Editor’s Note
A 59.6-carat pink diamond has shattered auction records, selling for $83 million in Geneva. This sale more than doubles the previous high for a gemstone, set in 2010.
A plum-sized 59.6-carat pink diamond was sold for $83 million (approximately 89 billion won) at an auction in Switzerland on the 13th (local time), setting the highest price ever for a gemstone auction. This diamond is more than twice the size of the 24.78-carat ‘Graff Pink’, which was sold for a then-record $46.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2010.
David Bennett, the head of Sotheby’s European and Middle Eastern jewelry division, which oversaw the auction, stated that the ‘Pink Star’ diamond was sold just five minutes after the auction began at the Lakeside Hotel in Geneva, Switzerland.
A man in his 60s who won the bid said he was attending the auction on behalf of an anonymous buyer.
Sotheby’s later revealed that the man who bought the Pink Star diamond was Isaac Wolf, a New York jeweler.
The Pink Star diamond has an oval shape, a vivid red hue, and no internal flaws.
The Pink Star diamond was mined in 1999 by De Beers Diamond Company in Africa as a 132.5-carat rough stone. It was then cut and polished over two years by the Steinmetz Diamond Company.
The day before, at a Christie’s auction, a 14.82-carat orange diamond, the largest of its kind known to date, was sold for $31.5 million, also making headlines.
