Sunday, February 28, 2010
Most Expensive Rough Diamond - world
record set by The Cullinan Heritage
LONDON, UK -- Diamond supplier Petra
Diamonds Ltd.
(PDL.L) sold the 507-carat Cullinan
Heritage
diamond (as big as a chicken egg and weighing
just over 100 grams or 3.53 ounces) 
for $35.3 million (euro25.8 million) - setting the new world
record for the Most
Expensive Rough Diamond
.
( enlarge
photo
)
The world's Most Expensive Rough Diamond
was estimated
as among the world's top 20 high-quality rough diamonds. It
was discovered in September at South Africa's Cullinan mine.
"It's a very special gem. It will surely
go to some form of jewellery," said Adonis Pouroulis, chairman
of Petra. "There was huge interest in the stone. A stone like
this doesn't come around very often," he told Reuters.
London-listed Petra said the world's
Most Expensive Rough Diamond
was purchased by Hong
Kong-based private jewelry retailer Chow Tai Food Jewelry
Co. Ltd.
The price reflected "the incredible rarity of
the diamond, which combines its remarkable size with exceptional
color and clarity, and at 507.5 carats it is the 19th largest
gem diamond ever discovered," Petra CEO Johan Dippenaar said
in a statement.
"It has the potential to produce one of the world's
most important polished gems," he added.
The Cullinan mine, located east of Pretoria,
South Africa, was sold by De Beers SA to a consortium led
by Petra in 2007 for 1 billion rand ($148 million).
The mine has turned out some of the world's
largest gems, including the 3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond that
was cut to form the 530-carat Great Star of Africa and the
317-carat Lesser Star of Africa set in the Crown Jewels of
Britain.
The sale beat the previous Guinness
world record of £12.1m paid in 2008 for the Leseli la Letseng
478-carat diamond.
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Sunday, February 28, 2010
