Ever watched the movie Pink Panther and marveled if there is really an existing pink diamond like the one that sent Inspector Clouseau in a rowdy goose chase?

In fact, there is, and it is reportedly going under the gavel for $60 million.

Let the Bidding Begin

The 59.6-carat pink diamond known as the Pink Star will go down the bidding drain through auctioneer Sotheby’s  which will reach its climax on November 13 at an auction house in Geneva, Switzerland. By that time, the huge chunk of pink gem is expected to be sold at a whopping 60 million dollars.

“…And it is expected to fetch the highest price in history for any diamond ever purchased,” revealed the New York-based auction house.

The sale of the pink-colored diamond will follow through a series of bids by the same auction house for colored diamonds in Hong Kong on October. Sothesby’s will put a white diamond expected to fetch a price of over $28 million and a blue diamond which is said to have a closing cost of $19 million.

The Pink Star

The Pink Star is not the only known pink diamond to exist worldwide. In fact, pink diamonds are considered Type II stones.

Due to publicity, latent desirability to colored diamonds especially pink had been enhanced. Scientifically, wise, though, its vivid pink hue is created through a natural process scientists know as the plastic deformation.

The oval-shaped pink diamond is said to be the biggest internally flawless clear pink diamond the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has ever graded.

It was mined in De Beers, Africa, and entered by an unidentified seller. Steinmetz Diamonds spent two full years having it cut and polished before it became the oval-shaped gem that it is today. After these years, it was first shown in a Monaco exhibition in 2003.

That same year, it was included in an exhibition dubbed Splendor of Diamonds and was displayed in line with the De Beers Millennium Star, the Allnatt Star and the Mousaieff Red.

Initially known as the Steinmetz Pink, it was auctioned privately in 2007 for an unknown amount and was then renamed to its current name, Pink Star. It is more than two times the size of the Graff Pink which is a mere 24.78 carat and had fetched the price of $45.6 million in a Geneva auction 2010 by Sotherby’s.

Why the Bid?

“This is a good time to sell important stones at auction,” the Karlsruhe-based jewelry dealer Otto Jakob said in an interview. “Wealthy people with a lot of cash fear their money is endangered. They’re putting it into goods.”

According to him, investment-grade diamonds are attractive to buyers due mostly to the changing financial market. Colored stones only account for about 0.01 percent of the production in the mining industry so they are prized due to their rarity and the fact that when put on sale, they can command a higher price per carat.

“Over the last five years buyers in Asia have built up stocks of diamonds,” Jakob added. “That’s reduced the number on the market and prices have increased a lot. There’s a lot of demand for the highest quality colored stones.”