Late rapper Tupac Shakur’s gold, ruby and diamond crown ring fetched more than $1 million on Tuesday, becoming the most valuable hip-hop artifact ever sold at auction, according to Sotheby’s.
The ring, which was designed by Shakur and worn during his last ever public appearance at the 1996 Video Music Awards (VMAs), went for more than three times the auction house’s estimate at a hip-hop-themed sale in New York.
Inscribed with “Pac & Dada 1996,” a reference to his engagement to actress and model Kidada Jones (the daughter of American record producer Quincy Jones), the diamond-encrusted gold band is topped with a gold circlet studded with a cabochon ruby and two pavé-cut diamonds.
The ring was designed several months after the rapper signed with Death Row Records following a prison sentence for which he served eight months. It was modeled after the crowns of Europe’s medieval kings in “an act of self-coronation,” said Shakur’s godmother, Yaasmyn Fula, who brought the ring to auction, according to Sotheby’s press release.
