Big Blue Diamond Discovered, Another Offered For Sale
April 20th, 2013 by Noam Flint
It’s been 175 years since the firm that became Tiffany & Co. was founded, and just over a half-century since its place in pop culture was cemented by the Oscar-winning film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. So when the jeweler to the stars publishes its mail order catalog, affectionately known as the Blue Book, it does so in style, setting the tone both figuratively and literally. At the official launch last Thursday at New York City’s Rockefeller Center, Tiffany’s had a who’s who of Hollywood’s hottest all wearing blue dresses and diamonds, from Jessica Biel to Gwyneth Paltrow – who felt so strongly about attending the blue diamond celebration that she skipped out on the London premiere of her new film, Iron Man III!
With perfect synchronicity, just a day earlier, Petra Diamonds announced the discovery of a massive blue diamond at the Cullinan mine in South Africa. The stone weighed in at 25.5 carats and could be worth $10 million or more, analysts say. As soon as the news made the rounds, the company’s stock shot up by 5% on the London Stock Exchange. After bequeathing some of the world’s largest and most amazing white diamonds as the Premier Mine for De Beers – including a significant portion of the British Crown Jewels – Petra renamed it Cullinan, after its most famous harvest. It has been producing blue gems of note ever since; four years ago, Petra unearthed a blue stone of similar size at the site, called it the “Star of Josephine” and sold it for just under $10 million.
Petra Diamonds 25.5ct Blue Diamond
Now if all this talk of blue diamonds has whet your appetite for a stone the color of the sky, then you’ll be happy to learn that within days you will have the opportunity to acquire one. A Trombino ring designed by Bulgari back in 1965, which features a 5.30-carat fancy deep blue diamond, will be auctioned off by Bonhams Fine Jewelry on Wednesday, April 24. The blue diamond, which is cut into a cushion shape and accented by a series of brilliant-cut and baguette-cut stones, is said to be one of only 30 big blue gems to be sold publicly in the last decade. Consequently, you can expect it will fetch a hefty price – some say as much as $2.25 million, and potentially twice as much, which would break the per-carat price world record for deep blues that was set by Laurence Graff back in November 2011 when he bought the 10.48 carat deep blue diamond for $10,860,000.
1965 Bulgari Blue Diamond Ring Sold by Bonhams (picture Bonhams)
