Girl`s best friend ... GEM Diamonds has recovered a 478 carat diamond from its mine in Lesotho / Reuters
GEM Diamonds, a London-listed mining company, said today it had recovered a 478 carat diamond from its mine in Lesotho - the 20th-largest rough diamond ever found.
The discovery of the gem, which the company said had the potential to become one of the largest round-cut diamonds in the world, was made on September 8 at the Letseng mine in Lesotho, a small landlocked country surrounded by South Africa.
"Preliminary examination of this remarkable diamond indicates that it will yield a record-breaking polished stone of the very best colour and clarity,`` the company`s chief executive Clifford Elphick said.
The diamond, which has not yet been named, has the potential to yield a 150 carat polished stone, a company spokesman said.
That would be far bigger than the 105 carat round-cut Koh-i-Noor diamond seized by Britain from India in the 19th century and now part of the Crown Jewels.
It would still only be a fraction of the size, however, of the Cullinan diamond discovered in 1905, which was 3106 carats when recovered and yielded a teardrop shaped diamond of 530 carats: the Great Star of Africa.
The Letseng mine is owned by a mining company that is 70 per cent owned by Gem Diamonds, with the remaining 30 per cent held by the Lesotho government.
