An 8.41 ct. purplish-pink fetched $17.8 million—or $2.1 million a carat—at the Sotheby’s Oct. 7 jewelry auction in Hong Kong, setting a new record for a vivid pink at auction.
Courtesy Sotheby’s
The 8.41 ct. vivid purplish-pink gem
The vivid purplish-pink gem “attracted keen competition,” the auction house said, before breaking the previous $10.7 million record set by a 5 ct. vivid pink stone in Hong Kong in November 2009. (That stone did achieve a slightly higher per-carat price: $2.15 million a carat.)
It was also a hot night for colored stones. The sale set a new per-carat record for any sapphire, when a 17.16 ct. step-cut unheated Kashmir sapphire and diamond ring fetched $236,404 a carat ($4.5 million total), breaking a record set earlier that night, when a Cartier sapphire ring went for $193,975 a carat.
Courtesy Sotheby’s
The 17.16 ct. Kashmir sapphire
Prior to this sale, the per-carat record for a sapphire was $180,731 a carat, set this April with a 28.18 ct. Kashmir sapphire and diamond ring.
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