The largest white diamond ever to come to auction will hit the block at Christie’s in Geneva on 11 May.
The 228-carat, pear-shaped diamond carries a presale estimate of $20 million to $30 million . The stone, which is about the size of a chicken’s egg, was mined about 20 years ago in South Africa but is only now coming up for public sale.
Yet Kadakia says the estimate’s comparatively modest price per carat – just shy of $88,000 – makes the gem an attractive investment. Both of those diamonds were designated as “D” colour, meaning they were truly colourless; this 228-carat diamond, in contrast, is graded G, meaning that it is “near colourless,” three steps below on the Gemological Institute of America’s colour scale.
But here, he argues, “you have a stone which weighs almost 230 carats. Is there really a price per carat, or are you looking differently at it, like a work of art?” He urges people to hold the stone in the palm of their hand. “It feels like $100 million.”Diamond prices have risen precipitously in recent months. De Beers yanked prices up by nearly 10% at its sale in January, with cheaper diamonds jumping as much as 20%.
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