Flawless Diamond Sells at Sotheby’s - And It Was All Yellow

Fancy colored diamonds have taken the jewelry world by storm in the last decade, and the demand for these rare beauties doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon. Sotheby’s highly anticipated Magnificent Jewels Auction featured a flawless fancy vivid yellow diamond ring on their program cover, and the lot fetched the highest bid of the night.

The ring featured a 36.99-carat, oval, yellow diamond flanked by two shield-shaped gems weighing over 3 carats a piece. According to the accompanying GIA report, the center stone is internally flawless – two words you just don’t hear to describe much these days.

The lot was expected to rake in between $2 and $3 million, and the final bid fell within that range at $2,658,500. While some of the top items did not sell, Sotheby’s was happy to bring in over $20 million when all was said and done.

Natural colored diamonds are extremely rare – with yellow being one of the most sought after hues in the jewelry rainbow. Tom Cruise gave Katie a 5-carat yellow diamond engagement ring on that fateful Paris night, and Heidi Klum has a 10-carat cushion cut yellow stone rumored to have put Seal back about $150,000.

If you don’t have the budget for a natural yellow stone (and not many of us do these days), treated colored diamonds are a more affordable alternative. In fact, most colored diamonds on the market today are actually white diamonds that have been treated with intense heat to generate colors ranging from black, brown, pink, green, blue, to – of course - yellow.

So whether you’re a high rolling couture hound with a penchant for pink or a sensible susan who yearns for yellow – you don’t have to go to an auction to find colored diamonds to suit your particular ‘fancy’.