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Friday, November 19, 2010

Pink diamond sells for record $46M at auction


GENEVA – A rare pink diamond smashed the world record for a jewel at auction Tuesday, selling for more than $46 million to a well-known gem dealer.
London jeweler Laurence Graff paid $46,158,674, for the 24.78-carat "fancy intense pink" diamond, which he immediately named "The Graff Pink."
"It is the most fabulous diamond I've seen in the history of my career and I'm delighted to have bought it," Graff said in a statement released by auction house Sotheby's, which offered the stone at its Geneva sale.
The sale price was almost double the $24.3 million achieved by the blue 35.56-carat Wittelsbach-Graff diamond in 2008. That was also bought by Graff.
"This is the highest price ever bid for a jewel at auction," said David Bennett, the head of Sotheby's jewelry division, as the auction room in Geneva's luxury Beau Rivage hotel erupted into applause.
"Everybody was surprised it went that high," Mart van Drunen, a jeweler from Amsterdam, commented after the sale. "He clearly wants to have all the rarest diamonds in the world."
Rich buyers from developing countries have been dipping their hand in the high end of the market in recent years, but experts say emerging middle classes particularly in India are doing as much if not more to lift prices. Ongoing doubts about the stock market have also helped drive up the value of gold and precious jewels, said van Drunen.
Four bidders competed for the pink diamond, which was last sold 60 years ago by New York jeweler Harry Winston. The seller chose to remain anonymous, said Sotheby's.
Graff had the blue diamond recut after purchase, to the displeasure of purists who considered it an act of vandalism against a unique object. It wasn't immediately known whether he planned to alter the pink diamond, which Sotheby's says has a flaw unnoticeable to the naked eye but may be graded as internally flawless after re-polishing.
Sotheby's said it sold jewels worth $105.1 million Tuesday, also a world record for a single sale. The auction included items once belonging to Christina Onassis, the daughter of the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, and Cristina Ford, the second wife of Henry Ford's grandson Henry Ford II."I think this tells you a bit about the health of the market," Bennett told reporters after the sale.

A Sotheby's employee displays a 24.78 carat fancy intense pink emerald-cut diamond ring during an auction …

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Poison via email...

Got this advert via email today...

Tempting...

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Gold hits record on inflation worry, Europe debt

By Rujun Shen

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Gold rose to a record for the fourth straight session on Tuesday as inflation worries and euro zone sovereign debt woes continue to lure investors to precious metals.

Spot silver hit a new 30-year high of $28.16, and palladium extended gains to a new nine-year peak of $714.25. Spot gold rose to an all-time high of $1,414.60 an ounce, before easing to $1,413.50 by 0706 GMT.

"Liquidity is being thrown into the market place, the dollar is being debased as a way the U.S. government can get out of debt obligations, while Asian central banks keep buying dollars and keep their currencies cheap," said a Singapore-based trader.

"Hard assets are just going to continue to benefit. There is a good argument for these metals to go up. There is a lot of momentum to buy."

The target for this round of rally could be $1,475 or even $1,500, in the next three weeks, the trader added.

Vietnam's central bank said it would relax a gold import ban and allow in "reasonable volumes" to stabilise the domestic market, a move that is expected support sentiment.

Holdings in the world's largest gold-backed exchange traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust, gained 2.43 tonnes to 1,294.196 tonnes, their highest so far this month.

Gold is expected to rise towards $1,430 per ounce, as the uptrend is steady and a wave "5" is advancing, said Wang Tao, a Reuters technical analyst.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Lunar New Year 2011 coins

Christmas is not even over... and UOB has already started to send out its brochure for the Gold Coins to usher in the year of the rabbits!

Must say that the collection for the 2011 Lunar New Year of the Rabbit looks pretty nice.
Personally, I have not purchased any such coins from UOB, as I purchase mine from Singapore Mint on a yearly basis.

So perhaps, this year, I will have an option?