A South African blue diamond of practically 42 carats, unearthed from the world-famous Cullinan Mine in Gauteng, seems set to interrupt worth information. That is in keeping with Petra Diamonds Restricted, the corporate who recovered the uncommon blue diamond ‘of remarkable color and readability.’
Cited as one of the crucial important finds ever, the South African blue diamond can be distinctive in that, from sure angles, it seems to be formed like Africa. Furthermore, specialists within the area imagine it is going to web $57.5 million (R905 million), or extra, at sale …
RARE SOUTH AFRICAN BLUE DIAMOND
Petra Diamonds Restricted says the South African blue diamond has been labeled as a Sort IIb stone. This locations it in an ultra-rare class resulting from its boron and nitrogen content material. In line with the corporate’s launch final week, it’s nonetheless within the means of totally analysing the stone. Within the meantime, it’s assessing most popular gross sales strategies, too.
For context, the South African blue diamond of 41.82 carats is awfully giant. It will weigh about 8.36 grams and measure roughly 25 mm in diameter. Moreover, the typical engagement ring diamond is one carat, making this stone not less than 40-times bigger by weight. Furthermore, any diamond greater than 40 carats is taken into account extremely uncommon. That means they’re sometimes destined for museums or well-known jewelry collections.
HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO THE LARGEST DIAMONDS EVER?
For reference, the world-famous authentic Cullinan Diamond was 3 106 carats. It’s nonetheless the largest-ever, gem-quality tough diamond discovered. A bigger one – Sergio – was found in Brazil nevertheless it wasn’t thought-about gem high quality and was reduce down for industrial use. The aforementioned Cullinan was reduce into a number of items, two of which are actually a part of the British Crown Jewels displayed on the Tower of London.
Cullinan I (Nice Star of Africa) is 530.4 carats and is about within the Sovereign’s Sceptre.
Whereas Cullinan II is 317.4 carats and mounted within the Imperial State Crown.
Different notables which are bigger than the South African blue diamond had been unearthed in Botswana:
Lucara Diamond Corp’s Karowe Mine discovery of two 492 carats.
Sewelo – 1 758 carats. Additionally unearthed on the Karowe Mine in Botswana.
Lesedi La Rona – 1 109 carats. Found in 2015 at Karowe and bought by Graff Diamonds.
WHAT NEXT FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN BLUE DIAMOND?
So, whereas not as prolific as Botswana’s Karowe, the Cullinan Mine can nonetheless stake declare to among the rarest discoveries. These embrace the 12.03-carat Blue Moon of Josephine and the 15.10-carat De Beers Cullinan Blue, which bought for $57.5 million (R905 million) at public sale again in 2022. The mine’s newest discovery is anticipated to trump the latter.
Nonetheless, newly recovered South African blue diamond remains to be present process intensive evaluation in tough kind. As soon as specialists have evaluated its inner construction, color distribution and crystal orientation, a closing slicing technique can be decided.
However what do you suppose? How a lot will the rear South African blue diamond fetch when it lastly goes in the marketplace? Make sure to tell us within the feedback part under …
