A 59.60-carat pink diamond known as The Pink Star is back on the market and could fetch up to $60 million at a Sotheby’s auction next month, on the back of “unprecedented demand” for fine gems.

The Pink Star is the largest Internally Flawless Fancy Vivid Pink diamond that the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has ever graded and will lead Sotheby’s sales of magnificent jewels and jadeite in Hong Kong on April 4. 

A little over three years ago, Sotheby’s sold The Pink Star for a record $83 million in Geneva in November 2013, but the buyer, New York-based diamond cutter Isaac Wolf, could not pay up and defaulted, leading to Sotheby’s reacquiring the stone.

David Bennett, Worldwide Chairman of Sotheby’s Jewellery Division, says: “At a time of unprecedented demand for the finest in coloured diamonds, I am delighted to be bringing this magnificent stone back to the market. The extraordinary size of this 59.60-carat diamond, paired with its richness of colour, surpasses any known pink diamond recorded in history.”

Quek Chin Yeow, Deputy Chairman, Asia, and Chairman International Jewellery, Asia, says: “Over the years Sotheby’s Hong Kong has played host to many outstanding stones and sales; including the 118.28-carat oval D-colour flawless diamond sold in October 2013, the still-current world auction record for any white diamond, as well as the fancy vivid blue 10.10-carat De Beers Millennium Jewel 4 which set a record for any jewel sold at auction in Asia in April 2016. The market for the world’s finest diamonds and gem stones remains buoyant and Sotheby’s Hong Kong is honoured to present at auction the Pink Star this spring following these world records.”

The Pink Star has been found to be part of the rare subgroup comprising less than 2 per cent of all gem diamonds - known as Type IIa: stones in this group are chemically the purest of all diamond crystals and often have extraordinary optical transparency. Mined by De Beers in Africa in 1999, the 132.5-carat rough diamond was meticulously cut and polished over a period of two years and transformed into this stunning gemstone. 

According to the GIA, The Pink Star is the largest Flawless or Internally Flawless, Fancy Vivid Pink, Natural Colour diamond it has graded, in a letter issued in April 2016.

At 59.60 carats, The Pink Star is more than twice the size of the Graff Pink – the 24.78-carat Fancy Intense Pink diamond which currently holds the world auction record for any pink diamond. Sold at Sotheby’s Geneva in 2010 for $46.2 million, the Graff Pink also marked an auction record for any diamond or gemstone at the time.

Sotheby’s has sold a number of the most valuable diamonds in the world, and holds the current price-per-carat auction record for any diamond or any gemstone with The Blue Moon of Josephine, a 12.03-carat cushion-shaped Internally Flawless Fancy Vivid Blue diamond that sold for $48.5 million at Sotheby’s Geneva in 2015.