18-carat pink diamond sells for $29M in Geneva

A pear-shaped 18-carat pink diamond, billed as a rarity, sold at a Geneva auction on Tuesday for $28.8 million.

The "Fortune Pink" fancy vivid pink stone, said to be the largest of its kind and shape to go on the block, headlined Christie's latest Geneva sale of jewelry.

It had been expected to fetch between $25 million and $35 million.The auction house said an unidentified Asian buyer snapped up the diamond.

Max Fawcett, Christie's Head of Department for Jewelry said "The fortune pink diamond is the largest pear-shaped vivid pink diamond ever to be offered at auction, originally coming from Brazil. The colour is incredibly saturated and strong." The pink stone's auction also follows a showroom tour in New York, Shanghai, Singapore and Taiwan before its arrival in Geneva.

Christie's says the first pink diamonds ever recorded were found in India's Golconda mines in the 16th century, before others turned up over the centuries in places like Africa, Australia, Brazil and Russia.