Sotheby's sold $136 million worth of jewels at its Geneva auction, with Graff Diamonds and Samer Halimeh taking home two pink diamonds that went under the hammer.
Other highlights of the evening included Samer Halimeh, the New York-based jeweler, splurging $7.5 million on a pear-shaped, 40.30-carat, fancy light pink, VVS2 diamond ring. Of the top 10 sales, one was to the European trade and one to the “international” trade.
“The very best colored diamonds of all hues remain highly desirable, but tonight pink and blue were undoubtedly the hottest colors accounting for many of the top prices this evening,” said David Bennett, worldwide chairman of Sotheby’s international jewelry division(pictured below, auctioning the Sky Blue Diamond).
The auction was 87 percent sold by lot. Sotheby’s said it recorded the highest annual jewelry total for any auction house in Switzerland, at $311.5 million – beating a record the company set itself in Geneva in 2015 with $300.5 million.