The Five Most Expensive Diamonds Ever Sold At Auction

Auctioned by Christie’s New York in August of 2013 for $39.3 million, this pretty in pink diamond has a little royal blood. Discovered over 300 years ago in one of the Galconda mines, it at one time belonged to Nizam of Hyderbad – listed as the richest man in the world by Time Magazine in 1937. She weighs in at 34.65 cts. Photo: Christies

The Blue Moon:

This stone, also known as the Blue Moon of Josephine was snagged by Joseph Lau, a Hong Kong billionaire for $48.5 million in late 2015. Sotheby’s auctioned it off and it’s rumored that Lau bought it for his then seven-year old daughter Josephine. She’s on lucky little girl because that same week he also shelled out $28.5 million for a 16.08 ct pink diamond he called “Sweet Josephine”. This one weighed in at 12.03cts. Photo: Sotheby’s

The Lessedi La Rona

Only unearthed two years ago, this diamond, found in a mine in Botswana weighs in at an impressive 1,109 carats. Graff Diamonds of London bought the stone for a cool $53 million ($47,777/ct for those of you counting). The diamond mining company who found it had some tough requirements for the buyer, as they wanted someone who would “take the diamond through its next stage of evolution.” Sadly, the didn’t ask us. Photo: Sotheby’s

The Pink Star

Weighing in at 59.60 carats, the Pink Star is one of the most expensive gemstones ever sold. Sotheby’s again was the trusted auction house to help it find its next home, again through their Hong Kong office, in April 2017 and it managed to bring in an astonishing $71.2 million. <insert stunned face emoji here>. Jeweler Chow Tai Fook, who renamed the diamond after himself was the big winner. It started its life as an uncut 132.5 ct stone, found by DeBeers in Africa in 1999. Fun fact: the stone sold previously by Sotheby’s Geneva for $83 million to Isaac Wolf, but he never paid. Photo: Sotheby’s

The Wittelsbach-Graff

Our final diamond, a deep blue flawless (considered by many to be the one of rarest kinds of gems on earth when found and left untreated), comes in at 31 carats (huge by blue diamond standards) and was purchased in 2008 by Graff Diamonds founder Laurence Graff for $23.4 million. The original Wittelsbach Diamond, also known as Der Blaue Wittelsbacher was a 35.56-carat (7.112 g) fancy, deep, greyish-blue diamond with VS2 clarity that had been part of both the Austrian and the Bavarian Crown jewels. Graff had the stone re-cut (it was very controversial) to remove flaws (and shave off just over 4 carats) and it was renamed to its current moniker. It’s estimated the stone is worth $80 million today and Graff sold the rare gem to the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa in 2011.