Blue and Pink Diamonds Show Price Stability in Q3 2019

Prices of fancy color diamonds remained stable in the third quarter of 2019, according to the Fancy Color Diamond Index (FCDI) published by the Fancy Color Research Foundation.

The prices of pinks remained stable this quarter. The slight decrease of 0.1 percent overall was due to a 3 percent decrease in the 5 carat fancy pink category. However, all fancy vivid pinks rose by 0.4 percent, with 1 and 3 carat fancy vivid pinks increasing by 1.6 percent and 1.7 percent.

Blue diamond prices increased just 0.1 percent. The sharpest increase came the 1.5 carat fancy vivid blue category (2.1 percent). Over the past 12 months, the price of this category has appreciated by 10.6 percent. The sharpest drop during this quarter (-2.2 percent) was in the 1.5 carat fancy intense blue category.

The prices of yellow diamonds decreased 1.5 percent during Q3. The largest price decrease of 3.5 percent was in the 3 carat fancy vivid yellow category. Only 2 carat fancy intense yellow diamonds did not experience a fall in prices.

Fancy Colour Diamonds

Continuing a trend seen during the past year, the fancy vivid category outperformed (0.1 percent) the fancy intense (-0.5 percent) and fancy (-1.0 percent) categories.

Source: DCLA

Blue and Pink Diamonds Show Price Stability in Q3 2019

Prices of fancy color diamonds remained stable in the third quarter of 2019, according to the Fancy Color Diamond Index (FCDI) published by the Fancy Color Research Foundation.

The prices of pinks remained stable this quarter. The slight decrease of 0.1 percent overall was due to a 3 percent decrease in the 5 carat fancy pink category. However, all fancy vivid pinks rose by 0.4 percent, with 1 and 3 carat fancy vivid pinks increasing by 1.6 percent and 1.7 percent.

Blue diamond prices increased just 0.1 percent. The sharpest increase came the 1.5 carat fancy vivid blue category (2.1 percent). Over the past 12 months, the price of this category has appreciated by 10.6 percent. The sharpest drop during this quarter (-2.2 percent) was in the 1.5 carat fancy intense blue category.

The prices of yellow diamonds decreased 1.5 percent during Q3. The largest price decrease of 3.5 percent was in the 3 carat fancy vivid yellow category. Only 2 carat fancy intense yellow diamonds did not experience a fall in prices.

Fancy Colour Diamonds

Continuing a trend seen during the past year, the fancy vivid category outperformed (0.1 percent) the fancy intense (-0.5 percent) and fancy (-1.0 percent) categories.

Source: DCLA

HRD Antwerp Receives Two Takeover Bids

The International Gemological Institute (IGI) and industry veteran Peter Meeus have put in rival bids to acquire HRD Antwerp.

Meeus, HRD’s former managing director, last week submitted a proposal to buy at least 51% of the lab in partnership with two unnamed individuals, he told Rapaport News Wednesday. IGI also placed a bid for the lab in the past two or three months, sources said.

“Although HRD has phenomenally lost its market share, the brand awareness is still there, especially in the Middle East, and also in India and Asia,” said Meeus, who headed HRD from 1999 to 2005. “With the whole issue of synthetics, it is my strong belief that once the consumer starts to know about it, all natural diamonds will be sold with a certificate, so this business will grow. The ambition is to bring it back to where we were, and we think we have a formula for that, which will multiply or amplify the number of HRD certificates globally, with a focus on the East.”

Chinese conglomerate Fosun International acquired an 80% stake in IGI last year. IGI CEO Roland Lorie declined to comment, but confirmed that the company had signed a nondisclosure agreement.

The Antwerp World Diamond Centre, which owns HRD, elected not to comment.

Source: DCLA

HRD Antwerp Receives Two Takeover Bids

The International Gemological Institute (IGI) and industry veteran Peter Meeus have put in rival bids to acquire HRD Antwerp.

