By all accounts, a truly special father-daughter bonding moment took place at a recent Sotheby’s auction when, after a fierce bidding war, a gargantuan 88.22-carat oval diamond was sold to a Japanese collector for US$13.8 million. Immediately upon completing the sale, the purchaser then renamed the precious stone the Manami Star after his eldest daughter.
This poignant gesture only further added to the undoubted allure of the gemstone, one of only three oval diamonds of 50 carats or more to have been offered for auction in living memory. Officially deemed a category D, Flawless, Type IIa, Brilliant diamond, it holds the particular distinction of notching up a perfect score across all the 4 C’s that count – cut, colour, clarity and carat weight.
The original rough diamond that morphed into the 88.22-carat gem was mined in Botswana at a site co-owned by the De Beers diamond merchants and the Botswanan government, a site that was already renowned as a source of stones of the highest quality. Weighing in at a staggering 242 carats, the original was then painstakingly professionally polished and cut over several months, before emerging in its ultimately symmetrical, iridescent form.