The Golden Canary, a flowery deep brownish-yellow diamond weighing a colossal 303.10 carats, is without doubt one of the largest polished diamonds on the earth and the biggest flawless or internally flawless diamond ever graded by the Gemological Institute of America. It will likely 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 provided with out reserve, with bidding beginning at simply $1.

It is usually the most recent in a surge of uncommon, high-quality fancy-colored diamonds which were positioned on public sale this yr. A bit paying homage to a interval roughly from 2015 until 2018 when distinctive fancy-colored diamonds had been usually setting world report costs.

The Golden Canary was previously referred to as the “Incomparable Diamond,” a 407.48-carat pure fancy deep-yellow protect step-cut diamond as soon as owned (not less than for some time) by luxurious model, Mouawad. It was re-cut into its present kind, a basic pear-shape, previous to this sale. Sotheby’s describes the newly minimize gem as having a “extra elegant” profile with a “deeper yellow colour” 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 know-how, pc modeling and visible analysis obtainable at this time,” the Gemological Institute of America stated in its grading report. “All the things from the orientation of the stone to its form and slicing 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,” stated Benjamin Goldberg of William Goldberg, a New York agency that makes a speciality of assertion diamonds and diamond jewels. “The brand new minimize improved the gem by 100%.”

“I feel 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 could possibly be opaque wanting. I feel renaming it the Golden Canary was carried out as a result of they wish 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 called canary diamonds.)

This diamond has a specific amount of provenance connected 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 authentic dimension 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 minimize 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 referred to as the “Incomparable.” The shield-shaped step minimize, with its unusually formed aspects 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 a lot of distinctive fancy-colored diamonds which have come up for public sale this yr. Among the many excessive factors thus far this yr are:

The costs for each diamonds shattered their excessive estimates.

Among the many upcoming gross sales are:

Doppelt and Goldberg had been each shocked by the costs the Williamson Pink and the De Beers Blue achieved however count on 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 had been down for a however good ones are exhausting to search out.”

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

“A brownish yellow diamond has by no means been so coveted by collectors. There’s plenty of buzz connected 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 connected to it and defiantly all in favour of taking part within the sale.”