INTRODUCTION
In the news: Gemstone Auctions & Gemfields (LON:GEM)
As anticipated, the coloured diamond and gemstone auctions being held in Geneva this week are setting new records. The Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels sale by Christies saw a rare pink diamond go for US$28.5m to an anonymous Hong Kong buyer, who has named the stone ‘Sweet Josephine’. (It’s the form for a new owner to rename a stone, but I rather liked the previous ‘In The Pink’.) At 16 carats, it is the largest pink stone to go to auction and is only the third stone in this category to come up for sale in the last 250 years.
Sweet Josephine
Up for auction today is a flawless 12.03ct vivid blue diamond called ‘Blue Moon’. Sotheby’s is running this auction, and it is expected to sell for more than US$50m, breaking the previous coloured gem record set in November 2010 for a pink stone bought by Graff, known as the ‘Graff Pink’. The Blue Moon was discovered at Petra Diamonds’ Cullinan mine in South Africa, with the rough diamond bought by Cora International in New York.
Blue Moon
You can find out more about this event here. I find it interesting that while we have seen a weakening in white diamond prices, coloured stones are going from strength to strength. The clampdown on corruption in China has been having a dramatic effect on conspicuous consumption on the mainland. I’m not saying that sales of luxury goods in China are purely driven by illicit funding, perish the thought, but it’s just not a good time to be flaunting your wealth right now. It certainly put a stop on sales of Range Rovers in the last quarter. It’s good to see that Hong Kong buyers are still active; this shows that the demand for investment in gemstones in China is still strong.
It also supports the message that Ian Harebottle has been making at Gemfields. I sense a frustration in Ian about how recent weak diamond marketing and lower pricing have been putting a cap on his ability to drive pricing on emeralds and rubies. The auctions this week show that coloured stones are developing strong momentum of their own. The market is now more international than it has been for decades. While Graff is still expected to be one of the prominent bidders for the Blue Moon, the rise of coloured stones is a reflection of cultural tastes in Asia and the Middle East and a wider general market that is not constrained by a bland East Coast US definition of how white a stone should be to sell well in New York.