What type of diamond is the most expensive?

– a colorless, perfectly cut diamond, quite rare in its purity, weighing 84,37 carats. The stone was marked by the Homological Institute of America as X/X/X, which indicates its highest quality. It was sold at Sotheby’s auction, which took place in Geneva in 2007, for $16,2 million. The new owner of the flawless diamond is the founder of the Guess company, George Marciano. The previously unnamed gemstone was named after Mr. Marciano’s daughter, Chloe.

9. “Star of the season”

– a colorless pear-shaped diamond weighing 100,1 carats, first presented to the public at Sotheby’s auction house in Geneva in 1995. The winner was a sheikh from Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Hassan Fitaihi, a connoisseur and collector of jewelry, who offered $16,5 million for the gemstone. Immediately after the auction, the sheikh received an offer to sell “Star of the Season” for a significantly larger amount, but he refused.

8. “Martian Pink”

– one of the rarest pink diamonds, sold at Christie’s in Hong Kong for $17,4 million to an anonymous buyer. Weighing 12,04 carats, the unique stone is the largest round pink diamond ever offered at auction. The “Martian Pink” was cut by the jewelry house Harry Winston. The diamond received its name in honor of NASA’s mission to launch the Viking spacecraft to study the surface of Mars and its orbit.

7. “Archduke Joseph”

– a huge (76,02 carats) colorless diamond of the highest quality, cut in the shape of a rectangular cushion. It was sold at Sotheby’s in Geneva in 2012 for $21,48 million. The buyer chose to hide his name; it is only known that he presented the “Archduke Joseph” diamond as a gift to the museum. Mined in the famous mines of Golconda, the gem previously belonged to the Habsburg dynasty, and received its name in honor of the Austrian field marshal Archduke Joseph August, its first owner, to whom it was officially registered in 1919. In 1936, the Habsburg family sold the diamond to an unknown buyer. Later, it was put up for auction two more times: in 1961 and 1993.

6. White emerald cut diamond

– weighing 100 carats was sold in 2015 at Sotheby’s for $22,1 million. An anonymous buyer purchased a diamond over the phone. The diamond was mined by De Beers in South Africa. “The color is whiter than white, the stone is so transparent that it can only be compared to water,” said the head of Sotheby’s jewelry department about the diamond.

5. “Perfect pink”

– a rectangular diamond weighing 14,23 carats, sold at Christie’s in Hong Kong for $23,2 million to an anonymous buyer. The gemstone, characterized as an intense, naturally colored fancy pink diamond, is the most expensive ever sold in Asia. The entire “The Perfect Pink” lot was a rose and white gold ring set with a luxurious pink diamond flanked on both sides by two clear diamonds weighing 1,67 and 1,73 carats.

4. Diamond “Wittelsbach-Graff”

– a large (35,56 carats) sky blue diamond, which bears the names of its two owners. In 2008, the famous jeweler Laurence Graff purchased it at Christie’s in London for $24,3 million. Known today as the Wittelsbach-Graff, this gemstone was re-cut, causing it to lose weight and now weigh 31,06 carats. The current owner of the diamond did this in order to reveal its true color to the world and bring it to an impeccable Type IIb, which includes diamonds of the highest quality. The legendary gem was found in the Indian mines of Golconda. In 1664, the Spanish king Philip IV of Habsburg presented it to his daughter, Margarita Teresa, as a dowry, and already in 1722 the stone came into the possession of the Wittelsbach family. During the Great Depression, the blue diamond was put up for sale at the Christie’s auction house, but no one bought it. In 1964 it was acquired by an anonymous buyer, in whose collection it remained for more than three decades.

3. “Winston’s Legacy”

— pear-shaped colorless diamond weighing 101,73 carats. Winston’s Legacy became the largest diamond in history to be auctioned in May 2013 and was eventually purchased for $26,7 million by the Harry Winston Jewelry Company. The diamond received its name in honor of the new owner. The Winston Legacy Diamond was created by cutting a 236-carat diamond found in Botswana.

2. “Pink Graff”

– a diamond sold at Sotheby’s in Geneva in 2010 for $46,16 million. The lucky owner of a ring with a rare pink stone is the same jeweler who owns the diamond that took 4th place in our rating. British collector Lawrence Graff immediately named the new acquisition after himself. The diamond has a quadrangular shape with rounded corners and weighs 24,78 carats. The last time this gem was put up for auction was 60 years ago by American jeweler Harry Winston, who sold it to a private collector. It is worth recalling that this diamond belongs to the rarest physical type IIa, which includes only 1,8% of mined jewelry diamonds.

1. The most expensive diamond in the world – Pink Star

– the largest of the pink diamonds, weighing 59,6 carats, was sold in November 2013 at Sotheby’s for $83 million, breaking all diamond price records. However, at the end of February 2014, it became known that the buyer was unable to pay for the diamond and Sotheby’s bought the stone for itself for $72 million. The shape of a diamond’s cut depends on the shape of the original diamond crystal. To obtain a diamond of maximum value, cutters try to minimize losses during processing. Depending on the shape of the crystal, between 55% and 70% of its weight is lost during processing. The price (but not the cost) of the diamond increases in proportion to this. The main types of cut are:

• Round
• Fancy, which includes such types of cuts as: oval, pear, marquise, princess, radiant, trillion, asscher, emerald, cushion, heart and other.

ROUND

The most commonly used diamond cut shape is Round.

In 1919, the world-famous scientist Marcel Tokowski calculated the most ideal formula for cutting a round diamond, in which the diamond optimally exhibits all its properties, and light beams are ideally reflected from the lower internal faces.

This cut involves applying 57 facets to the gemstone (the diamond’s tenon is 58 facets).

