Pink Star Diamond Sells For Record $83 Million At Auction

The Pink Star diamond has sold for a record $83 million at auction in Geneva.

The diamond was sold to New York diamond cutter Isaac Wolf, who renamed the gem the Pink Dream.

The $83 million price tag included Sotheby’s commission. The winning bid was for $74 million (68 million Swiss francs).

“Ladies and gentlemen, 68 million is the world record bid for a diamond ever bid and it’s right here,” David Bennett, chairman of Sotheby’s Switzerland, said. The auction house then played the theme song for The Pink Panther after the winning bid was confirmed.

“It’s really extraordinarily rare,” Bennett said. “Very, very few of these stones have ever appeared at auction.”

The Pink Star diamond was 132.5 carats in its rough state. After two years of cutting and polishing, the stone weighed in at 59.60 carats, more than double the size of the next biggest diamond in its class. The diamond broke the record set three years ago by the Graff Pink, a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond that sold for $46.2 million, according to Sotheby’s.

The auction house said the Pink Star diamond was mined by De Beers in Africa in 1999, but did not specify the country. The diamond also belongs to a rare subgroup known as Type IIa. Stones in this group are chemically the purest of all diamond crystals. Less than two percent of diamonds fall into the Type IIa category.

Wednesday’s auction was the largest jewelry sale in Sotheby’s history at nearly $200 million. Other items sold at the auction included a Burmese sapphire and a pair of colorless diamonds.

Just yesterday, a 14.82-carat orange diamond sold for $35.54 million (29 million francs) at auction. The buyer quickly left the room after the purchase, wishing to remain anonymous.

“It’s a world record price for an orange diamond, it’s a world record price per carat for any colored diamond,” Christie’s said at the time.

[Photo credit: Sotheby’s]