Pink Star soon to set auction records

A pink oval-cut diamond is soon to be the highest grossing gem ever to be auctioned. The 59.60-carat "Pink Star" will be sold on November 13 in the Swiss city of Geneva with a record asking price of $60 million. It is the largest flawless fancy pink diamond the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has ever graded. Mined in 1999 in De Beers, Africa, the Pink Star has been given the highest possible color and clarity rating.

Pink Star stats

The Pink Star is over twice the size of the previous record holder, Graff Pink, which was 24.78 carats and sold for $46.2 million.

In the rough, the Pink Star weighed 132.5 carats. Over a period of two years, the gem was cut and polished by Steinmetz Diamonds, a New York-based auction house. Vivid pink diamonds of five carats are rare enough finds, so this jewel is highly treasured. The diamond was originally sold in 2007 to an undisclosed buyer.

Diamonds in the current market

"This is a good time to sell important stones at auction," Otto Jakob, jewelry dealer, told Bloomberg. "Wealthy people with a lot of cash fear their money is endangered. They're putting it into goods."

Grading a colored stone

Grading in fancy or colored diamonds is different than regular diamond grading. The richer the color, the better the grade becomes. Deeply hued diamonds are incredibly rare, as only one in 10,000 diamonds has a fancy color, according to the GIA. They come in a vast range of pigments, though most are not heavily saturated. Even shades like black, gray and white appear. The most famous is the Black Orloff diamond, named after the Russian Princess Nadia Vyegin-Orloff. Yellow is the most common color of fancy diamonds, and pink, blue and green are the most highly valued.

Colored diamonds are usually cut in a fancy shape - princess, oval or emerald - to accentuate the intensity of the hue.