Gold is the all time savior and no investment will go for a waste when it is done on gold when investors lose all hopes on currency, financial markets and property. Now-a-days the financial investors are considering diamonds.
It all started with the auction market, where a number of important diamonds both colorless and natural-color varieties has shown a remarkable resilience in the fluctuating economy. This all came into notice when the Sotheby's recent Magnificent Jewels sale happened in Geneva, where a 7.03-carat fancy vivid blue, internally flawless, cushion-shaped diamond fetched $9,488,754 against a pre-sale estimate of $5.8 million-$8.5 million. The sale set a record price per carat of $1,349,752 for any gemstone sold at auction.
Apart from its spectacular weight, color and worth, the blue diamond was cut from a 26.58 carat piece of rough and Petra Diamonds, owner of the historic Cullinan Mine in South Africa discovered it, cut it, polished and consigned it directly to Sotheby’s.
Douglas G. Walker, deputy director and jewelry specialist at Sotheby's New York said, "They cut out the middleman, polished it themselves and put it on consignment. A precedent could be set."
During the spring auction season at Christies the sales were comparatively good. Almost 85 percent of lots were sold at the Jewels sale in New York during late April which included all the top lot such as a pear-shaped, D-color, internally flawless type IIa diamond of 30.02 carats. At their peak, fancy-shaped white diamonds of this caliber went for anywhere from $150,000 to $180,000 per carat. That this stone achieved $130,000 per carat suggests to insiders that the auction market will see a bright year ahead.
Rahul Kadakia who is the head of jewelry at Christie's in New York said, "White diamonds are still quite rare in the large sizes, and people are still confident in investing in these as a portable form of wealth. Because of the fact that it's an alternative investment, because you can put X many dollars into a diamond and then sell it a year, two, three years later and you'll get that value back in the diamond, as opposed to currency or stocks or whatever part of the financial markets you look at. This is a tangible place to put your money and it hasn't changed; it's been like this forever."
At the first major sale of the season, at Sotheby's Hong Kong, a pair of 8-carat marquise-shaped, D-Flawless diamonds sold for just over $100,000 per carat. Initially everybody were skeptical about the prize and were worried that the prices for the prized stones would fall along with the rest of the economy. But to their surprise everything was a great hit.
"Way back when, if you said you sold a diamond for $100,000 a carat, it was, well, okay, let's open the champagne," Kadakia said. "In this market, when things are slow and people don't know how long it will be, $100,000 per carat is still being achieved, so that, in my opinion, is the state of the market in regards to white stones."
He also said, "Today, if you had to go find a 5-carat vivid blue or a 5-carat vivid pink, you couldn't buy it for less than $1 million per carat. The market is a little more selective, it's a little more difficult to find important stones because people are not selling or buying so readily, so trading has slowed down a little bit, but it's still very much there."
Rio Tinto also confirmed that blue diamonds are very much in demand and the “One in a Blue Moon” sale, a collection of rare blue diamonds sourced from several years of production at the Argyle Mine in Western Australia, and comprising 16 lots weighing 287 carats in total, surpassed all the expectations when the bid closed on April 8th.
Jean-Marc Lieberherr, general manager for Rio Tinto Diamonds was delightfully telling that, "It was a bold move, with numerous lots selling in excess of the reserve prices, which is a great lead up to our annual Pink Diamond Tender."
Few other highlights from the auctions conducted were a strong focus on one-of-a-kind jewelry, including a Cartier diamond bangle bracelet that sold at Sotheby's Magnificent Jewels sale, also in late April, for $230,500, far above its $70,000 pre-sale estimate.
"The results reinforced the continued demand for signed and decorative jewels, as evidenced by the strong prices achieved for pieces by Tiffany and Co., David Webb and Buccellati," said Lisa Hubbard, chairman of International Jewelry, North and South America.
