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This 15-carat rare pink diamond sold for $31.5 million

LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 07: A member of staff poses with 'The Unique Pink', the largest fancy vivid pink pear-shaped diamond ever offered at auction, during a press preview at Sotheby's auction house on April 7, 2016 in London, England. The diamond will be auctioned as part of the 'Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels' sale in Geneva on May 17 and is expected to fetch between 28-30 million USD. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 07: A member of staff poses with 'The Unique Pink', the largest fancy vivid pink pear-shaped diamond ever offered at auction, during a press preview at Sotheby's auction house on April 7, 2016 in London, England. The diamond will be auctioned as part of the 'Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels' sale in Geneva on May 17 and is expected to fetch between 28-30 million USD. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
By Ryan Biek
May 18, 2016

It's not unusual for an auction house to call something unique. But Sotheby's latest diamond may be worth the $31.5 million for which it sold on Tuesday.

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Dubbed "The Unique Pink," it's the "largest fancy vivid pink pear-shaped diamond" ever auctioned, Sotheby's said.

The company said the stone recieved the highest possible color grading for a pink diamond from the Gemological Institute of America and is of "exceedingly pure structure."

Sotheby's noted that fewer than 0.002 percent of diamonds presented to the industry's top grading authority are pink, and even fewer are over 15 carats.

Still, the diamond sold for less than the top estimate of $38 million. And even that was far lower than the record for a pink diamond: The "Graff Pink" 25-carat diamond sold in 2010 for $46.2 million.

As of Wednesday morning, the buyer of "The Unique Pink" hadn't been named.

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Ryan Biek

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