Lucara's tennis ball-sized diamond finds a buyer at last
The tennis ball-sized, 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona, the world’s second-largest rough diamond, found by Lucara Diamond Corporation at its mine in Botswana, has sold for $53m to Graff Diamonds, the company that bought a large chunk of the diamond that had broken off.Graff bought the 373.7-carat rough diamond that broke off the Lesedi La Rona when it was mined by Canada’s Lucara at its Karowe mine, which it bought for a song from De Beers.Graff is now the owner of the world’s second-largest diamond, which it will study carefully to determine how best to cut and polish it into finished diamonds."The stone will tell us its story, it will dictate how it wants to be cut, and we will take the utmost care to respect its exceptional properties," said Laurence Graff, founder of the company. Graff bought the 373.7-carat diamond for $17.5m in May this year.The $53m Lucara realised for the Lesedi La Rona is a far cry from the $70m reserve price it set for the diamond at a Sotheby’s auction in June...
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