Sotheby’s Sells De Beers 10-Carat Blue Diamond for $32 Million

(IDEX Online News) – Auction house Sotheby’s reported that it sold the internally flawless 10.1-cart De Beers Millennium Jewel 4 Fancy Vivid oval blue diamond for HK$ 248.28 million ($31.8 million) at auction.

The price represented the highest amount paid for a gemstone at auction in Asia, and was purchased by an anonymous telephone bidder, in a sale that lasted only a few minutes.

"Very few gemstones have ever been sold for more than that, and it's setting the record price here in Asia for a gemstone in auction,” said David Bennett, Sotheby's worldwide chairman of the international jewelry division, according to a report on Reuters.com

Tobias Kormind, co-founder and managing director of London-based diamond jeweler 77 Diamonds said that the fact the Millennium Jewel 4 was almost stolen from London’s Millennium Dome in 2000 added to the stone’s mystique. “However, this is not as powerful as prior royal or celebrity ownership, which can elevate a diamond's worth well beyond rational market value,” he said. “An example of provenance pushing up the price of a stone is the Shirley Temple blue diamond ring estimated to sell for up to $35m at Sotheby’s [later] in April.

In November, Sotheby’s sold the “Blue Moon of Josephine,” a 12.03-carat cushion-shaped, internally flawless vivid blue diamond, to Hong Kong property tycoon Joseph Lau, for a world-record $48.5 million.