Blue Moon Diamond sells for world record $48.4m

The rare and flawless Blue Moon Diamond sold for 48.6m Swiss francs (Â£31.9m, $48.4 million) to a Hong Kong buyer on Wednesday (11 November), setting a world record for a gemstone at auction, Sothebys said. The cushion-shaped diamond, mounted on a ring, has the top grading of fancy vivid blue and weighs 12.03 carats. It had a pre-sale estimate of $35-55m. The previous record was held by the Graff Pink of 24.78 carats, sold by Sothebys for $46.2m in November 2010.

The rare Blue Moon Diamond has been sold for a record $48.26m (Â£31.7m) in Geneva, auction house Sothebys has confirmed. The jewel, which was part of a star lot of Sothebys Magnificent Jewels and Nobel Jewels auction, was expected to fetch between $35m and $55m.

The 16.08-carat diamond, set in a platinum and gold ring, was purchased by a private collector from Hong Kong and renamed The Blue Moon of Josephine. The sale price is a record for any gemstone and also per carat, a spokesman said.

The gem, which was named the Blue Moon Diamond by sellers Cora International, in recognition of its rarity, was discovered in January 2014 as part of a 29.62 carat blue rough diamond at Cullinan mine in South Africa, the worlds main source for blue diamonds. It was then cut and polished in New York, a process that took six months and resulted in the vivid blue gem, according to Sotheby.

Sothebys International Jewellery Division Chairman and Auctioneer, David Bennett, said that experts had deemed it internally flawless due to its clarity, colour and size. Blue diamonds make up only 0.1% of diamonds unearthed at the mine. According to gemmologists, a blue diamond receives its colour from small amounts of the chemical element boron which becomes trapped in the crystal structure during its for

Youre looking at something that, by freak of nature, has been brought up by a volcano. It is just so extraordinary that this diamond would have stayed forever, miles under the earth surface but by the fact that it was associated with a volcano is now part of our world, I find that absolutely extraordinary. Its like the most secret part of the earth is just being shown to us, Bennett said.

So far, the highest price on record for a blue diamond is $32.6m, paid in November 2014 in New York for Bunny Mellons Blue Diamond. Its final price surpasses the $46m record set by The Graff Pink five years ago.

Its record price for The Blue Moon comes the day after a pink diamond was sold for Â£18.8m ($28.5m) by auction house Christies at the same jewellery auction in Geneva. It is not clear whether the same collector bought both diamonds.

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