Lesedi La Rona

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The Lesedi La Rona (German "Our Light") is the third largest known rough diamond and the largest rough diamond find since the discovery of the Cullinan diamond in 1905.

The Lesedi La Rona is about the size of a tennis ball and measures 65 mm × 56 mm × 40 mm. Its weight is 1109 carats (221.8 g ) and it is of type IIa, which stands for particularly high quality and only occurs in around 1 to 2% of natural diamonds. Its age is estimated to be 2.5 to 3 billion years.

The diamond was discovered on November 16, 2015 in the Karowe mine in Botswana . The mine belongs to the Canadian mining company Lucara Diamond , which initially put the find at 1111 carats. The cleaned stone that was later offered for sale then only had 1109 carats.

At the beginning of 2016, Lucara Diamond announced a competition to name the diamond, which was endowed with prize money of 25,000 Pula and in which all citizens of Botswana could take part. Lesedi La Rona was chosen as the name . The name comes from the Bantu language Setswana , which is spoken by around 90% of the population of Botswana and translates into German as "Our Light".

Lucara Diamond planned to publicly auction the diamond in June 2016 at the London auction house Sotheby’s with a minimum bid of 70 million dollars (63 million euros), which caused a sensation in the industry as public auctioning of rough diamonds was uncommon. However, the auction failed because nobody wanted to raise the minimum bid. After a year of negotiations, Lucara Diamond finally agreed with the jeweler Laurence Graff on a purchase price of 53 million dollars (45 million euros).

In April 2019, Graff then presented the Graff Lesedi La Rona , which, at 302.37 carats, is the largest diamond made and cut from the rough diamond. In addition, 66 other smaller cut diamonds were created from rough diamonds.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Joanna Hardy: Lesedi La Rona rough diamond fails to sell at auction . The Telegraph, June 29, 2016
  2. ↑ a b 1.109-carat 'Lesedi la Rona' Diamond Expected to Fetch $ 70M + at Sotheby's London on June 29 . Johnny Ritz Jewelry Blog, May 9, 2016
  3. ↑ Claudia Bröll: GIANT DIAMOND: “Our light” is the name of the new diamond of the century . FAZ, February 11, 2016
  4. ↑ Christoph Rottwilm: The largest diamond in 100 years costs 53 million dollars . Manager Magazin, September 26, 2017
  5. ↑ Christoph Rottwilm: Auction after Brexit vote - auction of giant diamond failed . Spiegel Online, June 30, 2016
  6. ↑ Anthony DeMarco: Graff Unveils World's Largest Square Emerald Cut Diamond At 302.37 Carats . Forbes, April 10, 2019
  7. ↑ Introducing The Graff Lesedi La Rona on graff.com (accessed March 8, 2020)