A giant pink star diamond has smashed the auction record for a diamond at a Sotheby's auction held in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Prior to the sale, the record for a gemstone had been held by the Graff Pink
The 59.60 carats rock was estimated to have a value of more than $60 million. It eventually sold for $71.2 million, making it the most expensive gemstone ever sold at auction.
The diamond, formerly known as the Steinmetz Pink, was mined by De Beers in 1999 in South Africa.
The Pink Star was auctioned by Sotheby's Geneva in November 2013, and sold for $83,187,381, a world record. Due to differences, however, between the buyer and the auction house, the transaction was never carried through. In 2013, it was declared that the buyer could not afford the price and the diamond was put back in Sotheby's inventory.
The last world auction record for a pink diamond was $46.16 million for the 24.78 carat Graff Pink, sold at Sotheby's in Geneva in 2010.
The Pink Star was as part of the Smithsonian's 'The Splendor of Diamonds' exhibit, alongside the De Beers Millennium Star.
It reportedly took two years to cut the record-breaking Pink Star from a rough diamond.
It first appeared in public in 2003 and later became part of an exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, which is also home to the blue Hope Diamond.
It has also been displayed at the Natural History Museum in London.
