~ Blue Diamonds

Huge Blue Diamond Sells for Record Price

Posted by Michelle Orman on December 11, 2008

For all of you bling lovers out there (and I know you’re out there), how’s this for some super-sized glam?  The Wittelsbach Diamond, a 35.56 carat cushion-shaped blue diamond sold at Christie’s for a record $24.3 million.  The piece marks the highest bid ever placed on a gemstone at auction.  The piece, a 35.56 carat cushion-shaped blue diamond, was purchased by Laurence Graff of Graff Diamonds in London. 

The diamond was originally purchased by King Philip IV of Spain in 1664 for his daughter’s dowry and passed down through the family.  It acquired the Wittelsbach name when the great grand daughter of King Philip married into Bavarian royalty, including the first king who incorporated the gem into his crown. 

The diamond sold double what it was originally appraised (an encouraging sign about the public’s continuing interest in the jewelry industry!).

View Original Article: http://njn.typepad.com/couture_blog/natural_color_diamonds/

What Are The Meanings For Different Color Diamonds

By Yolanda Nash

On the day your handsome prince pops that all important question, it is the beginning of one of the most exciting and romantic periods in your life. The engagement ring he presents to you will be one you wear for many years to come, and you may want something different than the conventional crystal, clear colored diamond. There are diamonds of different hues and each one has a sentiment for giving behind it.

Pink Diamonds for a Creative Lady

If you are a creative and artistic type of person, wearing a pink diamond is a reflection of that aspect of your personality. Of course, you may only get a pink diamond if money is no object. A pink diamond is one of the rarest types in the world and those who purchase them have plenty of money to spend on this valued prize.

Yellow Diamonds for the Selfless Bride

If your fiancé thinks you are one of the most thoughtful and considerate people he knows, he may want to show his appreciation for those qualities by presenting you with a yellow diamond. The yellow diamond celebrates the sweetness of the bride’s personality as well as her willingness to come to the aid of others.

Blue Diamonds for Peace and Good Health

It is said that the groom who purchases a blue diamond for his soon to be bride will be promoting serenity and calm in all of their communication. This may be a lucky charm that keeps you from having a fight that may send you home, crying to your mother. The blue diamond also represents good health for the blushing bride to be.

The Bold and Beautiful Red Diamond

If the groom looks on his future bride as a source of strength and stability, he may consider purchasing an engagement ring that is a beautiful shade of red. It is thought that a red diamond is also a tool to relieve stress, so it can help your emotional and mental health once you begin your journey of life together.

Deciding what color and style of engagement ring may be a daunting task for many prospective grooms. You can drop hints by pointing out the styles and designs you like for an engagement ring. When your groom uses color to make a statement of his love for his new bride, it shows that he too is kind and considerate and is dedicated to showing his new wife just how much she means to him.

If you need some wedding favors such as beach wedding favors, silver wedding favors, coaster favors and more we got you covered.

Also we have a wide variety of bottle stopper favors that will be great for your cocktail hour.

Don’t forget the ladies either purchase them some nice bridesmaid gifts they’ll love.

Article Source:

A Diamond Of A Different Color

Artfact.com

10.17.07, 1:10 PM ET

Story Nina P. West,

On Oct. 8, in front of an audience hushed in anticipation, Sotheby’s broke an auction record that had stood for more than two decades. Under the gavel? A 6.04-carat internally flawless emerald-cut blue diamond ring, ultimately sold for $7,981,835, setting the per-carat record for a gemstone at auction. Sold at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong by an Asian collector and purchased by Moussaieff Jewelers of London, the stunning stone sold for $1.32 million per carat, easily beating the previous record of $926,000 per carat.

View Full Article: http://www.forbes.com/collecting/2007/10/17/collecting-auctions-jewelry-cx_nw_1015diamond.html

Brown Diamonds: Multi-hued sophisticate

Solitaire Magazine Asia-Pacific

December January 2007 Archive

Story Natural Color Diamond Association

BROWN diamonds are the new classic and the current hot item on the red carpet. From Cameron Diaz’s 20-carat cognac diamond to Allison Janney’s multi-colour champagne diamond pendant, to Bird York’s magnificent cognac earrings at the 2006 Oscars, actresses and fashionconscious women are discovering the sophistication and timeless appeal of these special diamonds.Brown diamonds are the most affordable of natural colour diamonds, and are a less expensive alternative to white diamonds. Nevertheless, the value of each brown diamond varies according to the strength of colour, rarity of colour and variations of colour.In Australia’s isolated outback, the world’s largest diamond producer, Rio Tinto Diamonds, excavates millions of tonnes of rock in search of its exquisite jewels. At its Argyle Diamond Mine, the red earth yields around 20 million carats of champagne and cognac diamonds per year. In addition to Western Australia, brown diamonds can be found in Siberia in Russia, most African countries and Brazil.

