“Chow Tai Fook Pink Star” ..the most expensive gemstone ever sold at auction

The most expensive gemstone ever sold at auction still is the “Chow Tai Fook Pink Star”, a 59.60 ct Fancy Vivid pink, Internally Flawless clarity, that sold in Sotheby’s Hong Kong for just over $72.1 million in 2017.
In 2013 this very stone, one of the largest pink diamonds on record and the largest Fancy Vivid pink ever graded by the GIA, made the headlines when the final bid of $83.18 million made by Issac Wolf at Sotheby’s Geneva defaulted. Sotheby’s in partnership with Diacore Group and Mellen Diamonds, kept the gem until its Hong Kong sale in 2017 when Chow Tai Fook bought it.
The Pink Star was unveiled in 2003 as the “Steinmetz Pink” during the F1 Monaco Grand Prix cut from a type IIa 132.5 ct rough from a De Beers Group mine in South Africa. Its rare colour is due to plastic deformation at the crystal lattice level that occurred during geological formation.