A giant pink diamond measuring 59.60 carats has sold at auction in Hong Kong for a record $71.2 million, the most ever paid for any diamond or jewel at auction, according to Sotheby's.
The Pink Star, the largest polished diamond ever to hit the auction block, is the “largest, internally flawless, fancy vivid pink diamond that the GIA has ever graded,” the auction house said on its website.
GIA is the Gemological Institute of America.
The Pink Star was sold in 2013 for a record $83 million at a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, but the buyer defaulted on the deal, CNN Money reported.
It took two years to cut the oval Pink Star, which was publicly unveiled in 2003 and exhibited at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington alongside the legendary 45.52-carat blue Hope Diamond.
During the three-month exhibition, more than 1.5 million visitors stopped by to see the jewels.
The Pink Star was also part of the “Diamonds” exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London in 2005.
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