Rare blue diamond sells for record $57.5 million | CNN

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The "Aurora Green" is the largest Fancy Vivid green diamond ever sold at auction. The stone went under the hammer on May 31, 2016 at Christie's auction house in Hong Kong, selling for $16,818,983.

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The world's largest blue diamond, an extremely rare gem known as "The Oppenheimer Blue", sold for $57.5 million at Christie's Geneva May 18, 2016, making it the most expensive diamond ever sold at auction.

Christies Images Ltd 2016

The 14.62 carat Fancy Vivid stone is mounted on a platinum ring and flanked on either side by a trapeze-shaped diamond.

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'The Unique Pink' is the largest Fancy Vivid pink pear-shaped diamond to ever be offered at auction.

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The diamond was sold for $31.6 million by Sotheby's, at an auction in Geneva. The price makes it the most expensive Fancy Vivid pink diamond to sell at auction.

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Cubic zirconia replicas of the original and a modern cut of the Kohinoor diamond, one of the oldest and most famous diamonds in the world.

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The De Beers Millennium Jewel 4 has broken auction records in Asia.

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The stone sold for $31.8 million, which makes it the most expensive piece of jewelry sold at an auction in Asia.

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Sotheby's auctioned this 9.54 carat ring it says belonged to child star Shirley Temple on April 19, 2016. Though it was expected to fetch between $25 million and $35 million, it failed to sell.

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This 12.03-carat blue diamond fetched $48.4 million at auction on November 11, 2015. It was previously the world's most expensive price-per-carat diamond sold.

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The fancy, vivid blue diamond was discovered in South Africa in January last year.

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In recent years, other high-value diamonds have hit the auction block. The 59.60-carat oval cut pink diamond known as "The Pink Star," went for $80 million at a 2013 Sotheby's auction. However, after the buyer defaulted on payment, it was returned to Sotheby's.

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This 118.28 oval white diamond became the largest sold at auction when it went for $30.6 million at a Sotheby's auction in 2013.

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In April 2015, a 100-carat, emerald cut, D color, internally flawless diamond -- the largest of its clarity and cut to ever be shown at auction -- sold for $22 million.

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The 76.02-carat 400-year-old Archduke Joseph diamond set a new record for price per carat for a colorless diamond in 2012, when it sold for $21.5 million at a Christie's auction.

Courtesy Chow Tai Fook

In 2010, Hong Kong's largest jewelry retailer, Chow Tai Fook, bought one of the world's largest rough diamonds for $35.3 million.

Courtesy Chow Tai Fook

Jeweler Wallace Chan and a team of craftsman worked 47,000 hours to transform the stone it into this piece, which Chai Tai Fook estimates could be worth $200 million.

Story highlights

The 14.62 carat "Oppenheimer Blue" diamond sold for a record-breaking $57.5 million

It is the world's most-expensive diamond to sell at auction

CNN —

The world’s largest blue diamond, an extremely rare gem known as “The Oppenheimer Blue”, sold for $57.5 million at Christie’s Geneva Wednesday night, making it the most expensive diamond ever to be sold at auction. The sparkling gem sold to a private collector, whose identity Christie’s has not yet revealed.

Mounted on a platinum ring and flanked on either side by a trapeze-shaped diamond, the 14.62 carat Fancy Vivid stone is the largest and best quality blue diamond ever to appear at auction.

In blue diamonds, Fancy Vivid describes stones that are medium to dark in tone and strong to very strong in color saturation.

It was named after its former owner, the late Sir Philip Oppenheimer, a diamond dealer whose family owns the influential diamond company De Beers.

The Oppenheimer steals the title of world’s most expensive diamond from the 12.03 carat “Blue Moon of Josephine,” which held the previous record at $48.4 million.

That rock was bought by Chinese property billionaire Mr Joseph Lau in November, for his 7-year-old daughter Josephine.

Blue diamonds are exceptionally rare, comprising only around 0.0001% of the world’s diamonds, according to Christie’s. Of this tiny fraction, only about 1% are classified as Fancy Vivid, helping to explain the Oppenheimer’s wallet-melting price tag.

They are second in rarity only to red diamonds, of which there are only around 100 known record stones in the world.

The Oppenheimer’s record-breaking sale comes a day after the 15.38 carat “Unique Pink” sold for $31.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva – the highest price ever paid for a pink diamond of that category.