Phillips New York jewels sale led by five Paraíba tourmalines

Five Paraíba tourmalines are doing more than leading Phillips’ New York Jewels sale; they are the clearest lesson in how to read a high-end colored-stone catalog. The auction will take place on June 10 at 12 p.m. ET in New York, with a public exhibition at 432 Park Avenue from June 5 to June 9, and the 113-lot sale also brings in important pieces from the estate of Tina Hills and the collection of Irma Nicolas, alongside signed jewels by Harry Winston, Cartier, David Webb, Tiffany & Co., Van Cleef & Arpels, and Bulgari.

Paraíba is the kind of gem that rewards close looking. Phillips says these tourmalines were discovered only in the late 20th century, and that their electric blue-to-green color comes from trace copper and manganese. They are scarce not because they are fashionable, but because only small known deposits exist. Dianne Batista, Phillips’ head of jewels in New York, said the season’s sale "celebrates the extraordinary beauty and rarity of colored gemstones," a phrase that fits a market where provenance, craftsmanship, and color can outweigh simple carat arithmetic.

The headline lot is a 31.77-carat Paraíba tourmaline and diamond ring estimated at $550,000 to $650,000, the sort of stone that makes size part of the story instead of the whole story. In Paraíba, saturation matters as much as scale, and the best stones keep their neon charge even as they climb in weight. That is why the most compelling lots in this sale are not just large; they are legible, with catalog language that helps collectors judge whether a jewel is a trophy or merely a very expensive color.

That distinction is especially clear in a Tiffany & Co. Paraiba Tourmaline and Diamond Ring, circa 2005, estimated at $50,000 to $60,000 and offered with no reserve. The 7.08-carat Mozambique-origin stone is described as having no indications of clarity enhancement, a disclosure that matters as much as the house name on the shank. A pair of Paraiba tourmaline and diamond earrings, estimated at $60,000 to $80,000, is also Mozambique origin, but the report notes indications of heating and minor clarity enhancement, a reminder that treatment can change how the trade reads a stone’s desirability and price.

Phillips’ own Paraíba history gives the sale context. A Paraíba tourmaline and diamond ring previously sold for $215,900 against a $150,000 to $225,000 estimate, while Forbes reported that the house’s June 12, 2025 New York Jewels auction totaled more than $2.5 million. Together with the estate jewels from Tina Hills and Irma Nicolas, the signed-house pieces, and the catalog’s treatment and origin language, this sale reads less like a simple price watch than a primer in how collectors separate the merely beautiful from the genuinely rare.