Meeus, HRD’s former managing director, last week submitted a proposal to buy at least 51% of the lab in partnership with two unnamed individuals, he told Rapaport News Wednesday. IGI also placed a bid for the lab in the past two or three months, sources said.

“Although HRD has phenomenally lost its market share, the brand awareness is still there, especially in the Middle East, and also in India and Asia,” said Meeus, who headed HRD from 1999 to 2005. “With the whole issue of synthetics, it is my strong belief that once the consumer starts to know about it, all natural diamonds will be sold with a certificate, so this business will grow. The ambition is to bring it back to where we were, and we think we have a formula for that, which will multiply or amplify the number of HRD certificates globally, with a focus on the East.”

Chinese conglomerate Fosun International acquired an 80% stake in IGI last year. IGI CEO Roland Lorie declined to comment, but confirmed that the company had signed a nondisclosure agreement.

The Antwerp World Diamond Centre, which owns HRD, elected not to comment.

Source: DCLA

Family sues Christie’s over $39m diamond sale

he son of a high-flying Italian senator is taking Christie’s to court in New York City this week (WEDS NOV 6) over the sale of one of the world’s most expensive diamonds, which he claims was stolen from his family.

Amedeo Angiolillo, who now lives in New York, argues that the auction house proceeded with the sale of the $40 million gem (£31m) despite his raising concerns about its provenance. The Princie Diamond, as it is known, as bought by a member of the Qatari royal family.

Christie’s, however, insists that the family members have no proof the diamond belongs to them and, furthermore, their client – who bought it from another family member – had every right to sell the stone.

The story began 300 years ago, when the 34-carat pink diamond was first recorded, in India. It came from the famed Golconda mines near Hyderabad, 400 miles east of Mumbai. The diamond was from a fine “family” – other celebrated Golconda stones include the Agra Diamond, the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian, the Koh-i-Noor, which forms part of the Crown Jewels.

The diamond was first known as being part of the collection of the Nizam, or king, of Hyderabad.

It was passed down through the generations until the last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, decided to sell it in the late 1940s through Sotheby’s. It was bought by a Paris jeweller, and then sold on.

In 1960 a flamboyant Italian senator, Renato Angiolillo, purchased the diamond at Van Cleef & Arpels – the same year he married his second wife, Maria Girani Angiolillo,

It had been named “Princie” in honour of the 14-year-old Prince of Baroda, a former state of India, who came to a party that year at the Van Cleef & Arpels store in Paris, along with his mother.

Candida Morvillo an Italian investigative journalist who has been following the story of the diamond for years, said that Angiolillo’s son Amedeo told her that his father bought the diamond in Paris.

“My father bought the diamond in the ‘60s,” he reportedly said.

“He had lost a lot of money at the casino in Monte Carlo, about 700 or 800 million lire.

“My father wanted to prove that they are still rich and solid, so he bought that diamond.”

Angiolillo, founder of Italy’s Il Tempo newspaper, died in 1973, aged 72.

His glamorous widow, known as “the queen of the Rome salons” for her lively soirees of political debate, died in 2009.

When Amedeo Angiolillo went through his stepmother’s extensive art and jewellery collection, he was shocked to find the diamond missing.

Unbeknown to him, his stepbrother – Girani’s son from a previous relationship – Marco Milella had taken the stone.

The question is whether the diamond was rightfully Mr Angiolillo’s or Mr Milella’s.

Under Italian law at the time, as court documents explain, all of the late senator’s possessions should have gone to his children, not his spouse, unless they were explicitly left to her.

His will said his wife should keep their home near the Spanish Steps in Rome and its lavish furnishings. But nothing else was mentioned.

So the lawsuit argues that the rest of the estate, including the diamond, belongs to his descendants – Mr Angiolillo and four grandchildren are the plaintiffs in this case.

But the auction house and its co-defendants said that the diamond, set in a ring, was a gift to Mr Milella’s mother and so was owned by her when her husband died. And even if the transfer of ownership between them was not official, the defendants argue, the way she kept control of the ring in the decades that followed his death made it legally hers.