A PRINCESS

The “Princess” cut of a diamond is inferior in its characteristics only to classical cutting. This type is one of the inexpensive cuts, where the diamond has the shape of a square or rectangle, cut with wedges with a large number of facets – up to 68 pieces.

The play of light is no worse than the “Round” brilliant cut.

Due to its shape and multiple facets, this type of diamond cut optimally demonstrates the optical properties of the diamond.

Prototypes of this cut, a modification of the old French square cut, have been developed since the late 1960s by a group of cutters in Israel. The name “Princess” was finally assigned to diamonds of this square cut in 1979

MARQUIS

Legend associates the history of the creation of this form of diamond cut with the name of the French king Louis XV and his favorite Marquise of Pompadour, for whom a diamond of this shape was ordered around 1745 and in honor of conferring the title on her received the name “Marquise”, later changed to “Marquise”.

The optical properties of a marquise diamond make the stone appear larger than it actually is. But the elongated shape of the gemstone in the ring visually lengthens the finger, making the owner’s hand more refined and neat.

PEAR

A very beautiful and popular type of diamond cut. The finished stone has a teardrop shape – a narrowed end on one side and a rounded end on the opposite. This type of cut is used for diamonds in rings, earrings, and pendants.

The pear-shaped cut (briolette) was first used by the Flemish cutter from Bruges Lodwyck van Berkem in 1476. Pear-shaped diamonds have been widely known from paintings since the 18th century.

The modern form of the “pear cut” cut has established itself with the design of the parameters of the modern round brilliant cut.

OVAL

The Oval cut is an improved “Classic” type of diamond cut. A distinctive feature is the shape of the stone – an oval with a length-to-width ratio of 1,5:1. If you compare an oval and a round diamond of the same weight, the first one will optically appear larger.

The modern diamond cut, as applied to the oval shape, was introduced by Lazar Kaplan in the early 1960s. Most often, large stones lend themselves to this cutting method.

Oval diamonds, due to their shape, visually lengthen the fingers (if we are talking about a ring), thin the neck (in a necklace or pendant), and also slim the face (in earrings).

TRILLION

Quite a rare form of diamond cut. This type is classified as a wedge cut. The gemstone has a triangular shape with rounded corners, but the number of faces may vary.

The trillion shape was originally developed in 1962 by the Henry Meyer Diamond Company of New York (USA). Also, the creation of the Trillion cut is attributed to nameless Dutch masters of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Most often, this cutting method is used for side diamonds in women’s rings with a large gemstone.

RADIANT

This cut is a hybrid modification of the old French square cut and the Emerald cut (a variation of the Asscher cut).

Radians combine the advantages of three cuts at once – the bright brilliance of the Circle, the sharp corners of the Asscher and the elongated shape of the Emerald. Although Radiant, like Asher, can have a regular square shape.

The radiant cut was developed in 1977 by Henry Grossbard’s Radiant Cut Diamond Company (RCDC). In 2002, the company patented the brand (“Original Radiant Cut”).

EMERALD

The Emerald cut of diamonds is most often used for cutting large diamonds.

The large size of the top platform of the gem gives an open effect. Although this type of cut is characterized by less play of light compared to the “Classic” form, it is characterized by brighter flashes.

Also, if a fancy-colored stone is used, thanks to the 8-step cut, its inner tone and color are revealed to their full potential.

This cut does not forgive minimal errors in quality. Only the purest rough diamonds are used for these stones.

The “Emerald cut” cut has been widely used for colored stones since the 13th century, and for diamonds it has been used since the mid-15th century as a type of “Baguette” cut with not always maintained symmetry in the arrangement of chamfers at the corners.

The classic emerald cut received its design at the beginning of the 1912th century and initially found wide use in jewelry from Cartier since XNUMX, made in the Art Deco style.

CUSHION

The “Cushion” diamond is shaped like a pillow-shaped diamond, thus receiving its second common name – “Cushion-shaped”. This type of cut looks very advantageous on large fancy-colored diamonds. The wide edges give rise to another name – “Candle Diamond”, because. The maximum sparkling power is best seen by candlelight.

The brightest of all the Cushion cuts (P-81) has a slightly elongated or equilateral shape and a unique shine on each of the 81 facets. Ideally revealed not only in white, but also colored diamonds.

A HEART

The Heart cut is the most expensive and rare type of diamond cutting. The excellent play of colors due to the many facets, as well as the unique shape of the diamond, further emphasizes its magnificence.

The very first (1463) known diamond with a cut similar to the modern heart shape is a diamond mentioned in a letter from Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan.

We also know about a diamond from the ring of the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart, which she gave to Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1562.

The first depiction of a diamond in a heart shape is the portrait of Princess Gonzaga, painted by the artist Frans Pourbus in 1605, which depicts Margherita Gonzaga (1591-1632), with a diamond pendant on the sleeve of her dress.

It is possible that all of these diamonds were rose cut and were not fully cut stones.

Another well-known heart-shaped diamond is the Culinan V diamond, set in a belt clasp known as the Heart Brooch. Heart-shaped diamonds in their modern form (with embedded edges) appeared only in the 20th century, and their mass production began only in the second half of the 20th century.

Usher

The cut has a shape close to an octagon, the type of cut is stepped. A cut stone usually has 49, 57 or 75 facets. Unlike the emerald shape of the Emerald cut, the edges of the chamfers are wider and visually form something like a diagonal cross.

The Asscher Cut design was developed in 1902 in Holland (Netherlands) by cutter Joseph Asscher.

The peak of popularity of this type of cut came in the 1920s – the heyday of the Art Deco jewelry style. At this time, 50 and 58 facets were applied to the stone.

The Asscher cut began to regain popularity in the mid-1980s. At this time, a cut consisting of 75 facets became popular.