What changed hands?
The Pink Star Diamond. 59.60-carat fancy vivid pink diamond, internally flawless. Highest price ever for any jewel at auction.
A fancy vivid pink
The 59.60-carat Pink Star is an oval mixed-cut fancy vivid pink diamond, internally flawless. It was mined by De Beers in South Africa in 1999 as a 132.5-carat rough, and took nearly two years to cut and polish. The Gemological Institute of America graded it as the largest internally flawless fancy vivid pink diamond it had ever assessed.
The most expensive jewel ever
The $71.2 million result at Sotheby's Hong Kong in April 2017 remains the highest price ever achieved for any diamond or jewel at auction. The buyer was Chow Tai Fook, the Hong Kong-based jeweler. The sale dwarfed the previous record for a pink diamond and has not been surpassed in the years since, making the Pink Star the benchmark against which all subsequent jewelry auction results are measured.
Read the number carefully
An auction result captures a particular object, a particular sale and the buyers competing on that occasion. It does not establish the value of every similar object, or what this one would sell for today.
Our selection keeps historical results separate from asking prices and estimates. Where the cited report does not break out fees, we say so rather than inventing a hammer price.
Sale documentation: Sotheby's Hong Kong — Pink Star ↗
What does “source reviewed” mean?
We checked the published report against the amount and object listed here. That does not independently authenticate the object or confirm settlement of the transaction.