By 2013, the diamond was long gone. Mr Milella had sold it years earlier for nearly $20 million to a prominent gems dealer in Switzerland named David Gol.

Mr Gol, who has said he believes Mr Milella had clear title to the diamond, then worked with Christie’s to sell it as part of a jewellery auction in 2013.

“Prior to the 2013 auction of the diamond, the two main representatives of the family expressly withdrew any objection to the sale,” Christie’s said.

“Then two years after the successful sale they sued to claim inheritance rights to the proceeds without providing any significant new information to support a title claim.”

The auction house described the matter dismissively, as an “inheritance dispute among family members.”

Source: DCLA

Family sues Christie’s over $39m diamond sale

he son of a high-flying Italian senator is taking Christie’s to court in New York City this week (WEDS NOV 6) over the sale of one of the world’s most expensive diamonds, which he claims was stolen from his family.

Amedeo Angiolillo, who now lives in New York, argues that the auction house proceeded with the sale of the $40 million gem (£31m) despite his raising concerns about its provenance. The Princie Diamond, as it is known, as bought by a member of the Qatari royal family.

Christie’s, however, insists that the family members have no proof the diamond belongs to them and, furthermore, their client – who bought it from another family member – had every right to sell the stone.

The story began 300 years ago, when the 34-carat pink diamond was first recorded, in India. It came from the famed Golconda mines near Hyderabad, 400 miles east of Mumbai. The diamond was from a fine “family” – other celebrated Golconda stones include the Agra Diamond, the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian, the Koh-i-Noor, which forms part of the Crown Jewels.

The diamond was first known as being part of the collection of the Nizam, or king, of Hyderabad.

It was passed down through the generations until the last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, decided to sell it in the late 1940s through Sotheby’s. It was bought by a Paris jeweller, and then sold on.

In 1960 a flamboyant Italian senator, Renato Angiolillo, purchased the diamond at Van Cleef & Arpels – the same year he married his second wife, Maria Girani Angiolillo,

It had been named “Princie” in honour of the 14-year-old Prince of Baroda, a former state of India, who came to a party that year at the Van Cleef & Arpels store in Paris, along with his mother.

Candida Morvillo an Italian investigative journalist who has been following the story of the diamond for years, said that Angiolillo’s son Amedeo told her that his father bought the diamond in Paris.

“My father bought the diamond in the ‘60s,” he reportedly said.

“He had lost a lot of money at the casino in Monte Carlo, about 700 or 800 million lire.

“My father wanted to prove that they are still rich and solid, so he bought that diamond.”

Angiolillo, founder of Italy’s Il Tempo newspaper, died in 1973, aged 72.

His glamorous widow, known as “the queen of the Rome salons” for her lively soirees of political debate, died in 2009.

When Amedeo Angiolillo went through his stepmother’s extensive art and jewellery collection, he was shocked to find the diamond missing.

Unbeknown to him, his stepbrother – Girani’s son from a previous relationship – Marco Milella had taken the stone.

The question is whether the diamond was rightfully Mr Angiolillo’s or Mr Milella’s.

Under Italian law at the time, as court documents explain, all of the late senator’s possessions should have gone to his children, not his spouse, unless they were explicitly left to her.

His will said his wife should keep their home near the Spanish Steps in Rome and its lavish furnishings. But nothing else was mentioned.

So the lawsuit argues that the rest of the estate, including the diamond, belongs to his descendants – Mr Angiolillo and four grandchildren are the plaintiffs in this case.

But the auction house and its co-defendants said that the diamond, set in a ring, was a gift to Mr Milella’s mother and so was owned by her when her husband died. And even if the transfer of ownership between them was not official, the defendants argue, the way she kept control of the ring in the decades that followed his death made it legally hers.

By 2013, the diamond was long gone. Mr Milella had sold it years earlier for nearly $20 million to a prominent gems dealer in Switzerland named David Gol.

