Despite a serious downturn in the economy, diamonds are selling surprisingly well at auction. Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s have financially suffered due to the recession, but they are both seeing high figures from their diamond sales. In fact, these sales are getting the most buck, so to speak.

According to a New York Times article, David Bennet, chairman of Sotheby’s jewelry departments in Europe and the Middle East, “it felt like being back in the good old days of the mid-1990s.”
 
In December of 2008, the Wittelsbach diamond sold for a record $24.31 million. The ‘Star of Josephine’, weighing 7.03 carats, brought in $9.48 million, making it the most expensive diamond per carat ever sold. A fancy pink pear-cut diamond weighing 5.29 carats, sold for $2.04 million - $385,633 per carat.
 
Necklaces and earrings with documented ownership by European royalty nearly quadrupled their estimates and, surprisingly, so did newer pieces. A necklace of gold swan heads, dated to 1995, was sold at $24,450 - two and a half times the high estimate.
 
Due to a collector’s appetite for vintage pieces for the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, a set by Van Cleef & Arpels, designed in the form of two intertwined leaves set with sapphires and diamonds, earned an impressive $112,845, well over the expected price.

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