Sunday, July 23, 2017

"A Massive 1,109-Carat Rough Diamond Is Too Large to Sell"

What's the next step after "First World Problems"?
From Town&Country:

The "Lesedi La Rona" stone didn't find a buyer at auction last summer.

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A massive, tennis ball-sized rough diamond, the second largest ever unearthed, has been deemed too large to sell. Found by the Lucara Diamond Corporation in Botswana, the stone has since been named Lesedi la Rona, which means "our light" in Tswana, the language spoken in the area.

The owners originally sought a buyer for the rough cut, placing the stone up for auction last summer, but after the 1,109-carat rock failed to meet the $70 million minimum reserve price set by Sotheby's, industry insiders say the gem will be cut

"It's only the second stone recovered in the history of humanity over 1,000 carats. Why would you want to polish it?" Lucara's chief executive told Fortune. "The stone in the rough form contains untold potential... As soon as you polish it into one solution, everything else is gone."
However, the stone is so large that it cannot be accurately assessed. 

"When is a diamond too big? I think we have found that when you go above 1,000 carats, it is too big - certainly from the aspect of analyzing the stones with the technology available," Panmure Gordon mining analyst Kieron Hodgson told Fortune....MORE
The rock had been even bigger but a  373-carat hunk broke off before the sorting process got to them.

https://blogs-images.forbes.com/anthonydemarco/files/2017/05/Graff-373.72-Carat-PNG.jpg?width=960
Graff's newest acquisition