One of the largest diamonds in world history is found in the kingdom of Lesotho in Africa at the Letseng mine owned by Gem Diamonds Ltd.: the mass of the precious stone is 910 carats, the company said.
Colorless (scale D) stone is of type IIa, that is, it almost does not contain nitrogen or boron impurities; Such diamonds in the world are less than 1% of the production. It is the fifth largest ever discovered in the world and the largest for Lesotho.
Gem Diamonds recovers exceptional quality 910 carat, D colour Type IIa diamond from Letšeng pic.twitter.com/tEVQ4zFrwi
— Gem Diamonds Limited (@GemDiamondsLtd)
The stock price of Gem Diamonds jumped 13% at the auction in London on Monday.
Letseng Mine is famous for the size and quality of diamonds. Since 2006, four of the world’s 20 largest white diamonds have been found here. A record of them was a diamond Promise Lesotho (Lesotho Promise) for 603 carats.
Impeccable quality provides the finds from this mine with the highest average cost in the world – about $ 2 thousand per carat last year at a world average of $ 120 per carat.
Gem Diamonds does not yet disclose plans for this diamond and does not try to assess its potential value. Canadian Lucara Diamond last year sold the largest diamond in the century, Lesedi la Rona, weighing more than 1100 carats for $ 53 million ($ 47.8 thousand per carat).
However, a year earlier, it earned a record $ 63 million for a smaller stone (813 carats).
At the same time, Liberum brokerage company initially estimated the Letseng recost of $ 40 million, at the same time improving the valuation of Gem Diamonds.
Last week, Gem showed the world two fairly large diamonds with Letseng – at 117 and 110 carats.
The world record is held by the Cullinan diamond, whose mass was 3106 carats. He was found in South Africa in 1905.
Its estimated value is $ 2 billion, but the stone was never put up for auction. Cullinan was donated to the King of Great Britain by Edward VII and divided into nine large and 96 small diamonds. The largest of them were inserted into the jewels of the British crown.
The second largest diamond for a long time was Excelsior (995.2 carats), which was mined in 1893 in present-day South Africa, now it moved to the third line, losing second Lesedi la Rona. The fourth place is the “Star of Sierra Leone” with a mass of 969 carats.