A Reliable Estimate?
October 13, 22
Question: What's an 11.15-carat fancy vivid pink internally flawless diamond worth?
Answer: Whatever anyone will pay for it.
Sotheby's Hong Kong went low with a pre-sale estimate of $21m for the Williamson Pink Star. Very low, as it turned out, with the hammer falling on a final bid of $57.7m. That's big money. Not quite the $71.2m paid by Chow Tai Fook in April 2017 for the 59.60-carat CTF Pink Star - the highest price ever paid for a diamond or indeed any gemstone at auction. But, as Sotheby's has been eager to point out, it smashes the per-carat record for any diamond or gemstone sold at auction, at a dizzying $5,178,124.
The sale of the Williamson Pink Star last week at a single-lot auction serves as a reminder that the diamond world never loses its capacity to surprise. Experts can assess and predict all they like, but ultimately it's down to how the man or woman with very deep pockets is feeling on the day. In this case the buyer, reported to be from Boca Raton, Florida, USA, had a representative in the room, going head-to-head with two phone bidders as the price crept up - with tantalisingly long pauses - in increments of $640,000 (HKD5m).
There was applause as it reached the final hammer price of $57.7m, including the buyer's premium. Wenhao Yu, Chairman of Jewellery and Watches at Sotheby's Asia, said: "What an honour to have had the opportunity to handle a diamond of such breathtaking beauty.
"Ultimately, what we have witnessed in the room reflects the appetite for rare and impeccable gemstones amongst global collectors." The Williamson Pink Star started life as a 32-carat, type IIa rough diamond, recovered at the Williamson Mine in Tanzania. It was sold last December for $13.8m - less than a quarter of its auction price - to manufacturer Diacore, where it was cut and polished.
If you think pricing a polished diamond is tough, spare a thought for the auction expert (actually ex-expert) who got it badly wrong in Fontainebleau, near Paris, just a few days before the Pink Star sale. They'd valued a tianqiuping-style (celestial sphere) blue and white Chinese vase decorated with dragons and clouds from a house clearance in Brittany at somewhere between €1,500 and €2,000 ($1,460 to $1,950). It sold for €9.12m ($8.89m) to an anonymous Chinese buyer.
The expert had dismissed it as an unremarkable 20th-century decorative piece. It was, in fact, a genuine 18th century relic. Which would probably explain why 400 people registered their interest in the two weeks before the sale. And why the auction house Maison Osenat has now dispensed with the expert's services. An amusing tale, for almost all concerned. But it does highlight something interesting about diamond valuations. Sotheby's were out by a factor of about 2.7. Maison Osenat got it wrong by a factor of about 450. Even on a bad day a competent gemologist shouldn't be more than a decimal place wide of the mark. What they see through the loupe is what they see through the loupe, even if they don't have a crystal ball when it comes to buyers' sentiment.
Next on the agenda when it comes to pink diamonds, world records and the like, is The Lulo Rose, a 170-carat monster recovered in July in Angola. It's due to be sold at international tender by Sodiam E.P., the state diamond marketing company, at a date yet to be fixed. There is speculation it could fetch as much as $100m, which would be a new world record. But don't bet on it.
Have a fabulous weekend.