The Diamond, Stone of All Records
There are records that steal the show in auction rooms, and others that, even beyond, shift the boundaries of reality.
/public-objects/c6ee8172-5e95-45e0-9838-fbf057c6b2c9-bed56250-a3c8-418c-aaa1-dcb9b255d4e2-GEM-T%20-%20Photos%20-%20Substack-6.webp Image sélectionnée The Natural Diamond Council has just published a report dedicated to the most exceptional natural diamonds ever discovered. Starting with the Cullinan, this 3106-carat monster is still unmatched more than a century after its discovery in South Africa in 1905. In this exclusive club, only a handful of diamonds have crossed the threshold of 1000 carats: geological anomalies, formed at depths that can reach 750 km beneath the earth's surface. What is changing today is that these giants are no longer just the result of a fortuitous find or a mining miracle. Developed extraction and recovery technologies have allowed diamonds to be identified in the ore before it is crushed, thus preventing them from being broken along the way. Some mines have thus become veritable "legend factories". Like the Karowe mine in Botswana, which has produced nine diamonds of over 1000 carats since 2012. When these stones emerge from underground to take the global stage, they put on a show, and not just a small one! The report recalls, for example, that the CTF Pink Star diamond (59.60 carats) sold for $71.2 million - that's $1.19 million per carat - an absolute record for a diamond at auction. Another gem, the Constellation, an 813-carat rough diamond, sold for a whopping $63.1 million, making it the most expensive uncut diamond ever sold. As for the Hope Diamond, it represents a cultural attraction in its own right and has had more than 200 million visitors, fascinated by its aura and its dark legend, since it was donated to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington in 1958. So, bon voyage!