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 national jewels. 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. 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.
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.
The pink diamond will be sold by international tender by the Angolan state diamond marketing company, Sodiam. Angola’s mines make it one of the world’s top 10 producers of diamonds.
This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage for diamond mining and demonstrates the potential and rewards for commitment and investment in our growing diamond mining industry,” Diamantino Azevedo, Angola’s minister of mineral resources, petroleum and gas, said, according to the Lucapa website. The pink diamond is impressive, but many clear diamonds are larger than 1,000 carats. The Cullinan diamond found in South Africa in 1905 tips the scales at 3,106 carats and it is in the British Sovereign’s Scepter.
The discovery of the pink diamond has generated quite a bit of excitement, not only within African diamond producing countries, but also worldwide. “The surfacing of this particular pink diamond in Angola is distinct justification that natural diamonds have always been the real wonders of the world,” said Dr M'Zée Fula Ngenge, Chairman of the African Diamond Council.
The 170-carat stone, which weighs just 34 grams, has been named the ‘Lulo Rose’, after the alluvial mine where it was discovered. Alluvial means that the stones are recovered from a river bed. But the Australian owner of the mine, the Lucapa Diamond Company, says that only one in 10,000 diamonds found are pink in colour.
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