My friend had a garage sale last week. She and her family sold all the junk that had been residing in their basement for years. After a day’s worth of hard labor, they made $182. On the other side of the world, Sotheby’s in Hong Kong made just a hair more.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong Magnificent Jewels and Jadeite spring sale achieved $64 million (HKD 499 million) and was 79 percent sold by lot and 70 percent by value.
The top lot of the sale was an emerald-cut, 8.01 carat, fancy vivid blue diamond ring that sold for $12.7 million (HKD 99.2 million), or $1,588,079 per carat.
Quek Chin Yeow, the deputy chairman and head of Sotheby’s jewelry department in Asia, noted that the sale represented one of the highest totals for jewelry sales held in Asia by the auction house.
“Throughout the day there was spirited competition among collectors from across Asia for top quality round white diamonds and pink diamonds, as well as for Burmese ruby, Colombian emerald and jadeite jewelry,” he said.
Other top lots included a brilliant- cut, 18.11-carat, D, FL diamond that sold for $3.96 million (HKD 30.9 million). A pear-shaped, 3.28-carat internally flawless, fancy vivid pink diamond and diamond ring fetched $3.2 million (HKD 25.3 million) at the sale. A Burmese ruby and diamond necklace with 23 natural unheated rubies with a total weight of 53.07 carats garnered $3.1 million (HKD24.2 million) while a 14.12-carat moval-shaped Golconda, D, IF diamond ring sold for $2.4 million (HKD 18.6 million) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong.
Source: Diamonds.net