AMONG THE STANDOUT LOTS WERE A $906,250 KASHMIR SAPPHIRE RING AND A $625,000 CARTIER YELLOW DIAMOND RING
By Rhonda Reinhart | May 19, 2026
Aspectacular 6.59-carat Kashmir sapphire ring that realized $906,250 led Heritage’s May 4 Spring Fine Jewelry Signature® Auction to $9,713,640, marking the highest-grossing jewelry auction in the company’s history. The milestone result comes just over seven months after Heritage announced its previous record for a jewelry auction — $9.2 million in September 2025 — underscoring sustained momentum and robust demand for rare, high-quality jewels.
“This was one of those auctions where you could feel the excitement building from the start,” says Jill Burgum, Heritage’s Executive Director of Fine Jewelry. “There was strong, confident bidding at every level, not just for the headline pieces, and that kind of energy is what drives a result like this.”
This Kashmir sapphire ring sold for $906,250 in Heritage’s May 4 Spring Fine Jewelry Signature® Auction, soaring past its high pre-auction estimate.
Leading the auction was a platinum ring featuring a 6.59-carat octagonal-shaped Kashmir sapphire. The ring’s $906,250 result surpassed its high pre-auction estimate by more than $300,000. Renowned for their velvety texture and cornflower blue hue, Kashmir sapphires hail from the high-altitude Zanskar Range of the Himalayas and are among the most coveted gemstones in the world.
“The original sapphire mines in Kashmir were discovered in the 1880s high in the Himalayas, in one of the most remote and inhospitable terrains on Earth,” says Gina D’Onofrio, Heritage’s Director of Fine Jewelry in Beverly Hills. “This source was depleted in just a few decades. With no new supply, we eagerly await offerings from private collections that occasionally come to market.”
Another Kashmir sapphire, this one a 10.01-carat cushion-shaped stone set in a diamond-studded ring, also performed well in the auction, realizing $106,250.
Among the spring auction’s other standout lots was this Cartier fancy intense yellow diamond ring that realized $625,000.
Another top lot was the Cartier fancy intense yellow diamond ring that sold for $625,000. The platinum and 18k gold stunner features a 20.03-carat stone as its eye-catching centerpiece. Two other fancy yellow diamonds also saw exceptional results: a Van Cleef & Arpels fancy intense yellow diamond ring that brought $156,250 and a fancy yellow diamond ring that sold for $93,750. Only 1 in 10,000 diamonds has a fancy color, making these stones some of the rarest on Earth.
Yellow wasn’t the only diamond color that caught bidders’ attention. Rounding out the colored diamond highlights were a 6.45-carat faint pink diamond that sold for $562,500 and a 4.93-carat light pink diamond that realized $500,000. Other diamond standouts included a 12.90-carat diamond ring that brought $168,750, an 11.40-carat diamond ring that sold for $156,250, and an Art Deco diamond necklace that realized $90,625.
Pink diamonds also performed well in the auction, including this 6.45-carat faint pink diamond that brought $562,500.
The auction also brought together an impressive selection of colored gemstones, many of them notable in size and quality. Among the highlights was an extraordinary 100.31-carat Paraiba-type tourmaline that sold for $275,000. The designation “Paraiba type” denotes copper-bearing tourmaline of African origin, most commonly Mozambique or Nigeria, whose trace element chemistry mirrors the copper and manganese profile first identified in the original Brazilian discoveries. Exhibiting the vivid, neon-charged saturation that has come to define copper-bearing tourmaline, this pear-shaped stone radiates an unmistakable internal glow.
Another Paraiba-type tourmaline in the auction, a 28.17-carat cushion-shaped stone set in a platinum ring, realized $100,000.
This 100.31-carat Paraiba-type tourmaline sold for $275,000 in the spring auction.
Among the other colored gemstone standouts were a 36.96-carat sapphire ring that brought $175,000 (more than 11 times its high pre-auction estimate), a pair of Colombian emerald earrings that sold for $75,000 (five times their high pre-auction estimate), and an 8.50-carat Ceylon sapphire ring that realized $68,750 (more than six times its high pre-auction estimate).
“While the auction’s top lots were certainly exciting,” Burgum says, “what really surprised us all was the sheer volume of bidding wars. There really were no ‘sleeper’ lots. The audience was hungry and aggressively bidding.”
