Business

Rare pink diamond sold for record price in Geneva
by Zuzana Zelenakova

If you look at the pictures of a beautiful pink diamond sold at action in Geneva Tuesday for more than $46 million you have to think about the famous Pink Panther and detective Jacques Clouseau who was chasing it. However, this diamond is not fictitious, it is rare 24.78-carat jewel for which London jeweler Laurence Graff paid $46,158,674. He even named it The Graff Pink. "It is the most fabulous diamond I've seen in the history of my career and I'm delighted to have bought it," Graff said in a statement released by auction house Sotheby's, which offered the stone at its Geneva sale. Graff is willing to pay some big money once he becomes infatuated with something. That wa! s also the case of the blue 35.56-carat Wittelsbach-Graff diamond he bought in 2008 for $24.3 million. "This is the highest price ever bid for a jewel at auction," said David Bennett, the head of Sotheby's jewelry division, referring to the pink diamond sale. “Pink is arguably the most desirable of all the colours of diamonds and a stone of this size never appears on the open market.” "Everybody was surprised it went that high," Mart van Drunen, a jeweler from Amsterdam, commented after the sale. "He clearly wants to have all the rarest diamonds in the world." The rectangular pink gemstone was last sold 60 years ago by New York jeweler Harry Winston, who owned some of the world´s most famous diamonds including the Hope diamond or the Portuguese diamond. Four bidders competed at auction in Geneva for this magnificent diamond, however, Graff was the most persistent one. In past few years, Geneva gained reputation as a centre for most thrilling jewellery sales! . “In the past five years Geneva has outperformed New Yo! rk and H ong Kong but they are catching up. Geneva is very convenient for our Middle Eastern and Russian clients, and the freeport facility is a huge help,” said Bennett.

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by Zuzana Zelenakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 3:17 PM