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Mining co. cuts world’s largest csarite
Milenyum Mining has discovered and faceted the largest known csarite in the world, a 121.65-carat pear-shaped stone that it expects to retail for close to $1 million.
The gemstone was cut recently from an approximately 430-gram (2,150-carat) piece of rough found in the world’s only known csarite mine, located in the Anatolian mountains of Turkey.
The company has recovered rough pieces of csarite three times the size of this one, and has ended up with no faceted stones so far, according to Milenyum.
The mining company said that typical loss from rough csarite is approximately 98 percent; however in this case, they lost only about 95 percent of the original specimen in cutting.
Prior to this, the largest known faceted csarite stone was an 88.49-carat pear-shaped gem that won a Cutting Edge award in last year’s American Gem Trade Association Spectrum Awards.
The only other csarite stones of a similar size have been cabochon gems that exhibited cat’s eye and color change effects.
“It was an exciting challenge to cut this stone,” said Rudi Wobito, master cutter at Wobito, the company that did the actual faceting. “Csarite rough very rarely produces a fine gem of this size and caliber. And it’s a very slow process to shape the rough and finally arrive at the finished gem. We studied the material from all angles for weeks before deciding on the final shape.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Milenyum two trademarks for csarite--one for the name “csarite,” allowing for greater consumer recognition for the stone, and approval to trademark the tagline “Csarite: Rare. Natural. Exquisite.”
After both trademarks were approved and registered, Milenyum said that will step up efforts to fight theft and illegal mining at the site by working with Turkish ministries and the army to monitor and prevent illegal activity.
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