Weekend Bonus Brief: Blue Diamond Sells for Record Price

This week the diamond and jewelry industry is buzzing from a record setting sale of a blue diamond. An internally flawless, vivid blue diamond was sold for $9.5 million dollars on May 12, at Sotheby’s in Geneva. This amount is the highest price per carat paid for any gemstone at auction.

From approximately every million carats of diamonds mined, only about one carat is fancy color diamonds. From those fancy colored diamonds only a fraction of a percent represents the annual production of natural blue diamonds. The blue color comes from the rare presence of boron within the diamond’s crystal structure.

The rectangular brilliant cut diamond sold at Sotheby’s weighs 7.03ct., and is accompanied by a GIA (Gemological Institute of America) Diamond Grading Report. This report is an industry standard for a diamond’s credentials. The report identifies the diamond’s hue; in this case it is blue without any color modifiers (such as grayish blue), making the stone an even more rare specimen. The report also lists the stone’s color saturation as vivid, a “fancy” grade, which is the highest possible. Finally, the stone has a clarity grade of “internally flawless”, meaning very nearly free of any flaws with no internal inclusions. This is indeed a very rare stone.

The stone’s seller, Petra Diamonds, reportedly mined the stone last year from the Cullinan Mine in South Africa, which the company owns. For more photos of the blue diamond and amazing photos of diamond mines visit www.petradiamonds.com . Finally, while this diamond has reportedly gone to an anonymous buyer, perhaps to a private collection, remember that you, as an American taxpayer, own some colored diamonds, too: rare and amazing gemstones are on view every day at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C..