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The Cullinan Dream in the rough.
A 24.18-carat intense blue diamond known as The Cullinan Dream has just sold for $25.4 million at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction in New York, breaking all records and becoming the most expensive gem of its kind ever sold at auction.
The diamond, cut from a 122.52-carat rock found at Petra Diamond’s (LON:PDL) Cullinan mine in South Africa in 2014, is the largest of four blue diamonds made from the original.
The Cullinan Dream, a cut-cornered rectangular mixed-cut diamond, has been classified by the Gemological Institute of America as Type IIb. Those kinds of gems are very rare and account for less than one-half of 1% of all diamonds found in nature.
The Cullinan Dream is now a cut-cornered rectangular mixed-cut fancy intense blue diamond, weighing approximately 24.18 carats.
Type IIb gems contain a small amount of the element boron trapped in the crystal carbon structure during their formation that can give rise to a blue or grey coloration, Petra Diamonds said in a statement.
The mine is best known for the discovery of the Cullinan diamond, at 3,106 carats the largest rough diamond ever found. The gem was cut into two highly significant diamonds, which can be found in the British Crown Jewels.
It is flanked on either side by a tapered baguette-cut diamond and set in a platinum ring, inscribed “Cullinan Dream”.
Since acquiring a majority stake in the mine in 2008, Petra Diamonds has found some high-profile blue diamonds, including “The Blue Moon of Josephine,” which sold in November for $48.5 million and “The Star of Josephine” — a 7.03 carat polished stone that sold in 2009 for $9.49 million, representing what at the time was a world record price per carat of $1.35 million.
4 Comments
Altaf
Baguette cut diamonds are the cheapest type of gems cut from the chips of the main roughs and are used for filling the spaces. To use baguette diamonds as side stones for such a rare blue diamond ring is tasteless in the least.
Instead of baguette cut ordinary diamonds, such a rare blue diamond would have been flanked by the chips of the same stone. This stone is one of the 4 diamonds cut from the 122 carat rough blue diamond and while cutting the four stones, some chips might have occurred. Using those chips as side stones would have increased the aesthetic value of the ring in the sense that all the stones (main and side stones) come from the same rare rough.
Ace Ventura
This stone was actually a ‘bargain’ on a per carat basis compared some recent ‘vivid blue’ sales.
http://highlifelivingluxury.blogspot.ca/2016/06/cullinan-dream-brings-25m.html
MINING.com Editors
True! And thanks for the link.
stoxxman
I suppose the obvious reason is that it was VS2 and not ‘flawless’. What a monster anyway. Lucara’s TRUE monster stone ‘Lesedi la Rona’ gets sold June 29th.