The Pink Legacy, an 18.96-carat fancy vivid pink diamond, sold for $50.4 million in the Magnificent Jewels auction on Nov. 13 at Christie’s in Geneva.
It was promptly renamed The Winston Pink Legacy by its new owner, Harry Winston.
“The saturation, the intensity of this stone is as good as it gets in a colored diamond,” said Rahul Kadakia, international head of jewelry for Christie’s. “To find a diamond of this size with this color is pretty much unreal. You may see this color in a pink diamond of less than one carat. But this is almost 19 carats and it’s as pink as can be. It’s unbelievable.”
While most pink diamonds exhibit a colorr modifier like purple, orange, brown or gray, the Pink Legacy shows no trace of a secondary color, according to a Christie’s press release. Its even color distribution, combined with a balanced saturation, tone and straight pink hue, qualify the 18.96 carat diamond for the “fancy vivid” color grading from the Gemological Institute of America.
Only one in 100,000 diamonds possess a color deep enough to qualify as “fancy vivid,” and the Winston Legacy set a record price per carat for a pink diamond, according to the release.
In the fancy vivid pink range, diamonds of more than five or six carats are rarely encountered. In fact, fewer than 10 per cent of pink diamonds weigh more than one-fifth of a carat. In the saleroom, fancy vivid pink diamonds over 10 carats are virtually unheard of — in over 250 years of auction history at Christie’s, only four such stones have ever appeared for sale.