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Stargems Group Buys 424-Carat Diamond
The company paid a little less than $15 million for the rough diamond, or about $35,000 per carat.
Petra Diamonds sold this 424.89-carat rough diamond to Stargems Group/Choron for a little less than $15 million.
London—Mining company Petra Diamonds announced Tuesday that it has sold the 400-plus-carat diamond it unearthed earlier this spring.
Discovered in late March, the rough stone weighed 424.89 carats after cleaning, and was sold to Stargems/Choron (Belgium) BVBA for “just under $15 million.” (The exact purchase price was not disclosed.)
This means the D color, Type IIa diamond went for about $35,000 per carat. The current price-per-carat record for a rough diamond is $77,649, set in May 2016 by the 812.77-carat “Constellation” diamond.
The 425-carat diamond was mined at the famed Cullinan mine and dubbed the “Legacy of the Cullinan Diamond Mine.”
Originally owned by De Beers and sold to Petra Diamonds in 2007, the mine is known for churning out large, important stones, including the largest rough diamond ever found, the 3,106-carat Cullinan (the mine was called Premier when the stone was found in 1905, later changing its name to link it to this historic stone), and the 29.6-carat rough blue diamond that later was cut into the 12-carat “Blue Moon” diamond, which sold at auction for nearly $50 million.
Petra CEO Richard Duffy called the transaction a “significant” sale for the company, while Stargems Chairman Shailesh Javeri said: “The Cullinan Diamond Mine has produced some of the most iconic diamonds the world has ever seen and, as a key client of Petra Diamonds, we are honored to have the opportunity to polish the ‘Legacy of the Cullinan Diamond Mine.’”
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