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AUCTION

French garage to auction Ronaldo’s €250k Ferrari

A damaged Ferrari once belonging to Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo is to be sold on eBay, after its new French owner came to an agreement with the Internet auction site, the vendor's laywer said on Thursday.

French garage to auction Ronaldo's €250k Ferrari
The crashed ferrari belonging to Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo is pictured in a tunnel near Manchester Airport in Manchester: Photo: Andrew Yates/AFP

Renaud Bettcher told AFP that he and his client – a garage owner from the eastern city of Strasbourg – were "very satisfied" that they had finally been given the go-ahead to sell the car, after eBay asked for proof of its provenance.

The site would also pay undisclosed damages to the dealership, the lawyer added. According to the Dernieres Nouvelles d'Alsace newspaper, the figure could be as much as 20,000 euros ($26,000, £17,000).

Star Autos took action against eBay after the auction site withdrew an advert for the sale of the car "for security reasons" and concern that it may not have been genuine.

It then asked the garage to provide proof about its previous owner, which Bettcher said they supplied three times.

No date was given for the new sale.

The garage bought the red Ferrari 599 GTB from a Portuguese vendor for about 33,000 euros and had been asking for 50,000 euros for it at auction.
Bids had reached 125,000 euros when the item was withdrawn.

Ronaldo crashed the 250,000-euro sports car into a barrier near Manchester airport in 2009, a week before the then-Manchester United striker was awarded the 2008 Ballon d'Or as world player of the year.

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DIAMOND

Rare pink diamond to go under hammer in Geneva

An extremely rare pink diamond will be auctioned in Geneva on November 11 by Sotheby's, which says it is worth between $23 and $38 million.

Rare pink diamond to go under hammer in Geneva
A model poses with the “The Spirit of the Rose” diamond during a press preview on Friday. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
Named “The Spirit of the Rose” after a famous Russian ballet, the 14.83-carat diamond mined in Russia is the biggest ever to go under the hammer in its category — “fancy vivid purple-pink”.
 
The occurrence of pink diamonds in nature is extremely rare in any size,” Gary Schuler, head of Sotheby's jewellery division, said in a statement. “Only one per cent of all pink diamonds are larger than 10-carats.”
   
Speaking to AFP, Benoit Repellin, head of fine jewellery auctions at Sotheby's Geneva, said the oval-shaped diamond was “completely pure.”
 
 
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The rough diamond was unearthed by Russia's Alrosa — one of the world's leading diamond producers — in the Republic of Sakha in the northeast of the country in July 2017.
   
Repellin said it took a painstaking year for cutting masters to turn the diamond into its polished form.
   
Sotheby's said the world auction record for a diamond and any gemstone or jewel was the “CTF Pink Star”, a 59.60-carat oval pink diamond that sold for $71.2 million in Hong Kong in 2017.
   
According to Repellin, five out of the 10 most valuable diamonds ever sold at auction were pink.
   
The sale of this gem coincides with the closure of the world's largest pink diamond mine in Australia after it exhausted its reserves of the precious stones.
   
The Argyle mine, in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, churned out more than 90 percent of the world's pink diamonds.
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