LARGEST DIAMOND

FETCHES $34M

The largest diamond ever offered at auction was sold in Geneva for $33.8 million. The pink stone, originally dug out of the ancient mines of Golconda in south-central India, had sparkled on the crowns of Louis XV, Louis XVI, Napoleon I, Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie. Here are some of the highest prices fetched by cut diamonds

Hey, almost $209,000 per carat isn’t that bad, right? —

geneva — A flawless 163-carat clear diamond fetched $34 million at Christie’s in Geneva — not enough to dispell concerns about the health of the market.

The stone, the centrepiece of a gem-studded necklace designed by De Grisogono founder Fawaz Gruosi, was the largest of its kind ever auctioned. It’s 40 per cent bigger than a diamond Sotheby’s sold in 2013 for only $3 million less, said Tobias Kormind, head of London-based online jeweller 77Diamonds.com. “I am disappointed that the Art of De Grisogono didn’t sell for a more dazzling price,” he said in a statement. “This is a worrying sign for the top end of the diamond market.”

A team of 10 specialists in New York cut the jewel from a rough 404-carat stone discovered last year in Angola, the biggest diamond ever found in that country.

This is a worrying sign for the top end of the diamond market

Tobias Kormind, Head of 77Diamonds.com

The necklace is made of 18 diamonds on one side and two rows of pear-shaped emeralds on the other. It took more than 1,700 hours to create.

Christie’s sold 27 lots for more than $1 million, though a quarter of the items it offered went unsold. The total sale raised $106 million.

The Geneva fall auction season concluded on Wednesday, when Sotheby’s auctioned a pink diamond estimated to be worth as much as $30 million.

Sotheby’s holds the record for the most expensive diamond ever auctioned, having sold the 59.6-carat Pink Star for $71 million to Hong Kong-based jewellery retailer Chow Tai Fook. — Bloomberg