A massive diamond valued at more than $70 million will go under the hammer in London next month, the Sotheby’s auction house said Wednesday. (TSX:LUC). It measured 1,109 carats, the second-largest gem-quality rough diamond ever discovered.
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What’s a diamond the size of a tennis ball worth?
The 1109-Carat rough “Lesedi La Rona” will be offered in a stand-alone auction in London on June 29 and will first go on show at Sotheby’s NY on May 7. It means “Our Light” in Setswana, the national language of Botswana, the southern African nation where the 1,111 carat stone was found in November 2015.
Lucara, the Canadian company that owns the diamond, called it the biggest diamond found in more than 100 years.
A model displays the 1109 carat Lesedi La Rona diamond at Sotheby’s in NY.
The company completed the transfer of its shares of Mothae Diamonds Pty Ltd and the site bulk sample plant to the Government of Lesotho.
“No rough even remotely of this scale has ever been offered before at public auction”, David Bennett, worldwide Chairman of Sotheby’s Jewellery division, said in the release.
The Lesedi la Rona diamond will be on public display at Sotheby’s in NY on Saturday (Sunday NZT), and at the auctioneer’s London showrooms June 18-28.
The auction comes as global diamond demand slipped 2 percent a year ago, with total polished diamond sales falling to $79 billion from $81 billion in 2014, De Beers, the largest producer, said in an April report.
The only diamond ever found that was larger in size is the Cullinan Diamond, which weighed more than 3,000 carats before it was cut down into nine smaller pieces.
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Cullinan Diamond, 3,106.75 carats.
