Diamonds dazzle in Christie's 2007 results

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Diamonds dazzle in Christie's 2007 results

February 11, 2008

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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.

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