A bright blue stone, heavy like a pocket full of coins, is getting ready to take the stage in Hong Kong next month. It’s called the Kat Florence Lumina, and it weighs almost 182 carats — almost as much as a hamster.
The auction house Bonhams plans to sell it on May 22 during their “Jewels and Jadeite” event. They think it could bring in between 3 and 5 million Hong Kong dollars — that’s more than the price of a small apartment in some cities.
Photo courtesy of Kat Florence
The gemstone carries the name of designer Kat Florence. Her husband, Don Kogen, found the raw crystal buried in red soil in Mozambique 12 years ago. At the time, it was a rough giant — 830 carats, sharp and wild like a broken glass bottle. Kogen thought it could become a clean stone over 300 carats, but the crystal waited in silence for years.
This year, Florence nudged her husband to look at it again. When they first cut it, it became a 314-carat gem — big, yes, but something was off. The middle part didn’t shine. Experts call this “windowing” — a kind of flatness that eats the gem’s fire, like fog swallowing headlights.
So they went back to work, cutting with the patience of clockmakers. The stone lost some weight but gained more soul. Now, at nearly 182 carats, it glows like a frozen drop of ocean under a spotlight.
Photo courtesy of Kat Florence
The brand said this gemstone is one of a kind — the biggest known Paraíba-type tourmaline that hasn’t been heated, yet still bursts with color and has been cut with great care.
They added that the Kat Florence Lumina is rare — mixing size, glow, purity, and shape in a way no one has seen before in these kinds of stones.
Three respected gem labs — Bellerophon, American Gemological Laboratories, and Gübelin — have looked at the stone and given their reports.
Before the auction, the gem will be shown in three cities:
– Taipei from April 11 to 13
– Singapore on May 10 and 11
– Hong Kong from May 17 to 21
Bonhams estimates the gem could fetch roughly $386,000 to $643,500 — which breaks down to about $2,100 to $3,500 per carat.
Bonhams said more information about the other jewelry pieces will be shared soon.
