Duchess of Windsor's Jewelry Sells Big!

Update: Royal jewelry is all the rage these days. Sotheby's got WAY more than the expected $4.5 million for this highly anticipated sale. How does $12.5 million strike you?  And that stunning panther bracelet went for a whopping $7 million all by itself. Meow!


When it comes to the world of purchasing uber-jewelry, there are jewelry auctions ...and there are Jewelry Auctions.

Sotheby's is holding an event in the latter category this fall when the world can bid on 20 pieces from The Duchess of Windsor's haute couture jewelry collection.

The Duchess, formerly American socialite Wallace Simpson, was the woman behind King Edward the VIII abdicating the British throne back in 1936, creating a royal scandal so huge, Fergie's cornucopia of connundrums looks like chump change.

Thankfully for jewelry lovers, the Duke lavished his beloved with beautiful baubles throughout their lives (he abdicated the throne, not the royal bank account) and commissioned some of the world's most talented jewelry designers to do his bidding.

Here is just a sampling of the stash that Sotheby's expects will bring in upwards of $4.5 million.

This Cartier diamond bracelet is expected to garner a $350,000-450,000 pound pay day.


According to Luxist, Jeanne Toussaint, Cartier's High Jewelry Director, created this realistic onyx and diamond panther bracelet designed in 1952. It's considered one of the best of her "three dimensional "great cat jewels.


Jeanne Toussaint also created this flamingo brooch, decorated with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, citrines, and diamonds. It is listed with an estimate of 1,000,000-1,500,000 pounds ($1,520,000- $2,300,000) - and it's my personal favorite, in case you're doing some early Christmas shopping.


To celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary, The Duke commissioned this emerald, ruby and diamond brooch by Cartier that incorporated their initials. This piece is expected to realize 100,000-150,000 pounds ($152,000- $230,000).


The full auction, which includes 16 additional gems from the Windsor collection will take place in London on November 30th.

Which one of the Windsor wonders would you like to take home to your jewelry box?

Pink Diamond Sets World Price Record

The only jewelry news that could steal the spotlight from Prince William giving Kate his mother's sapphire engagement ring is this little tidbit:

An extremely rare pink diamond just smashed the price record for most expensive diamond (and piece of jewelry) sold at auction - in the world!

Sotheby's placed early price estimates in the high $20 million range, but one megarich diamond collector paid nearly double that paltry sum - a whopping $46.16 million!

And that's not the half of it. This fellow, Laurence Graff, already owns the Wittelsbach-Graff diamond which used to hold the title of most expensive stone in the world at $24.3 million. That is until this flawless 24.78-carat piece of pink perfection went under the hammer.

Call me crazy, but how can the entire state of California be nearly bankrupt and this dude have enough in the coffers to buy flawless diamonds in his spare time?

That said, I find it interesting that Laurence Graff is a self-made gazillionaire - a 14-year-old dropout from the mean streets of London. So I suppose this Charles Dickens tale of rags to riches has the kind of happy ending any self-proclaimed jewelry hound would find hard to resist.

 

Now. About that budget deficit...

Blue Diamond Sells for $6.4

I've got the blues today. In a good way.

Sotheby's Hong Kong unloaded one whopper of a flawless blue diamond today for a mere 6.4 million USD. The rare, 5.16-carat rock was snatched up by London's famed Moussaieff Jewellers, who paid more than the 5.9-million dollar estimated price tag for the gem.

The pear-shaped stone is the first of 11 blue diamonds from the celebrated De Beers Millienium Jewels Collection to appear at auction.

"The price was above the high estimate," a spokeswoman for auction house Sotheby's told AFP.

But the world per-carat record for a blue diamond remains the 10.5 million dollars paid by a Hong Kong property tycoon for a seven-carat blue diamond in Geneva in May last year.

What are they putting in the water in Hong Kong? And can I fill a pool with it?

Sotheby's said gem sales in Hong Kong were on the rise -- the city has overtaken New York to become the company's second biggest market after Geneva.

Terry Chu, deputy head of Sotheby's jewelery department for China and Southeast Asia, said diamonds were particularly appealing to new Asian buyers because of their stable prices and assured quality.

"There have been a lot of new diamond buyers from mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and elsewhere in the region," Chu told AFP.

You had me at "Lei Hao"

Rare Blue Diamond Sets Record!

Colored diamonds are coveted by jewelry lovers everywhere, and despite the economic woe affecting the luxury industry, sales for big, rare stones are still going strong.

While nothing can compare to the world's most expensive blue diamond, The Wittelsbach, which sold to diamond dealer, Laurence Graff, last year for $24.3 million, Sotheby's just unloaded another blue bauble for a stunning $9.4 million.

"The price achieved is a world record by value per carat. This will certainly increase consumers' confidence in buying sparkling stones," said KK Sharma, executive director, Indian Diamond Institute (ID

African miner, Petra Diamonds, unearthed the gem from the Cullinan mine in South Africa, famous for yielding most of the world's best blue diamonds. The fancy vivid blue gem weighs 7.03 carats and is rated internally flawless by the G.I.A. - high praise for a natural stone.

According to the Natural Colored Diamond Association, only one diamond in 10,000 possesses a natural color so strong that it can be classified as fancy color diamond, with reds and blues being the most rare.

Colored diamond fans who don't have millions lying around to snatch a natural stone for their own jewelry box, can find more affordable treated diamonds in every color of the rainbow.

Treated colored diamonds are actually natural white diamonds that are subjected to intense heat to give the stones a range of different hues - from black and pink to yellow and blue. And you don't have to have an auction paddle to snatch one of your very own.

Cure your case of the blues on Jewelry.com, where you can shop for many treated colored diamond styles from the coffers of the retailers you trust.

Then take a look at this video of the real thing. And die a thousand deaths.

Flawless Diamond Sells at Sotheby’s - And It Was All Yellow

Fancy colored diamonds have taken the jewelry world by storm in the last decade, and the demand for these rare beauties doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon. Sotheby’s highly anticipated Magnificent Jewels Auction featured a flawless fancy vivid yellow diamond ring on their program cover, and the lot fetched the highest bid of the night.

The ring featured a 36.99-carat, oval, yellow diamond flanked by two shield-shaped gems weighing over 3 carats a piece. According to the accompanying GIA report, the center stone is internally flawless – two words you just don’t hear to describe much these days.

The lot was expected to rake in between $2 and $3 million, and the final bid fell within that range at $2,658,500. While some of the top items did not sell, Sotheby’s was happy to bring in over $20 million when all was said and done.

Natural colored diamonds are extremely rare – with yellow being one of the most sought after hues in the jewelry rainbow. Tom Cruise gave Katie a 5-carat yellow diamond engagement ring on that fateful Paris night, and Heidi Klum has a 10-carat cushion cut yellow stone rumored to have put Seal back about $150,000.

If you don’t have the budget for a natural yellow stone (and not many of us do these days), treated colored diamonds are a more affordable alternative. In fact, most colored diamonds on the market today are actually white diamonds that have been treated with intense heat to generate colors ranging from black, brown, pink, green, blue, to – of course - yellow.

So whether you’re a high rolling couture hound with a penchant for pink or a sensible susan who yearns for yellow – you don’t have to go to an auction to find colored diamonds to suit your particular ‘fancy’.