Nothing doing: the largest diamond has not been sold at Sotheby’s (we have anticipated here). The auction of the 1,109-carat diamond, the second-largest of all time, did not reach the minimum expected. The buyers, anonymous, stopped to 61 million dollars, against 70 million in the minimum price set by Lucara, the company that had discovered the precious gem last November in one of its mines in Botswana. We must also mention that the price wrought by the auctioneer of an auction isn’t final: to the cost will add a commission of about 12%. In this case, therefore, the purchaser would have shelled out 68 million dollars if he had bought the diamond. The diamond La Rona, as had been baptized, has a size of a tennis ball (about 66.4 x 55 x 42 mm), and has an exceptional transparency. In addition to great age: from 2.5 to more than 3 billion years. But, according to experts, it is also difficult to cut to extract stones to be used on a jewel. Federico Graglia
