Laurence Graff, the esteemed diamond seller and author of the eponymous universal extravagance gems brand known for its gem-centric high jewels, who has cut and cleaned most of the 20 biggest diamonds found this century has unveiled world’s largest Emerald cut diamond.
It is perhaps Graff’s greatest big diamond creation. The “Graff Lesedi La Rona” is a 302.37 carat D color and high clarity square Emerald cut diamond. It is believed that this stone is the largest highest clarity, highest color diamond ever graded by the Gemological Institute of America.
The Diamond’s D color is the highest color in GIA color scale which is rare for any diamond to achieve this color especially the ones above 300 carats. The diamond has few or no inclusions but it has not revealed the GIA clarity grade.
It is the key diamond cut and cleaned from the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona rough, which was obtained in 2017 by Laurence Graff. Notwithstanding the main diamond, 66 "satellite" diamonds have been cleaned from the rough, going in size from under a carat to in excess of 26 carats. Every diamond is engraved with "Graff, Lesedi La Rona" and its interesting GIA number, and is went with an endorsement of authenticity from Graff and the GIA. Graff started alarming its customers in November 2018 that they can buy gems with stones from the rough gem.
The rough diamond was discovered by Lucara Diamond Corp., a Canadian diamond mining company, in November 2015, at its Karowe mine in Botswana. It is the biggest jewel quality diamond found in over 100 years and the second-biggest ever. Its size is surpassed just by the incredible 3,016.75-carat Cullinan Diamond, mined in South Africa in 1905.
The diamond was given the name, Lesedi La Rona, which signifies "our light" in Botswana's Tswana language.
Lucara Diamond Corp. initially endeavored to sell the Lesedi La Rona in an independent open sale at Sotheby's London on June 2016. It was an irregular method to sell a rough diamond. Ordinarily, rough diamonds are sold secretly to jewel sellers who at that point cut and cleaned it into a finished diamond. It made contention among these sellers. One of the individuals who condemned the deal was Laurence Graff. It had a gauge of more than $70 million. Be that as it may, it neglected to meet its hold cost as offering slowed down at $61 million.
The Lesedi La Rona introduced a remarkable test for Graff's gemologists. They had never examined a stone this substantial. Truth be told it was large to the point that it couldn't be seen with existing gear. A scanner must be custom constructed explicitly for the Lesedi La Rona with new imaging programming equipped for examining its tremendous inside.
Following quite a while of an investigation, the arrangement for cutting and cleaning the diamond was so exact there was no space for error. It took many hours just to clean the table aspect, the biggest feature at the highest point of the diamond.
The GIA recognized the Lesedi La Rona rough as a major aspect of an elite gathering of "super deep" diamonds framed multiple times further than most different diamonds. Uncommon emissaries of geographical data, Graff gave parts of the Lesedi La Rona to the Smithsonian Institute to help advance diamond research.