Editor’s Note
The 2024 auction season underscored the enduring allure of exceptional diamonds, with provenance and rare fancy colors driving record demand. This trend offers a clear signal for the luxury market in the year ahead.
If the diamond jewelry auctions of 2024 taught us anything, it was that exceptional fancy-color and white diamonds, and a captivating provenance remain in demand even in uncertain global conditions.
When Christie’s sold the breathtaking 10.20-carat fancy intense pink diamond ring, known as the Eden Rose, for $13.3 million in June, it confirmed what industry insiders already knew: Top quality fancy-colored diamonds are a rock-solid investment!
While industry insiders continuously speculate on the price of diamonds, the auctions are the only transparent retail platform that demonstrates the value of stones and jewelry in real time.
A round up of the most expensive diamond jewelry auctions of 2024 from five auction houses revealed a relatively good year with particularly strong sales in the final quarter, and fancy colored diamonds commanded the highest prices.
Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s ended the year on a high with their Magnificent Jewels sales in December. Christie’s Magnificent Jewels achieved $49.2 million in sales, with a most expensive lot being a 5.72-carat fancy intense blue diamond selling for $8.8 million. While Sotheby’s pulled in $30 million with 92 percent of the lots sold.
In addition to the Eden Rose sale in June and the blue diamond sale in December, the auction house sold several more multimillion dollar fancy-colored diamonds, including a pair of vivid orange-yellow diamond earrings, weighing 12.2 and 11.96 carats, for $8 million in October.
At Phillips auction house, the nine highest priced diamond jewelry sales in 2024 were fancy colored diamonds. The standouts: A 6.21-carat fancy vivid pink ring, classified as Type IIa, for $12 million and the rare 1.56 red Argyle Phoenix for $4.2 million, both sold at the Geneva auction in May. It was non-other than Mr. Laurence Graff, who has a track record of paying top dollar for the rarest diamonds at auction, who purchased the Argyle Phoenix for a record breaking price per carat for a red diamond.
