One of the most desirable colours when it comes to Diamond is blue as they are not only incredibly rare, only around 0.1% of all Diamonds are naturally blue but they are also stunning to look at and this rarity, combined with high desirability for fine examples mean that they can sell for a lot of money!
And in this post, I list the top 10 most expensive Blue Diamonds to ever sell at public auction and yes, I personally scoured through and then double checked hundreds of auction results to formulate this list, so lets take a look at these stunning Diamonds.
10: The (Winston) Blue Diamond
Weight: 13.22 Carats
Sale: Christie’s, Geneva, 14th May 2014
Sale Price USD: $24.1 Million
Sale Price GBP: £14.3 Million
Originally known as ‘The Blue’, this stunning 13.22 carat, Flawless, Fancy Vivid Blue pear cut Diamond was the largest of it’s type to ever be graded by the GIA at the time and attracted a lot of attention when it came to auction in 2014.
And it most definitely caught the attention of famed jewellery house Harry Winston (who was known as the King of Diamonds), who paid $24.1 Million for it.
This was where the Winston was added to the name as it became part of the Winston Legacy collection, which also includes the Pink Legacy and the Rockefeller Emerald, which I am sure you will agree, is one hell of a collection of gems!
9: The Wittelsbach Diamond
Weight: 35.56 Carats
Sale: Christie’s, London, 10th December 2008
Sale Price USD: $24.3 Million
Sale Price GBP: £16.3 Million
The largest Diamond on this list is The Wittelsbach Diamond, weighing in at an impressive 35.56 carats and posses a Fancy Deep Grayish blue colour with VS2 clarity.
While the stone itself is enough to attract attention, the history behind the stone makes it even more desirable as the stone had been owned by the Spanish, Austrian and Bavarian Royal Families from the mid 1600’s to the early 1900’s.
After Bavaria became a republic following World War 1, the Diamond would disappear and reappear a number of times before finally being bought by the UK’s own ‘King of Diamonds’ Laurence Graff, who controversially recut the stone to improve the cut and quality, with the resulting stone being a 31.06 carat, Internally Flawless, Fancy Deep Blue Diamond, now known as The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond.
8: Laguna Blu Diamond
Weight: 11.16 Carats
Sale: Sotheby’s, Geneva, 16th May 2023
Sale Price USD: $25.2 Million
Sale Price GBP: £20.1 Million
The first stone on this list to break the $25 million mark is the 11.16 carat, Fancy Vivid Blue, VS1 Clarity diamond known as the ‘Laguna Blu’.
This stunning Blue Diamond was in a private collection for 5 decades but had it’s red carpet debut at the Met Gala, where it was worn by Priyanka Chopra only a couple of weeks before going under the hammer.
7: The Cullinan Dream
Weight: 24.18 Carats
Sale: Christie’s, New York, 9th June 2016
Sale Price USD: $25.3 Million
Sale Price GBP: £17.5 Million
The second largest diamond on the list is The Cullinan Dream, which is a 24.18 carat VS2 clarity diamond with a Fancy Intense Blue colour.
But unlike the largest diamond on this list, The Cullinan Dream has a much shorter history as the rough, 122.52 carat crystal was only discovered at the Cullinan mine in South Africa in 2014.
The stone would then be expertly cut and produce four notable stones, with the three others ranging from 7 to 11.30 carat but the star of the show was The Cullinan Dream, which would be sold in 2016 for an impressive $25.3 million.
6: De Beers Jewel 4
Weight: 10.10 Carats
Sale: Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 5th April 2016
Sale Price USD: $32 Million
Sale Price GBP: £20.8 Million
Weighing it an 10.10 carats, having a Fancy Vivid Blue colour and being Internally Flawless would make the stone incredibly desirable on it’s own but there is something even more special about this Blue Diamond.
Jewel 4 was part of arguably the finest collection of Diamonds ever assembled, know as the De Beers Millennium Collection, that was assembled for the Millennium unsurprisingly!
This collection of incredible diamonds, which was a combined effort between the De Beers and Steinmetz Group included the 203.4 carat Millennium Star, the 27.64 carat Heart of Eternity Blue Diamond and the 10.10 carat Jewel 4 along with 9 other important Blue Diamonds were displayed at the Millennium Dome in London and were the target of the failed ‘robbery of the millennium’ attempt.
