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The rare and flawless Blue Moon Diamond has sold for $48.4 million to a buyer from Hong Kong, setting a world record for the sale of a gemstone at auction.
The 12.03-carat “Blue Moon” diamond, set in a ring, was said to be among the largest-known fancy vivid blue diamonds and was the showpiece gem at the Sotheby’s jewelry auction. A packed room broke into applause after the hammer came down.
The Blue Moon — so-called in reference to its rarity, playing off the expression “once in a blue moon” — topped the previous record of $46.2 million set five years ago by the Graff Pink, Sotheby’s said. The diamond also set a new record of more than $4 million per carat, capping the daylong high-end jewelry sale that reaped roughly $140 million.
On its Twitter account, Sotheby’s said the jewel was purchased by a Hong Kong private collector and was promptly renamed ‘The Blue Moon of Josephine’ — a similar name to one given to a pink diamond ring that sold for $28.5 million at Christie’s in Geneva a day earlier: ‘Sweet Josephine.’ That too was bought by a Hong Kong collector who was not publicly identified.
“Tonight we set a new world record, a new auction record for any diamond, any jewel, any gemstone, with the sale of the Blue Moon Diamond,” said auctioneer David Bennett. He specified the price as $48,468,158. “For me, the blue moon was always the blue diamond of my career. I have never seen a more beautiful stone. The shape, the color, the purity — it’s a magical stone.”
Sotheby’s says experts took five months for an “intense study” of the original Blue Moon diamond, and a master cutter took another three months to craft, cut and polish the stone.
Agencies/Canadajournal
