Pink diamond expected to sell for $60M plus
September 27, 2013
Geneva--The auction of the latest potentially record-setting stone was announced Wednesday, with Sotheby’s Geneva set to sell a 59.60-carat pink diamond that could shatter the current world record for any gemstone sold at auction.
The auction house is calling “The Pink Star,” an oval-cut diamond that is the largest internally flawless fancy vivid pink ever graded by the Gemological Institute of America, “the most valuable diamond ever to be offered at auction.” It will be part of Sotheby’s Nov. 13 auction in Geneva.
The diamond expected to sell for more than $60 million.
The current world record price achieved for any diamond, gemstone or jewel sold at auction is $46.2 million, a mark set by the 2010 auction of the 24.78-carat Graff Pink, also offered by Sotheby’s Geneva.
David Bennett, chairman of Sotheby’s jewelry division in Europe and the Middle East and chairman of Sotheby’s Switzerland, said the richness of color and the size of this stone surpass those of any known pink diamond in state, royal or private collections.
“This 59.60-carat stone is simply off any scale and passes, I believe, into the ranks of the earth’s greatest natural treasures,” he said.
GIA Senior Vice President Tom Moses concurs. “The GIA laboratory has been issuing grading reports for 50 years and this is the largest pink diamond with this depth of color that we have ever characterized,” he said in a past interview with the Financial Times about the stone.
The Pink Star originally was unveiled to the public in Monaco in 2003. The stone, cut from a 132.05-carat piece of rough mined by De Beers, then was known as the Steinmetz Pink, after the diamond company that cut it. It was renamed The Pink Star upon its initial purchase in 2007.
The diamond was part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Splendour of Diamonds exhibition in 2003, shown alongside stones such as the De Beers Millennium Star, the Allnatt and the Moussaieff Red.
The Pink Star is one a number of extremely rare, and large, diamonds up for sale this fall.
On Oct. 7, Sotheby’s Hong Kong auction will include The Premier Blue, a 7.59-carat internally flawless fancy vivid blue diamond, and the “greatest white diamond ever,” a 118.28-carat oval-shaped stone expected to garner up to $35 million. That could potentially break the record for a colorless diamond at auction set by the $26.7 million sale of The Winston Legacy by Christie’s in May.
Sotheby’s said it will showcase The Pink Star in Hong Kong, New York, London, Zurich and Geneva prior to its sale in Geneva but has not yet provided specific dates.
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