The African miner Petra Diamonds may get $31 million for a chicken-egg-sized diamond it unearthed in September, according to BMO Capital Markets.
Petra, who announced last week the sale of a 168-carat gem found at its Cullinan mine in South Africa for $6.28 million, or $37.380 a carat, may get 50 percent more per carat for the larger stone, wrote BMO analyst Edward Sterck in a research note dated November 27.
A few months ago, I wrote a post about the world's biggest and most expensive diamonds, and I ranked them, you are welcome to check the diamonds out.
“The 507.6-carat stone, the size of a medium chicken egg and weighing more than 100 grams (3.53 ounces), may be among the 20 largest ‘high quality’ rough diamonds discovered,” commented St. Helier, Jersey-based Petra, in September. The company sold two other white diamonds discovered at its Cullinan mine for $2.8 million earlier this month.
The small mining village of Cullinan, located east of Pretoria gained world-wide attention with the discovery on June 25, 1905 of an incredible 3108 carat stone, dubbed the Cullinan Diamond - the largest uncut certified diamond ever found. It was cut to form the Great Star of Africa and the Lesser Star of Africa, set in the Crown Jewels of Britain. Over the years more that 120 million carats have been mined.
Other notable gemstones unearthed from the Cullinan Mines include the 755 carat Golden Jubilee, the 600 carat Centenary, and the 530 carat Great Star of Africa and the Lesser Star of Africa, both cut from the Cullinan diamond itself.
Today, the giant open pit mine at Cullinan is four times larger than the famous Big Hole of Kimberley. The Cullinan Mine is still fully operational and in fact, still produces 25% of the world's gem-quality diamonds. The Cullinan Mine conducts public tours of both the surface and underground operations and tour operators tell the story of how the geological processes are responsible for the creation of these illustrious gems, to this day. Visitors can learn how these diamonds are extracted from the earth and gain insight into the delicate cutting operations carried out by master diamond cutters.
“It’s too early to say how much the diamond is worth and Petra has still to decide how it will sell the diamond”, spokesman Bobby Morse said by phone today from London..
In other news, the Israeli Diamond Institute portal published an article yesterday regarding the New Diamond Encrusted iPhone, dubbed Worlds Most Expensive Phone, selling at a whopping £1.92m! Check it out!
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