A diamond dubbed “the diamond of a lifetime” is set to be auctioned at Sotheby’s auction house on June 29; it is expected to receive bids of $70 million or more.
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A model poses with an uncut 1,109-carat diamond, “Lesedi La Rona”.
The diamond auction will be held at Sotheby’s in London at 6:30 p.m. local time.
The Lesedi la Rona diamond was uncovered through a hard rock diamond mining process in Botswana, in the Karowe Mine on November 16, 2015. “Every aspect of this auction is unprecedented”.
The 1,109-carat, tennis ball-sized stone hits the auction block Wednesday night in London, where last week’s vote by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union had a chilling effect on the auction business.
“No rough even remotely of this scale has ever been offered before at public auction”, he said in a statement.
Lesedi La Rona was the single biggest diamond uncovered since the Cullinin Diamond in 1905 – a 3,106.75-carat stone.
Diamonds have been mined continuously for centuries in multiple locations around the world and yet nothing of the size and quality of Lesedi La Rona has been found in over 100 years.
A study by the Gemological Institute of America also indicates that the Lesedi La Rona’s color and transparency puts it in a rare category that makes up less than 2 percent of all gem diamonds.
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Auctioneers have estimated the diamond to achieve a sale in excess of Dollars 70 million.
