Named for a scion of De Beers, the ultra-rare Oppenheimer Blue diamond fetched nearly $60 million -- and captivated the world.
The air in the Geneva auction room was electric. All eyes were fixated on a single object: the Oppenheimer Blue diamond, a 14.62-carat masterpiece -- the largest vivid blue diamond ever to appear at auction. You didn't need to be an expert to see that this mesmerizing stone, with its deep, saturated blue hue, was nothing short of miraculous. This wasn't just another sale. It was history in the making.
As the bidding began at the Christie's auction in Geneva on May 18, 2016, the atmosphere grew tense. At $38 million (the low estimate), one contender dropped out. Two remained, locked in a battle that stretched for several minutes, until the gavel finally came down at jaw-dropping $57.5 million, or $3.9 million per carat. The room erupted in applause for the new world record.
The Oppenheimer Blue diamond instantly joined the pantheon of auction legends, its record later surpassed only by the Pink Star diamond in 2017, which sold for $71.2 million. A rare diamond of this caliber is still the only object worth $60 million that you can stash in your pocket -- portable wealth, a concept collectors find particularly irresistible.
Only a handful of diamonds are so memorable that the mere mention of their name conjures an image, a story. The Oppenheimer Blue diamond is one of them. Named for its previous owner, Sir Philip Oppenheimer, one of the world's foremost diamond connoisseurs and a scion of the De Beers dynasty, the stone's pedigree is beyond reproach.
Oppenheimer began working for the family business in 1934, sorting and valuing diamonds before eventually leading the Diamond Syndicate in London for 45 years. With access to world's most extraordinary diamonds, the fact he chose to keep this one for himself is a testament to its rarity.
"I remember the stone well," said Max Fawcett, Christies' Global Head of Jewelry, who first saw it at an exhibit at Verdura in New York a year before the sale. "I thought, it's the most beautiful blue diamond I've ever seen."
That's why nearly a decade after it was sold to a private collector, we are still talking about it. It exists at the intersection where geology, craftsmanship, and human fascination intertwine to almost mythical proportions.
First and foremost, rarity is a driving factor in the price. Natural blue diamonds are among Earth's rare wonders. Only about 0.02% of all diamonds mined are naturally blue, the result of trace elements of boron atoms in the stone's structure. But a fancy vivid blue of this size and purity? That's once-in-a-lifetime.
Beauty amplifies the stone's allure and record price. The Oppenheimer's deep blue color is evenly dispersed throughout in a rectangular step-cut, a choice few cutters would dare attempt. It was offered in a Verdura platinum ring setting.
"Fancy colored diamonds are not often cut as round or emerald cuts, because they don't lend themselves to keeping an even color throughout the diamond," said Fawcett. "So, when you have a large size emerald cut that is completely saturated right from the top to the bottom, that speaks to the quality of that stone." The blue diamond was believed to have come from the Cullinan mine in South Africa, known as one of the rarified sources for blue diamonds.
The Oppenheimer Blue diamond also came to auction when suddenly blue diamonds were fetching unprecedented prices. Keep in mind, vivid blue diamonds are so exceedingly rare that when a single stone comes to market, it makes headlines.
Just two years earlier, the Mellon Blue, a 9.51-carat fancy vivid blue diamond, shattered records when it sold at Sotheby's for $32.6 million. It's coming up for auction again at Christie's in Geneva on November 11, 2025.
"That stone was the first diamond to ever make over $3 million per carat, and everyone was extremely excited," said Fawcett. "The Mellon Blue set a new benchmark for blue diamonds at auction." Then came the Blue Moon, a 12.03-carat fancy vivid blue diamond that sold for $48.4 million in 2015.
The Oppenheimer Blue diamond clearly came at the height of the market for rare blue diamonds, but Fawcett still believes it is a good investment based on decades of consistently strong selling history. "There are always peaks and troughs, but the rarest things have gone up in value over time, and that is the same for all colored diamonds," said Fawcett.
The Oppenheimer Blue diamond was purchased by an unnamed individual who, according to Fawcett still owns the stone. "The air is extremely thin at this level where people will pay 20, 30, 40, or 50 million for a diamond," says Fawcett. "Unlike the art world, where if you have the best Picasso in the world for $20 million, you'll probably have 20 or 30 people trying to buy it and driving up the price. In jewelry, there's not so many clients who are willing to dispose of that kind of money on a single stone."
Yet there remains a magic and allure in rare diamonds that keeps people reading and talking about these marquee stones. Historically, stones of such great value have led glamorous and salacious lives: some were stolen or traded to fund wars, others given in crazy bouts of love and lust or kept in museums where collectors believe they are safely preserved for all the world to see.
"It is still today the most tangible form of wealth and money," said Fawcett. "There's nothing else out there in the world where you can have such large amounts of money condensed into something so small."
At the end of the day, what drives prices to new heights, Fawcett believes, is simple: "People love beautiful things, and certainly I would be a purist in saying that I think people look great when they wear beautiful jewelry."
Christie's has a legacy of selling and promoting rare blue diamonds, one that dates to 1865. In July of that year, it offered a 70.21-carat light blue diamond, believed to have been uncovered in India's Golconda region in 1600, at an auction in London. It was especially unusual, given that most people had never heard of a blue diamond. Christened the Idol's Eye, the stone was purchased by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II for £740, equivalent to $86,000 at the time.
In the past 15 years, few sizable blue diamonds have been offered for sale, but when they do come up, they make headlines. Other notable named blue diamond sales at Christie's include the Wittelsbach, a cushion-shaped fancy deep greyish-blue diamond, which sold for a record $24.3 million in 2008, and the Winston Blue, a 13.22-carat pear-shaped fancy vivid blue diamond, which realized $23.8 million in 2014.
Like the Oppenheimer Blue, these named blue diamonds are part of an elite club of stones that have lived on, in some cases, for centuries. On the rare occasion when they change hands at auction, we are offered a glimpse into their legacy -- a reminder of their beauty and nature's most precious gifts.
The Oppenheimer Blue isn't just a diamond. It's a legend crystalized.