The Golden Canary, a elaborate deep brownish-yellow diamond weighing a colossal 303.10 carats, is among the largest polished diamonds on the planet and the biggest flawless or internally flawless diamond ever graded by the Gemological Institute of America. Will probably be the highest lot of Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels sale in New York on December 7. Its estimate is $15 million, and it’s being supplied with out reserve, with bidding beginning at simply $1.

Additionally it is the most recent in a surge of uncommon, high-quality fancy-colored diamonds which have been positioned on public sale this yr. A bit harking back to a interval roughly from 2015 until 2018 when distinctive fancy-colored diamonds have been often setting world document costs.

The Golden Canary was previously often called the “Incomparable Diamond,” a 407.48-carat pure fancy deep-yellow defend step-cut diamond as soon as owned (not less than for some time) by luxurious model, Mouawad. It was re-cut into its present type, a traditional pear-shape, previous to this sale. Sotheby’s describes the newly lower gem as having a “extra elegant” profile with a “deeper yellow coloration” that’s “brighter in hue.” It’s being promoted as internally flawless.

“The re-cut of the Incomparable to the present 303.10 carat pear modified good is to take a look at the diamond as new; a recreation bringing to bear the advances in expertise, laptop modeling and visible analysis out there immediately,” the Gemological Institute of America mentioned in its grading report. “Every part from the orientation of the stone to its form and chopping type, has been thought of.”

A few diamond specialists are largely in settlement with this evaluation.

“It takes guts to chop this diamond. Whoever the house owners are felt that there’s going to be marketplace for it,” mentioned Benjamin Goldberg of William Goldberg, a New York agency that makes a speciality of assertion diamonds and diamond jewels. “The brand new lower improved the gem by one hundred pc.”

“I believe they brightened the stone,” added David Doppelt of Jonathan Doppelt, a New York diamond jewellery home that makes a speciality of yellow diamonds. “These brownish stones may very well be opaque trying. I believe renaming it the Golden Canary was finished as a result of they need to spotlight the truth that it’s a yellow diamond. Previously it was an excessive amount of like a brown diamond.” (Yellow diamonds are also referred to as canary diamonds.)

This diamond has a certain quantity of provenance hooked up to it. The unique tough that the diamond was crafted from was found within the Democratic Republic of Congo within the early Nineteen Eighties. Its unique measurement was 890 carats. It was first offered to the general public in 1984 on the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of Pure Historical past.

Over time, the tough was lower into 15 completed stones, from which the biggest of the ensuing diamonds was the Fancy Deep Brownish-Yellow weighing 407.49 carats that grew to become often called the “Incomparable.” The shield-shaped step lower, with its unusually formed sides and small desk, preserved a lot of the form and bulk of the unique tough,” Sotheby’s says.

The Incomparable appeared in quite a few museum exhibitions, together with the American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York in 1997, Diamants on the Muséum Nationwide d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris in 2001, and as a part of The Nature of Diamonds, an exhibition that toured The Royal Ontario Museum and the Houston Museum of Science in 2008.

The Golden Canary is the most recent of quite a lot of distinctive fancy-colored diamonds which have come up for public sale this yr. Among the many excessive factors up to now this yr are:

The costs for each diamonds shattered their excessive estimates.

Among the many upcoming gross sales are:

Doppelt and Goldberg have been each shocked by the costs the Williamson Pink and the De Beers Blue achieved however anticipate that these upcoming gross sales will proceed this pattern.

“5 million a carat for an 11-carat pink is loopy and but not loopy,” Goldberg says. “Pinks are nonetheless outperforming blues. Yellows are experiencing a elevate in costs. They have been down for a however good ones are exhausting to search out.”

Doppelt says the Golden Canary sale has the chance to be a milestone occasion.

“A brownish yellow diamond has by no means been so coveted by collectors. There’s a number of buzz hooked up to this stone, and it ought to create buzz for smaller yellow and brownish yellows as effectively,” he says.

“I’m tremendous excited to get an opportunity to carry a gem with such historical past hooked up to it and defiantly fascinated by taking part within the sale.”