GENEVA: An exceptionally rare 19-carat pink diamond goes under the hammer in Geneva Tuesday, when it could fetch $50 million, setting a new record for a stone of its kind.
The Pink Legacy used to belong to the Oppenheimer family, which for decades ran the De Beers diamond mining company, but auction house Christie’s refused to say who the current owner was.
Christie’s international head of jewelry, Rahul Kadakia, described The Pink Legacy as “one of the world’s greatest diamonds.”
The rectangular-cut diamond has been graded “fancy vivid” — the highest possible grade of color intensity.
Christie’s has noted that in the salesroom, fancy vivid pink diamonds over 10 carats are “virtually unheard of” and that only four vivid pink diamonds or over 10 carats have ever been offered at auction.
One of them, the nearly 15-carat Pink Promise, was sold last November at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong for $32.5 million. That amounts to $2.176 million per carat, which remains the world auction record price per carat for any pink diamond.
Eddie LeVian, CEO of jewelers Le Vian, said that record could fall at Tuesday’s auction, which is being held at the ultra-luxurious Four Seasons des Bergues hotel on the banks of Lake Geneva.
“We’ve recently witnessed a meteoric rise in the number of the world’s ultra-high net worth individuals who view rare, natural fancy color diamonds as investments,” Le Vian said in a statement.
“I therefore believe the Pink Legacy will beat the current world auction record,” he added.
The stone was discovered in a South African mine around a century ago and was probably cut in the 1920 and has not been altered since, Christie’s said.
“Imagine a domino that you have cut the corners off of,” Jean-Marc Lunel, an international jewelry specialist at Christie’s, recently said, pointing out that the cut is a “classical so-called emerald cut,” which stands out from the typical, more rounded, multi-facetted cuts used today.
The classic rectangular cut is traditionally used for white stones, but is rare for pink diamonds.
Christie’s said the Pink Legacy is “the largest and finest Fancy Vivid Pink diamond ever offered at auction by the company,” calling the stone “incomparable.”
“It is probably the most beautiful (specimen) ever presented at public auction,” Lunel said.
‘Incomparable’ pink diamond could smash record at Geneva auction
‘Incomparable’ pink diamond could smash record at Geneva auction
- The rectangular-cut diamond has been graded ‘fancy vivid’ — the highest possible grade of color intensity
- The classic rectangular cut is traditionally used for white stones, but is rare for pink diamonds
Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users
WASHINGTON: Oracle on Tuesday said issues faced by US users of social media app TikTok are the result of a temporary weather-related power outage at an Oracle data center, after California Governor Gavin Newsom linked the issues to what he called the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
“Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok,” Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in an email.
A powerful winter storm struck much of the US over the weekend.
“The challenges US TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve,” Egbert said.
On Monday, Newsom said his office was launching a review to determine if TikTok’s content moderation practices violated state law.
“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” Newsom’s office had said.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalized a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC that will secure US data, to avert a ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans. The deal was praised by Trump.
The joint venture has denied censorship, saying “it would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
Each of the joint venture’s three managing investors — cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX — will hold a stake of 15 percent. The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1 percent of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9 percent.
The joint venture said on Tuesday it “made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner” but noted that US users may still face some technical issues, including when posting new content.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
Last week’s deal was a milestone for TikTok after years of battles with the US government over Washington’s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.
