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Pink diamond sells at auction for $57.73 million, becomes the most expensive ever per carat

A pink diamond closed at auction for $57.73 million in Hong Kong Friday night, the most expensive diamond per carat ever sold.

The 11.15-carat Williamson Pink Star diamond sold at a Sotheby’s auction. The $57.73 million price tag includes the auctioneer’s fees. Without the fees, the raw price of the diamond is $49.9 million, or $4.475 million per carat. It had been estimated to sell at about $21 million. 

The most expensive diamond ever sold per carat until now was the Oppenheimer Blue diamond, which sold at a hammer price of $51.3 million and came in at 14.62 carats, or $3.5 million per carat, according to Forbes. 

“This is an astounding result, proving the resilience of top diamonds in a shaky economy,” Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds, told The Associated Press.

“Hard assets such as world-class diamonds have a history of performing well even in times of instability,” he said. “Some of the world’s highest-quality diamonds have seen prices double over the past 10 years.”

The Williamson Pink Star, shown here in an undated photo from Sotheby's, was auctioned off at $49.9 million in Hong Kong on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, setting a world record for the highest price per carat for a diamond sold at auction.
The Williamson Pink Star, shown here in an undated photo from Sotheby's, was auctioned off at $49.9 million in Hong Kong on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, setting a world record for the highest price per carat for a diamond sold at auction.

The Williamson Pink Star diamond was cut from a rough 32.32-carat diamond recovered at the Williamson mine in Tanzania and is one of “world’s purest, most saturated” pink diamonds, according to Sotheby’s. It's fixed on an 18-carat pink, white and gold band. It’s also the second-largest pink diamond of its kind to ever be auctioned, according to Sotheby’s.

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The Williamson mine, established in 1940, is famous for producing pink diamonds, one of which came into the possession of Queen Elizabeth II, according to Sotheby’s.

The most expensive diamond ever sold continues to be the 59.6-carat CTF Pink Star, which sold in 2017 for $71.2 million, according to Sotheby’s. 

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pink diamond auctioned at $57.73 million, most ever per carat