Mr Gol, who has said he believes Mr Milella had clear title to the diamond, then worked with Christie’s to sell it as part of a jewellery auction in 2013.

“Prior to the 2013 auction of the diamond, the two main representatives of the family expressly withdrew any objection to the sale,” Christie’s said.

“Then two years after the successful sale they sued to claim inheritance rights to the proceeds without providing any significant new information to support a title claim.”

The auction house described the matter dismissively, as an “inheritance dispute among family members.”

Source: DCLA

De Beers Lowers Global Diamond-Jewelry Estimate

De Beers has restated its estimation of global diamond-jewelry sales following a new study valuing the diamond content in jewelry purchases since the 2008 recession. The group also revised its production data to reflect lower output than previously believed, stemming from an overestimation of the artisanal mining sector.

Global diamond jewelry demand rose 2.4% to $76 billion in 2018, driven by growth in the US and China, De Beers said in its annual Diamond Insight Report published last week. However, that figure was below the $82 billion it had originally reported for 2017, as the company gained new insight relating to the elements that are included when valuing jewelry, De Beers explained.

The company revised its estimation for 2009 to 2018 following studies it conducted with retailers relating to the content of diamond-jewelry purchases and the structure of the trade, as well as its “Diamond Acquisition Study” with consumers. The revised figures reflect mainly the value of sales in the US, and are more consistent with the total jewelry retail value stated by the US Commerce Department, De Beers noted. The government agency last year revised down its estimation of US jewelry retail sales.

De Beers maintained its assessment of global polished-diamond demand, which saw a 2% rise to $25.3 billion for 2018, a figure that is included in the jewelry sales total. That suggests there was an overestimation of other elements contributing to the overall jewelry value, such as the value of the metal used, a company representative explained.

De Beers used third-party researchers to obtain information from retailers about their diamond sales, including the description of the diamond, the metal used and the full breakdown of the piece. From that information, the company calculated the price per carat of the diamonds and was therefore able to understand the value of the diamond content and the proportion of the total for which it accounts.

“The study revealed that the share of the polished wholesale value in the overall jewelry retail value had increased in the US after the financial crisis of 2008,” the company noted in the report. “The adjustments made resulted in a new lower diamond-jewelry market estimate for the US and globally.”

Sales in the US grew 5% to $36 billion in 2018, accounting for 49% of the total, according to the research. In China, consumer demand for diamonds rose 3% in local currency and 5% by dollar value to $10 billion, with growth slowing considerably in the second half of the year when the US-China trade war escalated, De Beers noted. Demand also grew in Japan, buoyed by the appreciation of the yen against the dollar, while the market declined in India and the Gulf.

De Beers observed that consumers were increasingly tending toward smaller center diamonds in their engagement-ring purchases, but with more side stones and accents. Other trends influencing demand included a shift toward branded products, with 36% of diamond engagement rings by volume being branded, compared to 22% five years ago. Greater confidence in online buying is also spurring growth, helping chain stores and prestige brands gain market share at the expense of specialist independents, the report stated.

De Beers expects growth to continue in 2019, supported by macroeconomic fundamentals. However, dissipating fiscal stimulus and rising recession fears could prove to be a drag on growth in the US in 2020, the company cautioned.

Production levels down

Meanwhile, global diamond production in 2018 fell 2.7% to 154 million carats, with its value up an estimated 2.4% to $17.4 billion in 2018, according to De Beers. In last year’s Insight Report, the company said 2017 output stood at 164 million carats valued at $17.5 billion. De Beers lowered its estimation of global rough production after it commissioned a third-party study of the artisanal mining sector.

“The nature of the informal sector is such that there is less information available to accurately estimate production to a high level of confidence,” a spokesperson explained in an email. “The report concluded that our previous estimates of informal production were likely too high, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

The report outlined growth in global diamond production, rough sales, polished wholesale demand and diamond-jewelry sales, as presented in the following table:

De Beers insight report

Data from 2019 De Beers Insight report, with Rapaport estimates for percentage growth where it wasn’t provided.

Source: DCLA