Rare Pink Diamond Sets Record at Auction

It's rare that a 5-carat pink diamond comes to the auction block. So with the "large stones market" in turmoil due to the financial crisis, the sale of such an apparition at Christie's auction house in Hong Kong for a record-setting $10.8 million put a little pep in gem-collectors' step, according to Reuters.

The diamond is described as having a "vivid pink" hue and is considered close to perfect. Francois Curiel, Christie's Europe chairman, told Reuters that the stone is a "fabulous pink diamond, probably one of the rarest stones I've ever seen."

Its $2.2 million-per-carat price was the most ever paid for a diamond at an auction, beating out the previous record for such a gem, $7.4 million for a 19.66-carat stone.

However, the sale didn't beat out the world's most expensive gem ever auctioned, called the "Wittelsbach" blue diamond, a grayish-blue jewel cut in the 17th century, which brought $24 million last year. Still, the per-carat price means the pink gem is astonishingly valuable.

"We were used to ... a million dollars a carat for colored diamonds but never 2 million," said Curiel. "This is an absolute record that is not going to be broken for a while I believe."

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