'Incomparable' Pink Diamond Could Smash Record at Geneva Auction

An exceptionally rare 19-carat pink diamond goes under the hammer in Geneva Tuesday, when it could fetch $50 million (44 million euros), setting a new record for a stone of its kind, reports AFP. 

The Pink Legacy used to belong to the Oppenheimer family, which for decades ran the De Beers diamond mining company, but auction house Christie's refused to say who the current owner was.

Christie's international head of jewellery, Rahul Kadakia, described The Pink Legacy as "one of the world's greatest diamonds".

The rectangular-cut diamond has been graded "fancy vivid" -- the highest possible grade of colour intensity.

Christie's has noted that in the salesroom, fancy vivid pink diamonds over 10 carats are "virtually unheard of" and that only four vivid pink diamonds or over 10 carats have ever been offered at auction.

One of them, the nearly 15-carat Pink Promise, was sold last November at a Christie's auction in Hong Kong for $32.5 million. That amounts to $2.176 million per carat, which remains the world auction record price per carat for any pink diamond.