Russia’s Alrosa PJSC for diamond production held its first auction for a unique Dynasty collection of diamonds.
The collection is composed of five diamonds of different sizes, with the biggest weighing 51.38 carats. The company offered its collection for sale for $10 million in a closed auction in Moscow.
During the auction, four out of five stones were sold, however, the biggest one is still waiting for a buyer.
The auctioneers said the sums earned by Alrosa after the sale of the stones exceeded the initial price by 30 to 52 percent, while the company had to withdraw the larger stone.
In a post-auction statement, the company said: “In the case of the biggest diamond, the market was not prepared for the remarkable rise in the average price of the carat. Given that the stone weighs 51.38 carats, and because the company’s strategy is based on getting the higher price for big stones, we decided to withdraw Dynasty’s biggest diamond.”
Speaking about the Dynasty Collection, Alrosa said it was formed and cut out of a single 179-carat stone extracted from its mines in the eastern Russian republic of Yakutia.
The original stone was named Romanov after the imperial dynasty that ruled Russia until 1917, and to which belonged the famous Russian Emperor Peter I.
Alrosa did not select the collection’s name by coincidence, but because it aims, through the refining of the collection, to revive the traditions of the early skilled workers who polished diamonds during the reign of Emperor Peter I in the early 18th century.
The other stones also hold the names of Russian families that played a role in the country over various stages in the country’s history: “Sheremetyev” (16.67 carats), Orlov (5.05 carats), Vorontsov (1.73 carats) and “Usupov” (1.39 carats).
