Pink, blue or green, these rare diamonds can fetch mega millions
Coloured diamonds are ‘the rarest gift from nature. For every 10,000 white diamonds, there is only one coloured diamond’
November 2015: Christie’s Geneva auction room is hushed as bidding just goes up, and up, and up. The largest cushion-shaped vivid pink diamond ever auctioned is on the block. The hammer comes down on the 16.08ct ring-set gem at 28.7 million Swiss francs (HK$230 million). The successful bidder is Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau, who named the diamond Sweet Josephine. The scene is repeated the next day at Sotheby’s where a 12.03ct blue diamond is sold to Lau for 48.4 million Swiss francs – it is now known as Blue Moon of Josephine.
Twenty years ago, Asian consumers and investors were in thrall to white diamonds. Until, like famous paintings, coloured diamonds started going for mega millions at auctions.
Think of the headline-grabbing sales this year alone: in June this year, a 5.03ct Aurora Green diamond was sold to Chow Tai Fook for HK$130 million; in May, the 14.62ct Oppenheimer Blue, described by François Curiel, chairman of Christie’s Asia-Pacific and China, as “the gem of gems”, changed hands for US$57.5 million, making it one of the world’s most expensive diamonds sold at auction; also in May, the 15.8ct Unique Pink sold to an Asian private collector for US$31.6 million at Sotheby’s Geneva; and in April, the De Beers Millennium Jewel 4, a blue diamond of 10.1ct, went for US$31.8 million in Sotheby’s Hong Kong auction.
According to Chin Yeow Quek, Sotheby’s deputy chairman of Asia and chairman of international jewellery in Asia, “the market has been consumer driven. Coloured diamonds have become increasingly high profile within the last 10 years, setting record prices at auctions in Geneva and Hong Kong.”
Quek notes that record prices at worldwide auctions are being set by Asian buyers. “Asian and Chinese collectors in recent years have developed sophistication in taste and an increased desire and enthusiasm for coloured diamonds.”
And it is not just the pink and blue diamonds that are fetching the big bucks. The Orange is a 14.82ct pear-shaped vivid orange diamond which fetched US$35.5 million at auction in late 2013 and certainly yellow diamonds have had sales in the millions of dollars. Graff Diamonds, which acquires some of the world’s rarest coloured diamonds, unveiled the Golden Empress in 2015, an amazing 132.55ct fancy intense yellow diamond.