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A Sotheby's employee displays the 118-carat diamond. Nick Ansell/PA Wire
Bling Bling
118 carat diamond to go on auction in October
The diamond is expected to fetched between $28 and 35 million at an auction next month.
IF YOU ARE in the market for ostentatious bling, Sotheby’s in New York has just the item for you.
The auction house is set to sell off what it calls the greatest white diamond in the world, a 118-carat stone the size of a small egg.
The diamond is expected to raise between $28 and $35 million and a diamond expert at Sotheby’s says that it is a “privilege” to be selling it.
“This is the greatest white diamond we’ve ever had the privilege to sell,” said Quek Chin Yeow, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Asia and an international diamond expert.
The owners of the diamond wish to remain anonymous, but this is just the fourth time Sotheby’s have sold off a diamond of over 100 carats.
It’s the largest, most significant such diamond graded by the Gemological Institute of America
The reason these stones are going on the block in Hong Kong, Quek said, is that it has become a centrefor jewellery sales and it’s there that the $1.7 million record price per carat for vivid blue diamonds was set — with the sale of a 6-carat blue diamond for $10.2 million in 2011.
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