It was no surprise that Christie's jewelry sales increased 11 percent in 2007 to $394.7 million considering how hot the auction markets have been in the past 12 months. But the rate of growth was much lower than the 27 percent increase in sales registered for 2006. Annual results for jewelry sales hit a record at Christie's nonetheless. "This [past] year saw many milestones in the jewelry auction market," said François Curiel, Christie’s chairman of jewelry. "The magical barrier of $100,000 per carat was regularly broken for top colorless diamonds, while colored diamonds often sold for over $1 million per carat," he said.

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