Throughout the history of precious stones, various large diamonds have been found, however the largest of the 21st century is the Lesedi La Rona, a beautiful stone that the Lucara Diamons company discovered in Botswana, weighing 1,109 carats and worth approximately $53 millionbeing the second largest stone in history after the appearance of the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, which was found in South Africa in 1905.
This beautiful gem was found in November 2015, in an exploitation that the Lucara Diamonds company shares with Karowe, in Botswana.. It is the size of a tennis ball, and experts claim that it is the largest uncut stone in the world.
It is normal that these types of stones are only offered to dealers in the diamond industry, who after studying it for weeks determine how many cut stones could be removed from the rough diamond. They then calculate the value of the gems and send an economic proposal to the mining company. However, the tradition was broken as Sotheby’s wanted to take advantage of the desire of people with great financial resources who seek to acquire emblematic objects.
For this reason, this beautiful gemstone It was auctioned in 2016 in New York City by Sotheby’s.. Nevertheless offers did not exceed 61 million dollarsa figure that was quite far from the reserve price set by the owners of the diamond set at 70 million dollars, and much more distant from the unofficial expectations that handled a figure of 90 million dollars, for which it was not sold.
Since 2015, it has discreetly toured the international market and according to the figures handled, the mining company lost out with the sale since, despite the auction offers, the amount that was finally paid for the impressive gem was 53 million dollars.
Currently this beautiful precious stone is in the hands of the British firm Graff Diamonds, who already had a part of the Lesedi la Rona, since in May 2015, it acquired a 373.72-carat fragment at auction that detached from the main stone during extraction work. The price paid for that fraction was 17.5 million dollars. That is why this company has the entire Lesedi La Rona and it only remains to wait for the final destination of this wonderful precious stone.
As a curious fact, the Lucara company held a public contest to choose the name of this spectacular precious stone, in which more than 11,000 citizens of the country of origin participated. The name Lesedi La Rona translated into Spanish means «Our Light». The lucky winner of the contest was awarded approximately 2,000 euros, in addition to the name chosen by him remaining for posterity.
The dimensions of this diamond allow us to affirm that gems like this only appear once a century.