A ring set with a 5ct pink diamond sold today for £6.48 million at auction in Hong Kong.

Graff ring set with 5ct pink diamond; image by Christie's

The ring was sold by Christie’s at their auction, ‘Jewels: the Hong Kong sale’ for a price (including buyer’s premium) of HK$83,540,000. This price smashed the pre-sale estimate of HK$39-55 million.

Christie’s said that the pink diamond is accompanied by a GIA (Gemological Institute of America) report dated 23 July 2009 stating that the 5.00 carat diamond is fancy vivid pink, natural colour, VS1 clarity; with a working diagram indicating that the clarity is potentially Flawless.

That last fact tells a story: the diamond is potentially flawless, but it weighs exactly 5.00 carats, so a highly skilled diamantaire might try to polish out some tiny blemish that exists on the surface of the diamond, thereby improving its clarity from VS1 to Flawless, but at the (highly likely) risk of having the diamond’s weight drop below the important 5 carat threshold.

The pink diamond is cut into a cushion shape, and was set into a size 5 ring by celebrated London jeweller Graff, flanked on either side by shield-shaped white diamonds, mounted in platinum and 18k rose gold.

Strictly speaking the price paid was for the entire ring, including the two flanking diamonds and the precious metal, but the buyer was really buying the extraordinarily rare pink diamond, and on that basis, the price paid was over $2 million per carat, which Christie’s claim is the most ever paid for a diamond at auction.

The price paid for this diamond is also thought to be the highest price paid for any jewel at auction in 2009, so the year has finished with a flourish in the diamond auction market, and it’s fitting that these records are being broken in the Far East – now home to so much of the world’s wealth and appetite for highly priced luxuries such as this extraordinary gem.

See also our previous report on this diamond.