A giant ruby of 55.22 carats, dubbed Estrela de Fura, the largest ever at auction, was sold Thursday in New York for 34.8 million dollars, a record for this stone, announced the company Sotheby’s. Cut and shaped in a rough stone of 101 carats discovered in September in a mine of Montepeuz, in Mozambique, operated by the company Fura Gems, the jewel was a star during this sale of jewels which included 100 lots.
Proposed at a starting price of 21 million dollars, it was awarded 30 million dollars, or 34.8 million with fees and commissions, to an anonymous purchaser by telephone. A spokeswoman for Sotheby’s told AFP that the buyer was a “private collector from the Middle East”, without further details. The previous record belonged to a 25.59-carat Burmese ruby, sold for $30.33 million including fees by Sotheby’s in Geneva in 2015. The marketing of this extremely rare jewel, exhibited in Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Geneva , Dubai and New York, was an event for the world of jewelry.
“It is a true wonder of nature. Any ruby that comes out of the ground and ends up exceeding five carats as a polished ruby is something of a rarity. A 10 carat ruby is very rare. 20 carats is almost unheard of. A ruby of more than 50 carats is once in a lifetime, “explained to AFP the head of the jewelry department for the Americas at Sotheby’s, Quig Bruning.
During the same auction session, “The Eternal Pink”, a rare pink diamond of 10.57 carats, resulting from the exploitation of a mine in Botswana, was sold for the same price of 34.8 million dollars. , a record per carat ($3.29 million) for a stone of this color. The current all-time high for the sale price of a pink diamond was reached in Hong Kong in 2017, when the “Pink Star” (59.60 carats) was bought at 71.2 million dollars.
