Monday, February 11, 2008

Diamonds dazzle in Christie's 2007 results

New York-Driven by diamonds, and fueled by several world-record prices reached at auction, jewelry sales at Christie's totaled nearly $400 million in 2007, an increase of 11 percent over 2006, which yielded $355 million in sales.

Natural pearls, sapphires from the storied mines of Kashmir and diamonds-both colored and colorless-were the star players of the year, the auction house said.

"The magical barrier of $100,000 per carat was regularly broken for top colorless diamonds, while colored diamonds often sold for over $1 million per carat," Christie's Chairman of Jewelry Francois Curiel said in a press release issued on Friday. "These figures were unheard of as little as five years ago."

Curiel attributed what he called a "mini revolution" in the booming auction market to participation by new collectors from Russia, China and the Middle East as well as first-time bidders who got in on the auction action by going online.

The results, touted by Christie's as the highest ever achieved by any auction house, give it a 54 percent share of the market, with all major international auctioneers taken into account, the release says.

In the Americas, sales were up 8.8 percent to $120.1 million in 2007, achieving a record for the second year in a row. Those results were helped along by the sale of the historic Baroda Pearls, which were sold for nearly $7.1 million, achieving an auction record for natural-pearl jewelry. Also in New York, an exceptional 22-carat Kashmir sapphire fetched nearly $3.1 million in 2007, making it the most expensive sapphire in the world, the release said.

Eight of the top 10 jewels sold at Christie's in 2007 were diamonds, with a stone called "Dubai Magnificence," a pear-shaped, D-color, IF-clarity gem that weighed 53.71 carats, leading the pack after it sold for $5.75 million at a December auction in New York.

As published on:
http://www.nationaljewelernetwork.com/njn/content_display/fashion/
e3ia26aeb713fb4068b8ead998734ccc38c?inp=true

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Diamonds dazzle in Christie's 2007 results
posted by Rare Colored Diamonds on Monday, February 11, 2008