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RAPAPORT... Sotheby's Hong Kong sale of magnificent jewels achieved $95,473,557 (HKD 744,693,750) and was 75 percent sold by lot. The top lot was a 118.28-carat, D flawless, type IIa oval-shaped diamond that sold for $30.6 million (HKD 238,680,000) or about $260,000 per carat. Sotheby's stated that the diamond achieved a record price and the sale total also set a record for a jewelry sale in Asia. 
Two phone bidders competed for the extraordinary diamond until one finally dropped out, according to the Associated Press. The diamond held excellent symmetry and excellent polish and was, according to Sotheby’s jewelry experts, the largest oval-shaped, D, flawless or internally flawless diamond ever graded by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
The diamond was cut from a 299-carat rough stone found in 2011 from a mine in Southern Africa. It took several months for the stone to be cut to perfection and it was expected to sell for $28 million to $35 million.
The second highlight of the sale, "The Premier Blue,'' a 7.59-carat, IF, flawless, fancy vivid blue diamond surrounded by brilliant-cut pink diamonds of 1.70 total carat weight, failed to find a buyer at the auction.
Other top lots that did sell in Hong Kong included a set of two jadeite bead necklaces, which sold for $5.4 million (HKD 42.7 million) and an unmounted, brilliant-cut 20.05-carat D, flawless diamond, which sold for $4 million (HKD 31.5 million) or $195,121 per carat.
"Hong Kong has in the last few years pulled itself up alongside Geneva and New York as one of the three major selling centers at auction" for diamonds, Quek Chin Yeow, the deputy chairman of Sotheby's Asia, told the Associated Press.
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