The 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona to Graff Diamonds for $53 million — a price well below what the miner Lucara Diamond Corp wanted for the record-breaking stone.
This is the second-largest in the history of the trade and Graff spent $47,777 per carat on the rough diamond. Lucara claim that the stone is the biggest stone the biggest that any company has unearthed in Botswana.
The Diamond was mines from the Karowe mine in November 2015. The original price placed on the stone was 70 million dollars. It then failed to sell the stone at a Sotheby’s auction in London in June 2016.
“We took our time to find a buyer who would take the diamond through its next stage of evolution,” Lucara CEO William Lamb said. “The price paid is also an improvement on the highest bid received at the Sotheby’s auction in June 2016.”
Karowe mine has proved to be quite a successful project for Lucara with the mine producing 3 diamonds worth $130 million in November 2015. The rough producer does not cut and polish such diamonds but has offered them to Sotherbys for resale.
Just to illustrate how successful the Karowe mine has been. It has been pointed out that the 3 stones found are enough to cover the cost of building the whole mine.
Graff are known for their insatiable appetite for extortionary large diamonds. In May of this year purchased a 373.72 carat rough stone that was once part of this Lesedi La Rona diamond. The Lesedi La Rona is the third largest diamond ever found and a shard came off during preproduction.
That’s a *373.72carat shard! worth $17.5 million!
You could say a chip off the old block.
*Not available at Loyes Diamonds.