Jean Marc Lieberherr, General Manager Marketing for Rio Tinto Diamonds, explains, “The distinctive colour of each brown diamond is a completely natural process and each diamond is one of a kind. It takes millions of years for these gems to form and whilst the exact origins of the colour remains a mystery, it is believed that a combination of trace elements in the lattice structure of the diamond, following formation in the earth’s mantle or during their ascent to the earth’s surface, gives rise to their unique hues.”The result? Diamonds with hundreds of variations in colour, in every imaginable hue, from deep cognacs to the lighter shades of champagne. The most valuable shade of brown diamonds is cognac, which is a deep brown with secondary colours of orange.

Cut
Round cuts are the most common cut, although princess, pear and marquise are also available.

Care
Brown diamonds, just like their colourless counterparts, should be cared for in the same way:
• Do not store them together with other diamonds because a diamond can scratch another diamond.
• To prevent a diamond from becoming loose, it should not be worn during heavy work. Also, have the jewellery checked by a professional jeweller every six months and professionally cleaned once a year.

Treatments
There are several ways brown diamonds can be treated or enhanced. To protect yourself from buying such items unknowingly, always request for a diamond report from an accredited diamond laboratory. Alternatively, buy from a Natural Color Diamond Association retail member, then get a report from an independent gem lab. Although NCDIA cannot verify the authenticity of a specific brown diamond, all NCDIA retail members are knowledgeable and are asked to provide full disclosure on each diamond they sell.

There is a colour and style of brown diamond jewellery for every inclination or budget. If you want to stand out from the sea of white, the brown diamond is your best bet.

View Source: http://www.solitaire.com.sg/magazine/dec_jan07/story5.html

Rare Blue Diamond Breaks World Record in HK Sale

HONG KONG

(Reuters)

One of the rarest gems in the world, a flawless blue diamond, has sold for US$7.98 million (3.91 million pounds) at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong, making it the most expensive gemstone in the world, per carat, sold at auction.

After intense bidding, the 6.04 carat, internally flawless blue diamond fetched $HK61.9 million (3.91 million pounds), or US$1.32 million per carat. The price smashed a 20-year-old record held by the “Hancock Red” — a red diamond, which fetched US$926,000 per carat at the time, Sotheby’s said.

Sotheby’s said the buyer was “Moussaieff Jewellers” in London which has a reputation for acquiring extremely rare and costly gemstones. The seller was a private Asian collector.

Blue diamonds have long captivated the rich and powerful — shimmering with a certain dark mystique. The famous “Hope Diamond”, a 45.52 carat grey-blue beauty, was passed down through the ages by King Louis XIV of France, Marie Antoinette and American heiress Evalyn Walsh McClean among others. It now rests in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.

The Sultan of Brunei reportedly bought another massive “blue” which surfaced briefly in the 1980s.

While not a large stone, the Sotheby’s diamond has an esteemed cut and “fancy vivid blue” hue, factors which contributed to its blockbuster price — roughly 10 times the per-carat price of regular white diamonds.

The blue hue is a result of trace amounts of boron in the stone’s crystal structure.

Other coloured diamonds with pink and red hues can be mined in multiple locations across the globe including Brazil, India and Australia, but “blues” are mostly found at just one site on earth — the Premier Mine in South Africa.

Source: http://www.colordiamondcommunity.net/wp-content/themes/rockin-chrome-1/images/ra1363390240.jpg

Fancy Blue Diamond

David Federman

Modern Jeweler 

These may be the worst of times, as far as supply goes, for natural-color (a.k.a. “fancy”) blue diamonds. No one remembers it being quite so difficult to find fancy color diamonds with this much-coveted hue as it is now. And, worse, no one expects things to get better any time soon.

Oh sure, one can find stones with somewhat fanciful, rather than fancy, color that the Gemological Institute of America, this country’s chief pedigreer of diamonds, compassionately classifies as “faint blue” or “very light blue.” One may even locate stones with wishful tints that carry the lab’s next highest rating, “light blue.’

But just try to find true-blue stones that deserve any of GIA’s really meaty grades: “fancy light blue,” “fancy blue” or, on the rarest of occasions, “fancy dark blue.” Here the pickings are the slimmest in decades. And auction prices, easily more than $1,000,000 per carat for a five-carat “fancy blue” stone, reflect this nagging scarcity and hunches that it will linger.

View Full Article: http://www.modernjeweler.com/web/online/Diamond-Gem-Profiles/Fancy-Blue-Diamond/2$278