the most expensive jewel ever sold at auction, and also the highest-ever price per carat of well over $4 million.

The previous record for the most expensive jewel bought at auction was for a 24.78-carat pink diamond dubbed the ‘Graff Pink’. It sold for $45.6 million in 2010 to Laurence Graff, a London jeweler.

Lau, a 64 year old property tycoon, also paid $28.5 million for a 16.08 carat pink diamond earlier this month, that he renamed the ‘Sweet Josephine’, also named after his daughter. Lau bought a blue diamond in 2009 for $9.5 million, naming it the ‘Star of Josephine’.  That adds to a growing beautiful collection for young Josephine.

Come into the beautiful world of Sotheby’s.