A rare pink diamond called the “Pink Star” was sold for a record $71.2 million (around Rs 463 crore) at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on Tuesday. The sale made it the most expensive jewel ever sold at an auction. Hong Kong-based jewellery retailer Chow Tai Fook bagged the 59.60 carat gem at HK$553 million during a five-minute auction.
Sotheby’s said the contest included three phone bidders. The title of the most expensive jewel auctioned was earlier held by the Oppeneimer Blue, which was sold at $58 million (approximately Rs 378 crore) at Christie’s in Geneva.
The Pink Star was auctioned for $83 million (around Rs 540.8 crore) in 2013, but New York-based diamond cutter Isaac Wolf, who had won the bid, defaulted on his payment to the Geneva-based Sotheby’s.
Chow Tai Fook is the world’s largest jeweller, with more than 2,000 jewellery and watch stores across China, according to Bloomberg.
Worth more than $60 million (Rs 391 crore), the gem is the largest internally flawless diamond that the Gemological Institute of America has ever graded. Its colour is the highest grade, and its crystal purity has been ranked among the top 2% in the world. The gem was mined by De Beers in Botswana, after which Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s Steinmetz Diamonds cut and polished the stone for two years, Bloomberg reported.
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