'Sun Drop' diamond fetches $10.9 million at auction

A 110-carat yellow jewel called the Sun Drop Diamond, considered the biggest of its kind in the world, sold for 10 million Swiss francs ($10.9 million) at auction in Geneva, Sotheby's announced today .

"Ten million francs (10.91 million dollars, 8.06 million euros). Sold!", said Sotheby's David Bennett before about 150 people gathered for the sale at a luxurious Geneva hotel.

The sale price was slightly less than the estimates of experts who had valued the yellow diamond at between 11 and 15 million dollars.

Gemologists have certified the pear-shaped jewel as "Fancy Vivid Yellow", the rarest and most desirable colour for a yellow diamond, Sotheby's said.

The gem was discovered in South Africa in 2010 and wowed visitors to London's Natural History Museum where it was displayed earlier this year and also in Hong Kong.

The yellow diamond, about the size of a woman's thumb, takes its colour from traces of nitrogen in its carbon makeup.

"Everytime we've shown it around the world, people have gone 'oh my god'," Bennett, head of jewellery for Europe and the Middle East, told AFP last week.

"It has never been owned so the buyer will be the first person to wear it," he added.

But Sotheby did not disclose who was the buyer of Sun Drop on Tuesday.

The sale price did not include commissions.