Auction house Sotheby’s reported the sale of The Eternal Pink diamond and The Estrela de FURA ruby for $34.8 million, which set a new world record for a coloured gemstone at an auction on Thursday.
The 55.22-carat Estrela de FURA from Mozambique – the largest ruby to have been sold at a public auction – achieved the record price after only 90 seconds of bidding. The ‘vivid red, pigeon blood’ coloured ruby was mined in Montepuez, Mozambique in July 2022, by Dubai-based company FURA.
There, they discovered a remarkably transparent, stunningly vivid rough ruby weighing a staggering 101 carats, which was cut in Thailand into a 55.22-carat cushion-cut specimen.
The gem was first unveiled in Dubai in September 2022, shining a spotlight on Mozambique as a source for top-quality rubies and quickly garnering attention as the largest gem-quality ruby ever discovered, reported Sotheby’s.
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A portion of the proceeds from the sale will fund a new FURA training academy in various fields for local residents in Mozambique, added Sotheby’s.
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Following this sale, The Eternal Pink – a 10.57 carat vivid purplish pink diamond set as a ring, surrounded by trapezoid-shaped diamonds, also took just two minutes to sell.
The diamond, discovered in 2020 at the Damtshaa mine in Botswana, weighed around 23.78 carats in its rough form. The Eternal Pink’s Internally Flawless clarity grade is what makes it unique and Its Type IIa certification likens it with the quality associated with diamonds from the legendary mines of Golconda, reported Sotheby’s.
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Both gems sold as part of a ‘Magnificent Jewels’ auction as part of their ‘Luxury Week’ sales series in New York. Both stones were displayed in Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Geneva before going up for auction in New York.
The prices of these sales just exceeded a previous record of $30.3 million for the Sunrise Ruby, a 25.59-carat stone originally from Myanmar, that sold at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva in 2015.
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