Image: A room, high expectations. Two stars enter, one is blue and one is pink. Both are very rare diamonds. The bidding starts and it crashes records within no time. One person walks away with two very precious and ridiculously rare gemstones, mounted both as a matching pair of earrings. It’s a world that most of us will never take part in, but one struggles to establish what amazes us more. The rarity and the beauty and sheer size of the stones? Or the price that people are willing to pay for this.
Is it an investment, or will some lady really wear this?
Auctions
There was a time when I loved to visit England more often, as my family lived there. I collect kitchenware called Cornishware and I went to many boot sales and auctions, just to see if I could find something for my collection. I loved the thrill of seeking and finding and the thrill of an auction, where it is so much easier than you think, to get carried away and bid more than you planned to!
Auctions are held for anything. But the kind that Sotheby’s or Christie's or any of the high-end auctioneers hold, are for the happy few on this planet. People who may love to collect art, invest in rare objects, pick up jewelry with a rich history or buy rare gemstones.
Blue and Pink diamonds, rare and expensive
One always wonders who buys these extremely expensive gemstones. It is sometimes a little hard to understand why people buy it. Perhaps you find it frivolous or incomprehensive why anyone would spend this kind of money on a ‘’ just a stone’’.
But experts, gemologists and collectors will argue that a gemstone is so much more.
I get it, I get why people find it hard to understand why anyone would pay this amount of money for a stone. And even if I love jewelry and big stones, I never cared much about the status of the added value of expensive ones. But I also get why they fetch these prices and what people see in a gemstone. Why they are so beloved.
Gemstones are storytellers
Gemstones are born in many different circumstances and all of them tell a story about our planet and it’s history, chemistry, and geology. These stories are more intriguing than one thinks and the more you dive into it, the more you’ll find out why. But that’s for another blog.
Let’s see what the happened with the earrings.
The Apollo and Artimis diamond
May 15, Geneva, the world’s most expensive earrings are sold, containing both a diamond: the Apollo and the Artimis Diamond. Offered separately but bought by one buyer for a total of $56,290,627
The Blue diamond was the most rare of them both and fetched a significantly higher price than the pink one. Prices for each earring were set at $41,255,566 and $15,035,061 respectively. These rare gems were sold during the Sotheby's spring sale of Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels at the Mandarin Oriental in Geneva.
Another record! Another Pink diamond
On April 4 this year, Sotheby’s sold the Pink Star for 71,2 million dollars! The stone was bought by jeweler Chow Tai Fook from Hong Kong and is now called the CTF Pink Star. How big is this stone? Well, it weighs 59.60 carat and has an oval mixed-cut. Although we always talk about weight, we do know the sizes in cm too this time. The stone measures 2.69 by 2.06 cm and weighs in grams: 11.92 g.
Why the Pink Star diamond is special
There are many reasons why this is such a special diamond, but apart from the sheer size of it, it is its color and flawless, no inclusions whatsoever, which make it the precious stone it is.
The reason why this is such a precious and expensive gemstone is the rarity of large pink diamonds, the color of this particular stone and the fact that it has no inclusions whatsoever. Think of a stone this size and then NO inclusions at all. It’s a flawless rock with a rare deep and valued color.
In fact, the GIA, the Gemological Institute of America has given it the highest color and clarity grades ever for a pink diamond. It is that special.
Its original size is even more staggering: 132.5 carat. It took 2 years of very careful and meticulous cutting and polishing to create the CTF Pink Star we know now today.
A juicy anecdote:
This same stone already made headlines in 2013 when it fetched 83 million dollars! But...the buyer couldn’t pay the bid he placed on the stone. Sotheby’s had to buy it back and resell it again. Although again a world record, it did fetch 10 million dollars less than in the previous sale.
If money was no option, what would be the gemstone of your dreams?
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Aekay
Amazing collection of single cut gemstone jewellery, the designs really look fashionable.
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