Flawless Diamond Sets Record $30M Price at Sotheby’s Sale

(IDEX Online News) – A 118.28-carat, D flawless, type IIa oval-shaped diamond that sold for $30.06 million, or $254,000 per carat, was the standout item at a Sotheby's Hong Kong sale of magnificent jewels.

The sale raised $95,473,557, with the top lot setting a record price, while the sale total was a record for a jewelry sale in Asia.

Sotheby’s said the 118.28-carat diamond, which had a pre-sale estimate of $28 million to $35 million, was the largest oval-shaped, D, flawless or internally flawless diamond ever graded by the GIA and was battled over by two telephone bidders.

The diamond was extracted from a 299-carat stone discovered at a mine in an undisclosed Southern African country in 2011.

Meanwhile, a ring set with a round 7.59-carat, flawless, fancy vivid blue diamond set among brilliant-cut pink diamonds weighing 1.70 carats sold for $16.1 million.

In the last several years, Hong Kong has risen to the same level as Geneva and New York as “one of the three major selling centers at auction" for diamonds, Quek Chin Yeow, the deputy chairman of Sotheby's Asia, told the Associated Press.