Bidding opened online on Tuesday, with the sale concluding at a live auction in Hong Kong on October 5.
In the meantime, the diamond is set to go on display at appointment-only previews in Beijing, Shanghai, New York and Taipei.
The auction house said the stone is second-largest oval diamond of its kind to be offered at auction. It also noted the piece has achieved top rankings in each of the “four Cs” — cut, color, clarity and carat weight — by which a diamond is judged.
To date, only seven D-colour diamonds weighing more than 100 carats have ever been sold at an auction, and none of them have been round brilliant cuts. Diamond cutters usually prefer to maximize the yield from a rough stone by producing a pear or emerald-cut stone.
The rare diamond up for grabs is slightly smaller than the one which currently holds the title of the world’s most expensive D-Flawless diamond — An 163.41-carat emerald-cut part of a De Grisogono necklace that sold for $33.7 million in Geneva in 2017.
The auction record for any diamond is held by the “Pink Star,” which sold for $71.2 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in April 2017.
