The 14.83-carat pink gem just found and cut by Russian diamond miner Alrosa PJSC is expected to fetch a record price when it goes on sale later this year.
Evgeniya Kozenko, Alrosa spokeswoman, said the oval stone, The Spirit of the Rose , has been certified by the Gemological Institute of America as a fancy vibrant purple-pink diamond with clarity and luster. Excellent with well-balanced structure.
It is scheduled to go on sale in November, she said.
Colored diamonds are made up of impurities such as boron or nitrogen, which are the rarest and most expensive diamonds. Among them, pink and red diamonds have the highest prices.
The Spirit of the Rose pink diamond. (Photo: Bloomberg).
According to Bloomberg, the Spirit of the Rose diamond may be one of the most expensive pink gems ever, according to Eden Rachminov, chairman of the board of directors of the Fancy Colors Research Foundation.
Mr. Rachminov estimated the potential price of this pink diamond in the range of -65 million.
Sotheby’s auction house set the record for selling the most expensive pink diamond in 2017. That record belongs to The Pink Star, a 59.6-carat fancy sparkly pink diamond that was sold to Sales Group. Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook jewelry retailer for million.
Prior to that, the Oppenheimer Blue, the second most expensive pink diamond sold for million in 2016 by Christie’s.
Alrosa spokesman Kozenko declined to comment on whether the company would raise the price of The Spirit of the Rose. However, he said it would be the most expensive diamond polished in Russia.
This is a good time to sell as pink diamonds are about to become rarer after the Rio Tinto Group confirmed earlier this year that it would stop producing massive Argyle diamonds in Australia.
The company’s mines supply about 90% of the world’s pink diamonds.
Alrosa found the rough stone 27.85 carats in its alluvial deposits in the Far East, Russia in 2017 and named it Nijinsky, after the ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. The one-year manufacturing process is carried out at Alrosa’s cutting plant in Moscow.
Spirit of the Rose is named after the ballet Le Specter de la Rose, staged by the Ballets Russes company and premiered in 1911, of which Nijinsky was a star.