'Pink Legacy' Diamond Sells For Record-Breaking $50 Million at Christie's

The 18.96-carat Pink Legacy became the world record holder for price paid per carat for a pink diamond at auction.
'Pink Legacy' Diamond Sells For Record-Breaking $50 Million at Christie's

A rare large pink diamond was sold for a record-breaking $50 million (about 50.3 million Swiss francs) at Christie's auction house in Geneva.

The 18.96-carat Pink Legacy became the world record holder for price paid per carat for a pink diamond at auction.

Christie's international head of jewellery, Rahul Kadakia, said it was purchased by American luxury brand Harry Winston, and will be renamed the Winston Pink Legacy.

"You have to acknowledge first that the Pink Legacy diamond was a very special diamond," Kadakia said. "It is one of the best and finest examples of pink diamonds at this size and colour and it proved it with a new world record price per carat."

Pink Legacy is categorized as a "Fancy Vivid" diamond, the highest grade of colour intensity. Only 1 in 100,000 diamonds receives the grading.

The diamond is an even rarer find because of its size, as Fancy Vivid Pink diamonds larger than 10 carats are "virtually unheard of," according to Christie's.

Christie's did not identify the jewel's latest owners but it once belonged to the Oppenheimer family, who ran the De Beers diamond mining company for three generations until selling their stake in 2011.

In the recent times, pink diamonds have attracted good price at the auctions. In April 2017, a 59.6-carat diamond known as the Pink Star became the most expensive jewel sold at auction after going for $71.2 million at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. It was the largest polished diamond ever auctioned. In November 2017, the Pink Promise sold for $32.5 million at Christie's Hong Kong. At almost 15 carats, the diamond sold for a record-breaking $2.176 million per carat. The sale of Pink Legacy has surpassed that, at $2.637 million per carat.


Follow DiamondWorld on Instagram: @diamondworldnet
Follow DiamondWorld on Twitter: @diamondworldnet
Follow DiamondWorld on Facebook: @diamondworldnet

logo
Diamond World
www.diamondworld.net