Pink Diamond Nets Record $10.8 Million in Hong Kong

HONG KONG: A ring with a pink diamond the size of a chickpea sold last night for a record HK$83.5 million ($10.8 million) at a Hong Kong auction of art, gems and antiques that was fuelled by Chinese buying.

The 5-carat gem was set by London-based jeweler Graff Diamonds and given the second-highest rating of potentially flawless. The so-called fancy-vivid stone broke the per-carat record for a diamond established in May with Hong Kong property tycoon Joseph Lau’s purchase of a 7.03-carat blue diamond in Geneva for 10.5 million Swiss francs ($10.5 million). A carat is a fifth of a gram.

The Graff jewel went to a phone buyer who wrested it from the Chinese millionaire stock-investor tycoon Liu Yiqian and his wife Wang Wei. They were bidding in the room and stopped at around HK$70 million. Host Christie’s International wouldn’t confirm if the lot was bought by another mainland Chinese. The jewelry sale tallied HK$372 million, with 89 percent of the 255 lots sold.

“Some prices were crazy, way above what one would pay even at a jewelry store,” said Donald May, a Hong Kong-based ruby and sapphire dealer who attended the auction. “There’s a lot of mainland Chinese buying; either they didn’t know what the items are worth or they wanted them so badly that price didn’t matter.”

Sapphire Record

Several items sold for many times their presale estimate. A cushion-shaped, 16.65-carat sapphire set by Van Cleef & Arpels fetched HK$18.6 million, a per-carat record for that gem type. Asia buyers accounted for eight of the 10 most expensive lots.

“It’s clear that Hong Kong has become one of the, if not the, most important fine jewelry center for Christie’s,” Francois Curiel, chairman of Christie’s Europe and head of the company’s jewelry department, said in an interview. Geneva has traditionally been Christie’s gems hub.

Quality, not size, matters more in Asia than elsewhere, said Curiel. The finest gems, even small ones, will fetch good prices in Asia, while Western markets favor bigger baubles.

With one day left in Christie’s five-day auction, the pink diamond is the priciest item offered at the 2,000-lot sale that has so far tallied HK$1.56 billion, against the company’s estimate of HK$1 billion, according to Hong Kong spokeswoman Kate Malin. Estimates don’t include commission.

Ceramics, Antiques

In the first half of yesterday, Christie’s tallied HK$371 million from its sale of Chinese ceramics and other antiques.

Compared with the buzz at rival Sotheby’s ceramics auction in October, the mood at Christie’s was calmer. Mainland Chinese bidders were also less conspicuous at the Christie’s sale than at Sotheby’s, with many top lots going to bidders speaking Cantonese or Mandarin with a Taiwanese lilt, suggesting they are from Hong Kong or Taiwan.

One of the top lots was an early Ming Dynasty red-lacquer tray depicting men astride horses arriving at a Chinese garden with pavilions and pine trees. The 15 3/4-inch square tray, which resembles one in Beijing’s Palace Museum, sold for HK$25.3 million, against a presale estimate of HK$15 million.

“This is a good auction with very respectable results,” said Wu Qun, a Beijing-based buyer who paid HK$23 million in April for a Xuande era (1426-1435) blue-and-white stem bowl with Tibetan script at a Sotheby’s Hong Kong auction. Wu, who observed the Christie’s sale, said he didn’t buy anything.

Above Estimate

A robin’s egg glazed censer with two loop handles and bearing Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong’s sealmark sold for HK$2.4 million, against an estimate of HK$180,000.

The ceramics expert Chen Lianyong, advising and buying on behalf of stock-investor Liu, bid with the Chinese tycoon’s trademark persistence and won about five items from the back row of the auction hall, including a Qing Dynasty famille-rose jar painted with a scene of five boys playing in a garden that sold for HK$18.6 million, against the item’s top estimate of HK$5 million. In October, Liu paid a record $11 million for an imperial throne with carved dragons.

Other auction highlights included a Qianlong era white- jade water buffalo that once belonged to the late Dutch collector Hugo Tutein Nolthenius (1863-1944); it sold for HK$20.8 million.

The auction ends today with the watch sale.


source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=awCQTXePG1Os