Petra gets $17 Million Dollars for 25.5 carat Rough Blue Diamond

May 26th, 2013 by Noam Flint

Kaching! Kaching! The last few weeks have seen sale after sale surpass all previous records in a whole range of categories. The record-breaking has not been confined to only one cut or color, it’s occurred across the board. But the stones that have seen the most demand in recent weeks would seem to be blue.

In mid-May in Geneva, Switzerland, a pear-shaped white gem that weighs more than a hundred carats smashed all previous records for flawless diamonds sold at auction. The amazing stone, now called the Winston Legacy, which originally weighed 236 carats when it was first taken from the ground in Botswana, took 21 months to polish to perfection. Christie’s final sale price: an unearthly $26.7 million.

Sotheby’s also scored this past week in Geneva, when it broke two world records for fancy yellow colored diamonds: the highest price paid, and the highest price paid per carat. The 74-carat cushion-cut yellow diamond, which once belonged to the Persian Shah, was purchased for an astounding $2.9 million, which worked out to approximately $39,000 per carat.

But blue diamonds seem to be especially in favor in recent days. Four weeks ago, Heritage Auctions held a public sale in New York City and parted with the largest blue stone it’s ever offered up, a 2.5 carat natural fancy blue marquise-cut VS1, mounted in an Art Deco ring almost a century old. By the end of the day, a bidder had coughed up $1.65 million.

Just days before that, a 5.3 carat Bulgari deep blue diamond we already reported on made a big pile of money for Bonhams Auctioneers in London, England. At that time, we noted that it was expected to fetch $2.25 million, or possibly even twice that amount. Our expectations were blown to pieces by the final sale price: a whopping $9.6 million, or $1.8 million per carat!

And finally, just two days ago, the enormous 25.5 carat blue diamond extracted last month in South Africa also found a buyer. The blue giant was sold in rough form for over $16.9 million, or over $663,000 per carat and $7 Million dollars more than the Telegraph’s original assessment. It confirms that even a century after its discovery, and even after it changed hands from De Beers to Petra, the infamous Cullinan mine will continue to break records for some time to come.