"At the back of the hall, 29 million francs ($31.5 million, 23 million
euros). Sold!" the Christie's auctioneer said as the fiery almond-shaped
gem was snapped up in a room of about 200 people in a luxury Geneva
hotel.
The total sale price was boosted by another $4.04 million in taxes and commission.
The man who made the purchase swiftly got up and left the room to a round of applause. Christie's did not reveal his identity.
The deep orange gemstone, found in South Africa, weighs a whopping
14.82 carats. The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has handed it
the top rating for colored diamonds: "fancy vivid".
Pure orange diamonds, also known as "fire diamonds", are extremely
uncommon and few have been auctioned, with the largest never more than
six carats.
"To have one that's over 14 carats is exceptional," Christie's
international jewellery director David Warren told AFP. He said "The
Orange" was "the largest recorded vivid orange diamond in the world".
In 1990, the 4.77-carat yellow-orange Graff Orange diamond was sold for
$3.92 million and in 1997 the vivid orange Pumpkin diamond of 5.54
carats was sold for $1.32 million.
Christie's had estimated "The Orange" would rake in $17 million to $20 million.
Rare and expensive 'freaks of nature'
Colored diamonds, once considered a curiosity, are rarer than white
diamonds and today attract higher prices per carat than even the most
flawless, translucent stone.
That, Warren explained, was because, "colored diamonds are real freaks
of nature. They begin as white diamonds, and it's some accidental
coloring agent in the ground that will turn it a particular color".
Green diamonds, for instance, are colored by radioactivity in the
ground, blue diamonds get their color from boron, and yellow diamonds,
which in rare cases turn orange, are colored by nitrogen
Pink diamonds get their color from a distortion in the crystal lattice as the stone is taking shape.
Colored diamonds "are extraordinarily rare stones," agreed David
Bennett, who heads the European jewellery division at Sotheby's.
Christie's rival is set to auction a flawless 59.60-carat vivid pink
diamond, called "The Pink Star", in Geneva on Wednesday, with an asking
price of $60 million.
Like "The Orange", the plum-sized shimmering "Pink Star" has received
the highest possible color rating from GIA, as well as top marks for
clarity.
It is also the largest of its kind, Bennett said, insisting the anonymous seller was not asking too much.
"Very, very few of these stones have ever appeared at auction and three
years ago, a five-carat vivid pink made over $10 million. So the
estimate on this stone of $60 million would appear to be very
reasonable," he told AFP.
For those who cannot cough up that kind of money, both Christie's and
Sotheby's "Magnificent Jewels" auctions also offer a range of other
items of historic importance but with lighter price-tags.
A shimmering emerald and diamond necklace by Cartier that has been in
the collection of Bolivian tycoon Simon Iturri Patino since he bought it
for his wife in 1938 raked in almost $10 million on Tuesday evening.
Source :
NYdailynews
