Shine Like a Diamond...

Earlier this week, a dazzling diamond fetched a record breaking £13.5m at Christie's semi-annual jewellery sale in Geneva. 

This flawless diamond from India’s mythical Golconda mines, that once belonged to Archduke Joseph August of Austria (1872-1962),  was snapped up by an anonymous buyer at an auction on Tuesday night.

With the value of the diamond increasing, the unique, rare, colourless stone – weighing 76 carats – obtained over double the price that was paid for it roughly two decades ago, sold by an American jeweler Black, Starr & Frost. It surfaced at auction in 1961 and again at Christie's in November 1993, netting £4m at the time and has subsequently been sold on again for over 3 times the price paid in 1993.

François Curiel, director of the international jewellery department at Christie’s described the sale as being ‘flabbergasting’ and although the market is experiencing a slight decline, the diamond managed to fetch ‘a world record price per carat for a colourless diamond’.

In a sale that overall reached a ‘glittering’ £50m, the alluring diamond was the ‘VIP’ out of the 290 lots that were sold.

Dating back to the 4th century B.C, India was one of the first countries to mine the gem, with their diamonds being cherished for their size and beauty, especially the stones from Golconda. "Diamonds of Golconda" stones are rare and famous with the exact source of the so-called "lost mines of Golconda" being unknown.

Here is another fabulous diamond. The Darya-i-Nur was a rare blue-diamond (186 carats), which was owned by the last Great Mughal Emperor of Persia, Aurangzeb, until it was stolen from his heirs during the 'sack of Delhi' in 1739. 

Darya-i-Nur "Sea of Light"

For information on McTear's dedicated sales that are occurring at the end of this month have a look on our website.

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