Jewelry Biz - Big Bucks For The Bulgari Blue

OK, so I admit it...I was a little disappointed that the powers that be at Beladora didn't buy the Bulgari Blue last week at auction. It would have matched my outfit perfectly, don't you think?


The Bulgari Blue Diamond, the largest triangular Fancy Vivid Blue diamond ever offered at auction, sold for $15.7 million on Wednesday at Christie's New York, setting a new world record for the price paid per carat for such a stone in open bidding
The 10.95 carat blue diamond is set opposite a matching 9.87 carat colorless diamond in a ring purchased in 1972 for $1 million. The record price amounts to $1.5 million per carat.
Bidding started at $8 million and quickly became a contest between a client in the room and two on the phone, before the gavel fell to a private Asian collector. 
And what are the chances that the buyer was from China... 

The original owner, who bought the ring at the Bulgari flagship store in Rome as a gift for his wife on the birth of their first son, kept it in the family for four decades until yesterday's sale.