An anonymous buyer purchased a 6.89 carat, fancy vivid purple pink diamond for $6.91 million at a Christie’s jewelry auction in New York City yesterday, paying just over a million dollars per carat.
The purple diamond was the top lot in the auctions which earned a total of $21 million and brought Christie’s total jewelry sales to $131 million for the year, the highest amount ever for the U.S. jewelry auction market.
The auction sales also helped to display people’s continued interest in and demand for colored diamonds, which arguably could have been started with Jennifer Lopez’s former pink diamond engagement ring, but really took shape when an over 24 carat, pink diamond was sold at auction for $46 million dollars, breaking world records earlier this year.
But pink diamonds aren’t the only colored diamonds that seem to be gaining popularity, as there were a few other colorful pieces on the auction block yesterday. Some highlights at Christie’s were a 10.91 carat Pear shaped pink-orange diamond ring that went for $218,000 per carat, and a 7.3 carat modified rectangular, fancy vivid purple pink diamond ring that fetched $124,000 per carat.
Rahul Kadakia, the Head of Jewelry at Christie’s Americas, also announced an the after sale of a 37.57 carat Kashmir sapphire that went for $542,000, probably helped by the recent sapphire ring craze induced by the recent engagement of Prince William who gave his longtime girlfriend his mother’s diamond and sapphire engagement ring. But even without the record breaking sales, it has been a good year for Christie’s auction house, which also administered the sale of a rare 14 carat pink diamond, also known as the “Perfect Pink,” earlier this year as well. In fact it was so rare, it joined the group of only 18 pink diamonds larger than 10 carat that have ever gone to auction in the 244 years of auction history.