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5.5-Carat Blue-Green Diamond Sells for $17.3 Million at Geneva Auction
A 5.5-carat triangular-cut diamond described as the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond known to exist sold for more than 13.5 million Swiss francs at Christie’s in Geneva on Wednesday. The price more than doubled the amount the same stone fetched at auction in 2014. The auction house reported strong bidder interest during the 20-minute sale.
May 14, 5:20 AM·1m read1 source
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A 5.5-carat triangular-cut diamond billed as the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond known to exist sold for more than 13.5 million Swiss francs ($17.3 million) on Wednesday, Christie’s said. The auction house called it a record price for a stone of its kind sold at auction.
The diamond, found in Central Africa in the 1990s, more than doubled the roughly $8.5 million it sold for at Christie’s in 2014. It had been featured among rare colored diamonds at the Smithsonian Splendour of Diamonds Exhibition in 2003. The price easily topped the presale estimate of 7 million to 10 million francs.
The company said an unspecified private client purchased the stone after about 20 minutes of bidding, indicating high interest.
The company reported that collectors are increasingly drawn to rare colored diamonds, which make up only a fraction of all diamonds mined around the world. On Tuesday a 6-carat fancy vivid blue diamond offered at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva did not sell.
That stone, with a presale estimate of 7.2 million to 9.6 million francs, came from South Africa’s Cullinan mine. The auction house said it is now in conversations with several interested parties and expects the diamond to find a buyer soon. A managing director at an online jewelry company described the result as worthy of the world’s rarest blue-green diamond.
