Posted on 10/22/2009 2:21:06 AM PDT by Daffynition
NEW YORK – A square, 32.01-carat emerald-cut diamond that billionaire philanthropist Leonore Annenberg bought for her 90th birthday sold for $7.7 million at auction on Wednesday.
About the size of a walnut, the flawless, colorless diamond sits on a ring designed by Manhattan jeweler David Webb. It is flanked by two pear-shaped diamonds, one of them 1.61 carats and the other 1.51 carats.
The ring was offered for sale by Annenberg's estate. Christie's auction house did not identify the buyer, who bid by phone.
Annenberg died in March at the age of 91. She served as U.S. chief of protocol during President Ronald Reagan's first term — a position that carried the rank of ambassador. Her husband, Walter Annenberg, a billionaire publisher and ambassador to Britain under President Richard Nixon, died in 2002.
The big diamond "combines the best of the four C's: top color, perfect clarity, ideal cut and excellent weight," said Francois Curiel, international head of Christie's jewels.
With the "impeccable provenance of the Annenberg name, you have one of the finest gems to appear on the market for many years," he said.
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Diamonds:
Don’t like ‘em.
Buy me something useful like software, leather garments or weapons, instead.
$7.7 million could build a nice, self contained hideaway way back in the mountains. With a nice lake.
Reminding us of the millions of dollars wasted by Ayers/Obama donated by the Annenberg Challenge.
My suspicion is that the money went to ACORN. ALL OF IT
And we see how well those millions helped the poor children in Chicago.
Or a nice sailboat for a round the world cruise.
Humans are odd creatures. Some of us will spend two hundred times what the average American makes in a year just to buy a pretty rock.
True.
So gimme a honkin’ big diamond that I can sell and buy something useful....:)
It’s just carbon.
Same here. I don’t get excited about material things anyway. Stuff like jewelery, ends up owning you.
Save for a reliable watch, I don’t see the point of wearing glitter.
They won’t let us have baubles in the convent.
...with it’s own set of offsets. ;)
I’m so with you. What a waste of money IMO. I can’t sit up at night in the desperate attempts at beating another level with a plain ole ring!
Better yet, take me on a vacation somewhere. That’s what I dream of.
What makes you suspect President Reagan’s chief of protocol was involved with ACORN?
Did you ever hear of the Annenberg Challenge?
I agree, that kind of cash could buy a nice hideaway. I have been studying such for fifty years starting with Cold War fallout shelters (I was a kid, then).
But (real question) doesn’t Google Earth and other satellite surveillance make escape shelters like that obsolete? Unless it’s an underground bunker?
Anyway, kind of sad how a ninety year old woman buys herself that huge rock, then is gone from this earth a year later. Heck, I’m sixty and I keep asking myself, should I still be buying guns like they’re going out of style?
It’s so beautiful.
I would love to hold it in my hands for one minute.
Looks like cubic zirconia to me.....I think they’ve been had.
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