DIAMOND AUCTIONS AND THE BROADER DIAMOND MARKET

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By Leibish Polnauer, President & Founder By Leibish Polnauer, President & Founder Auctions add a lot of fragrance to the fancy color diamond business. The spectacular sale the other week of the 14.82 carat vivid orange diamond has a sweet background story... The 14.82 carat vivid orange was once actually over 20 carats with a much lower clarity grade. The owner C Level Contact List tried to improve the stone a number of times, and eventually polished it down, losing a substantial portion of the stone from the initial weight. At 14.82 carats though he hit the jackpot and was lucky as he was rewarded with a vivid orange VS2 - the largest vivid orange in the world! The stone was sold for USD35,000,000 to a client from Dubai and managed to break the world record for the most expensive price per carat paid for a diamond at auction. 0.41 carat Fancy Vivid Yellow Orange 0.41 carat Fancy Vivid Yellow Orange available by LEIBISH for USD3,648 1.06 carat Fancy Intense Orange Pendant 1.06 carat Fancy Intense Orange available by LEIBISH for USD161,000 The record-breaking price of the 59.60 carat vivid pink for USD83.1 million two weeks back was actually a bargain looking at the carat price for such a one-of-a- kind stone. So why was it so cheap? The gigantic total - you needed a consortium to buy it. Isaac Wolf, an old hand in the fancy color busiess, surfaced again with a Russian group of investors and bought the stone. Isaac Wolf and his group paid USD1.



4 million per carat. A similar stone weighing 5 carats would have sold for 50% more per carat. This total may seem very large today but 10 years down the road it will be considered a bargain. 1.01 carat Fancy Intense Pink Round Argyle Tender Diamond 1.01 carat Fancy Intense Pink- Argyle Tender stone by LEIBISH for USD360,000 0.54 carat Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink Radiant Argyle Tender Diamond 0.54 ct Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink Argyle by LEIBISH for USD96,000 The record-breaking sales at auction have a sweet side effect throughout the market. Not everyone has a spare USD35 million lying around, but many lovers of fancy color diamonds do have money at hand and want to buy something similar to what is making headlines -just smaller. After the Geneva auction we experienced a strong wave of interest – a bit like someone being thrown into Lake Geneva resulting in a wave that builds momentum. We sold a lot of small pink, yellow, and orange diamonds around the world as well as jewelry. 0.14 carat Fancy Intense Pink Princess 0.14 carat Fancy Intense Pink sold by LEIBISH 0.32 carat Fancy Intense Yellow Orange Pear 0.32 carat Fancy Intense Yellow sold by LEIBISH 0.68 carat Fancy Intense Purplish Pink Oval Argyle Tender Diamond 0.68 carat Fancy Intense Purplish-Pink- Argyle Tender Diamond sold by LEIBISH Still the basic question remains as to how these record prices affect daily business - if at all. Many commentators assumed in the past that the Diamond Trading Company De Beers has some sort of control over diamond prices. De Beers was founded by Cecil Rhodes in 1880 and by 1920 all South African Mines were controlled by the Oppenheimer family and 90% of the world’s rough diamond supply was controlled by De Beers. The most effective piece of advertising came in 1947, with the creation of the tag line "A diamond is forever."