Imelda Marcos’s Surprising 25 carat Pink Diamond
November 26th, 2015 by Noam Flint
Over three decades ago, with the fall of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the government seized plenty of assets which included three sets of jewelry.
Imelda Marcos and Her Jewelry
Image source:
flickr
The jewels belonged to his wife Imelda Marcos were appraised back in 1991 for what seemed at the time as an astounding amount – $6-$8 Million Dollars.
25 years have passed and it seems that waiting was a good decision!
How Much is Imelda Marcos’s 25 carat Pink Diamond Worth?
Since 1991, the demand for pink diamonds has increased tremendously and as a result their prices sky rocketed through the roof.
While it’s true for “regular” pink diamonds that can be bought online (as much as someone can refer to pink diamonds as regular), the effect it had on the higher end pink diamonds is astounding.
According to Christies, only three pure colored vivid pink diamonds weighing over 10 carats appeared for sale over the last 250 years! Making this diamond pretty much priceless.
For proportions and comparison, as it happens, only two weeks ago, November 10th, a 16.08 carat vivid pink diamond with vvs2 was sold for $28.55 million dollars by Christie’s.
With that in mind, if we calculate the value of the 25 carat pink based on the 16.08 carat…:
$28.55M / 16.08 carat = $1.775M per carat
$1.775M * 25 carat = $44.38 Million Dollars!
BUT, aside for the diamond’s pink color and weight the exact details such as clarity are not yet known for Imelda’s diamond – and they are important!.
In fact, at this time, while it was compared all over the news to the 16.08 carat pink diamond that was sold two weeks ago, no one actually stated that it is a vivid pink and not a “just” fancy and with all the respect to the 4C’s of diamonds, in colored diamonds the Diamond Color is by far the most important C and the difference in pricing between a fancy pink and a vivid pink is more than double.
on the other hand, price per carat increases as the total weight increases.
This means that if Imelda’s diamond is in fact a vivid pink, is a very strong candidate to become the most expensive diamond in the world (even though only a week ago the record was set) and certainly one of the 10 most expensive diamonds.
At the moment, Philippine government requested both Sotheby’s and Christie’s to assess the three sets of jewelry.
The decision of whether they will sell it or not is still to come!