5: The Zoe Diamond
Weight: 9.75 Carats
Sale: Sotheby’s, New York, 20th November 2014
Sale Price USD: $32.6 Million
Sale Price GBP: £20.8 Million
The smallest stone on the list is the 9.75 carat, VVS2 Clarity, Fancy Vivid Blue Diamond known as The Zoe Diamond.
When the Zoe sold for over $32 million in 2014, it became the most expensive Blue Diamond ever sold at auction, beating The Wittelsbach, which set the record nearly 6 years earlier, it was also the first Diamond to sell for more than $30 million.
4: The Memory of Autumn Leaves Diamond
Weight: 14.54 Carats
Sale: Sotheby’s, Geneva, 16th May 2017
Sale Price USD: $42 Million
Sale Price GBP: £32.5 Million
The Diamond with the most unique name on this list has to be the Memory of Autumn Leaves and what makes this Diamond even more special is that when mounted, it became part of one of the most expensive pairs of earrings in history!
This is because the other stone in the pair was the The Dream of Autumn Leaves, which is a 16 carat Pink Diamond and even though they were sold separately, the combined price was over $57 million.
The 14.54 carat, fancy vivid blue Memory of Autumn Leaves made up a large part of the total price for the two stones, selling for $42 million.
3: The Blue Moon of Josephine
Weight: 12.03 Carats
Sale: Sotheby’s, Geneva, 11th November 2015
Sale Price USD: $48.4 Million
Sale Price GBP: £31.9 Million
Originally know simply as The Blue Moon, this 12.03 carat, fancy vivid blue, internally flawless Diamond set a few records when it sold for $48.4 million in 2015.
Not only did it become the most expensive Blue Diamond ever sold but it also set the record for the highest price per carat of any gemstone at just over $4 million per carat.
The Josephine part of the stones names was added by the buyer, Joseph Lau who named the stone after his young daughter and gave it to her as a gift, which is a pretty impressive gift.
2: The De Beers Blue
Weight: 15.10 Carats
Sale: Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 27th April 2022
Sale Price USD: $57.4 Million
Sale Price GBP: £45.8 Million
The second stone on the list was one of the first major stones to be offered for sale following the pandemic and understandably, there was a lot of interest surround this stone, with many speculating that it could become the most expensive Blue Diamond ever sold.
But as you can see from this list, it just missed out on top spot but the 15.10 carat, internally flawless, fancy vivid blue stone is one of the finest ever sold and as the GIA stated in a monograph that accompanied the stone ‘To achieve a Fancy Vivid grade with a step cut or emerald cut the inherent body-color has to be stronger than virtually every other fancy shape.‘ shows that this is one of the best examples of a Blue Diamond in the world.
1: The Oppenheimer Blue Diamond
Weight: 14.62 Carats
Sale: Christie’s, Geneva, 18th May 2016
Sale Price USD: $57.8 Million
Sale Price GBP: £39.5 Million
Coming in at the top is the absolutely stunning 14.62 carat, Fancy Vivid Blue, VVS2 Clarity Oppenheimer Blue Diamond, which smashed all kinds of records when it sold in 2016.
The $57.8 million sale price, not only beat the previous record set by the Blue Moon of Josephine a few months earlier but also made it the most expensive gem of any kind ever sold and was the first to sell for more than $50 million.
It held on to the title of Most Expensive Diamond for nearly a year until The Pink Star Diamond sold for over $71 million in April 2017.
Conclusion
I hope you will agree that those are some very impressive Blue Diamonds and some equally impressive prices and when combined they come to over $300 million!
It just shows that rare, beautiful and desirable also often means very expensive as well and it will be interesting to see which Diamond will knock The Oppenheimer off the top of the list and it is going to have to be something very special.
But I hoped you enjoyed reading this list and enjoying the beauty of these fine specimens as much as I did creating it.
I'm Paul Haywood FGA DGA, a fully qualified Gemmologist and Diamond Grader from the Gemmological Association of Great Britain and a lover of all things jewellery.