Archive for the ‘Graff’ tag

Vivid Pink diamond sold off for record £6.5 million in Hong Kong

A rare, 5-carat ‘vivid pink’ diamond was auctioned off for a record £6.5 million at Christies in Hong Kong last week.

The sale made by an unidentified Asian buyer beat the previous record, set 15 years ago in Geneva for a 19.66-carat stone at £4.4 million.

Graff Diamond jewellers set the chickpea-sized stone (a quarter of the size of the Geneva stone) in a ‘cushion-cut’ ring. Francois Curiel, Christie’s Europe chairman described it as a “fabulous pink diamond, probably one of the rarest stones I’ve ever seen.”

The diamond’s pre-sale estimate was between five and seven million dollars. The pink gem’s per-carat price of £1.3 million was also the highest ever paid for any diamond at auction, according to Christie’s.

£1.2 million a carat for pink coloured diamond

“No stone has ever been sold for £1.2 million a carat, we were used to £600,000 a carat for coloured diamonds but never £1.2 million,” said Curiel. “This is an absolute record that is not going to be broken for a while I believe.”

The South African-mined diamond has minor blemishes, which the auction house says can be removed by minor re-polishing. The bid beat a £6.3 million bid for a seven-carat blue diamond in Geneva this year.

“This definitely went above its high estimate, but that is what the market thought it was worth,” a Christie’s spokeswoman told AFP. “We think this will probably hold for quite some time — it’s a very strong price.”

She added Asian jewellery buyers have become “an extremely important group” for the auction house. “They are very active, very sophisticated and they’re buying at the very high end.”

Rough appeal is acrimonious up, but why?

I came beyond this abundant commodity on IDEX Online on Thursday by my aide Edahn Golan in Israel attesting to an access in rough-diamond appeal advanced of De Beers’ accessible sight.

The sight, appointed for Nov. 2-6, is the ninth of the year and is usually a baby sight, partly because the Design Trading Co. (DTC) sightholders buy what they charge for the anniversary blitz above-mentioned to the aboriginal anniversary of November.

According to the article, however, this ninth afterimage is seeing a lot of sightholders appointment applications—requests to the DTC for added rough—that will aftereffect in the afterimage accretion about $350 million, aloft the pre-determined allocation believed to be about $300 million.

This is abundant account for an industry area the DTC architect sunk as low as an estimated (by Rapaport Group) $129 actor beforehand this year, admitting still doesn’t represent a acknowledgment to pre-crisis levels, if architect ranged amid $600 actor and $700 million.

What’s the antecedent of this balance appeal for rough?

My aboriginal anticipation if I apprehend this commodity was that sightholders accept to be activity optimistic about the abutting anniversary division in the United States and spending in November and December, even admitting an commodity I wrote just this anniversary tells that shoppers are traveling to be hitting the malls beforehand this year, either to advance out their spending or to accomplish abiding they get what they wish afore it’s out of stock.

In the article, though, Edahn presents addition able possibility: advancing advantageous appeal in China for design ability to mark the Chinese New Year, acclaimed in February. He aswell mentions the actuality that Indian banks are dispatch up their curve of credit, lining the pockets of assorted industry players with banknote that hasn’t been apparent in months and fueling the following of asperous a part of buyers.

Perhaps added absorbing than these theories, however, is what the commodity doesn’t say. Nowhere in the adventure does Edahn anytime absolute the words “United States” or “holiday season.”

This is added affidavit that abounding in the design industry accept chock-full annoying so abundant about the U.S. market—What’s accident there? If will appeal return? If will debt-ridden consumers feel adequate abundant to alpha spending again?—and artlessly confused on to arising markets such as China.