A flawless 100-carat diamond originally mined by De Beers has sold for a staggering $22.1 million at Sotheby’s New York auction house.
Prior to the sale, the gem had an estimate of between $19 million and $25 million.
It was snatched up by an anonymous buyer after just three minutes of bidding, according to a BBC News report published on MSN which quoted the head of Sotheby’s jewelry department in New York, Gary Schuler, as having said that the diamond is “the definition of perfection”.
[quote text_size=”small” author=”– Gary Schuler” author_title=”Head of Sotheby’s jewelry department in New York”]
The color is whiter than white, it is free of any internal imperfections and so transparent that I can only compare it to a pool of icy water
[/quote]
During the auction, a 35.02 carat Classic Colombian emerald pendant sold for $2.8 million and a 22.30 carat DIF diamond ring pulled in $3.3 million.
All in all, the 350 jewels for sale at the auction house which were expected to fetch over $50 million managed to bring in $65 million, a record for a Sotheby’s New York jewelry event, according to the firm who tweeted that the sale had set “a record for any jewelry sale at Sotheby’s NY”.
#AuctionUpdate Our Magnificent Jewels sale totaled $65M – a record for any jewelry sale at Sotheby’s NY – including 10 lots sold over $1M
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) April 22, 2015
The diamond — which is one of six perfect diamonds with a weight exceeding 100 carats that has been sold at auction in the last 25 years, according to Sotheby’s — was originally mined in South Africa and took more than a year to cut, polish and perfect.
In other auction house news, Russian philanthropist Alisher Usmanov purchased James Watson’s 1962 Nobel Prize for $4.1 million and returned it to him.
