The Pink Star Shatters Records

JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

I wrote here recently about the scheduled sale of the Pink Star Diamond, one of the rarest pink diamonds in the world. Yesterday, the diamond was auctioned in Hong Kong, and the results were staggering.

JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

Bidding for the stone at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong began at $56 million. After only five minutes of bidding, the gemstone was sold for $71.2 million, making it the most expensive gemstone ever sold at auction. The BBC reports that “the record until now was held by the Oppenheimer Blue, which sold for $50m last May.”

Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Sotheby’s

Press information from Sotheby’s named the gemstone’s new owner as the Hong Kong-based jewelry retailer Chow Tai Fook. The stone has been sold multiple times before; an American buyer bid $83 million on the stone in 2013, but that transaction was never completed. You can read much more about the diamond’s history in our previous post!