Top News : Largest pink diamond in 300 years found in Angola

 This rare pink diamond, weighing 34 grams, is thought to be the largest discovered in the last 300 years.

 

Bloomberg Quicktake on Twitter: "A rare, pink diamond found in Angola may  be the largest recovered in the last 3 centuries. The 170-carat stone has  been named the “Lulo Rose" https://t.co/ULR4f6RlZl https://t.co/2dKkFuoTNf"  /

 

 The 170-carat stone has been named the "Lulo Rose", after the mine in Angola where it was found.

 It is believed to be the largest pink diamond mined since the 185-carat Daria-i-Noor, which was cut from a larger stone and is now among the Iranian crown jewels.

 

Rare pink diamond, largest in 300 yrs, unearthed in Angola

 

 The Lulo Rose is a type 2a diamond, meaning it has few or no impurities.

 "This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage," said Diamantino Azevedo, Angola's minister of mineral resources.

 

Lulo Rose: Largest pink diamond in 300 years found in Angola - BBC News

 

 It is the fifth largest diamond recovered from the Lulo mine - a joint venture between Australia's Lucapa Diamond Company and the Angolan government.

 Similar diamonds have been bought for tens of millions of dollars in the past, with one - known as Pink Star - selling at a Hong Kong auction for $71.2m (£59m) in 2017.

 

 But it's impossible to speculate on how much the Lulo Rose will fetch until it's cut, said Joanna Hardy, an independent fine jewellery specialist

 Pink diamonds are extremely rare - but the same physical attributes that make the stones scarce also make them very tough, and not easy to work into shapes.

 

Biggest pink diamond in 300 years found in Angola - time.news - Time News

 

 Hardy said the stone is unlikely to end up on public view - or even brought to auction - as retailers have clients waiting to snap up such a rare find.

 The largest known pink diamond is the Daria-i-Noor, discovered in India, which experts believe was cut from an even larger stone.

 

 The largest rough diamond of any colour ever recorded is the Cullinan diamond, found in South Africa in 1905.

 Weighing 3,107 carats - more than half a kilogram - it was cut into 105 different stones.

 

 The largest of these - the Cullinan I - is the biggest clear cut diamond in the world and forms part of the UK Crown Jewels.

 

 

What makes pink diamonds pink?

 

 They're one of the world's rarest jewels - but nobody knows for certain why pink diamonds are pink.

 

 That hasn't stopped investors from snapping them up at auction and sending prices skyrocketing. In October a new world record was set at a Sotheby's sale in Hong Kong when an 8.41-carat pink diamond sold for $17,768,041 (£11,438,714) - more than $2.1m (£1.8m) a carat.

 

 "Everybody's talking about them, and everybody loves them," says Jeffrey Post, curator of the National Gem and Mineral Collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. "Yet you can't tell people why they're pink."

 

  Other diamonds get their colour from chemical impurities that absorb light. Yellow diamonds contain traces of nitrogen, and blue diamonds contain boron. But no similar impurities have been found in pink diamonds, leading scientists to speculate that the colour may be the result of some kind of seismic shock that altered the stone's molecular structure.

 

 It's now hoped that a cache of brown and pink diamonds from the Argyle mine in Western Australia may solve the mystery. The mine, owned by Rio Tinto, is the world's largest source of pink diamonds, even though they're so rare that only a few are produced each year.

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoyed this article? Stay informed by joining our newsletter!

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.

About Author