WHAT: Magnificent jewels brought magnificent prices in the past year. Multiple world records fell as international buyers put their money into serious gems.
MORE: Sotheby’s final jewelry auction of 2015 fetched $52.3 million, including the sale of a record-breaking Kashmir sapphire for $5.1 million, or $197,990 per carat. Earlier, a rare gray pearl necklace with 42 natural saltwater gray pearls matched by Cartier brought $5.27 million in Hong Kong. In all, the auction house hit $571 million worldwide in jewel sales last year.
Christie’s has not yet released a year total, but a final New York jewels sale brought $59.6 million, including a D color rectan-
gular diamond of more than 31 carats that sold for $4.3 million, or $137,500 per carat.
SMART COLLECTORS KNOW: At this level, jewelry and gems are absolutely top grade and rare. Exceptional and celebrity provenance helps, especially if there are photos of the famous owner wearing the piece.
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HOT TIP: Increasingly, cash-strapped royal houses are letting go of family pieces. Now is a good time to pick up tiaras and baubles, even fine gent’s jewelry, from lesser (and usually unidentified) nobles or cafe society figures of bygone eras.
BOTTOM LINE: The boom in fine jewels is a trend that looks to continue. World economies call the shots on likely buyers: Today it’s East Asians. Before, Middle Easterners and Russian oligarchs bought big. Decades ago it was wealthy Germans, and so it goes.
BOOK IT: We’ve always promoted the use of online databases such as liveauctioneers.com and worthpoint.com to research prices. But sometimes you want a print version.
“Miller’s Antiques Handbook & Price Guide 2016-2017” by Judith Miller Mitchell Beazley, ($45) has almost 700 pages with some 8,000 new results showing worldwide auction results for porcelain, clocks and watches, posters, antiquities, decorative arts and more.
More than a reference, it’s also fun reading.
