Graff buys for $ 53 million the largest diamond of the century: weighs 1,109 carats ♦ ︎
It’s called Laurence Graff and probably has a diamond in place of the heart. The great British jeweler, king of diamonds, confirms this. It has, in fact, bought the world’s largest rough diamond. It cost a piece of cake: $ 53 million, or about 45 million euros. To sell the biggest gem was the Canadian Lucara Diamond. The diamond weighs 1,109 carats and is one of the largest ever extracted from the earth. Translated in grams, it weighs about 2 hectograms and it is as a tennis ball.
It was not a head shot: Graff dealed for a year on the price to get the stone. That now will become jewels. But here’s the point: how to cut such a masterpiece of nature? Graff must maximize the yield of the stone, minimizing waste. At the same time, it must value the size, but it must be suitable for use on a necklace, a tiara or a ring.
It should be noted that the great diamond had already been try to sell by Sotheby’s in June of a year ago. But no one wanted to pay for the $ 70 million required price.
The diamond was baptized Lesedi La Rona (meaning Our Light in Tswana) and was discovered in November 2015 by Lucara in Botswana, a country which became second diamond manufacturer after Russia.
It is the largest diamond discovered for over a century (the heaviest is still Cullinan, 3,016.75 carats, discovered in 1905 in South Africa). Federico Graglia
Also read: The 70 million diamond auction
