A South African company claimed to have discovered the world’s biggest diamond, twice the size of the current biggest known stone, the Cullinan. The news was broken by a local South African radio station.
The green tinged diamond is reportedly of 7,000-carats, roughly the size of a coconut. While the Cullinan, which too was discovered in South Africa more than 100 years ago, was of 3,106 carats. It was later cut into numerous small stones, which became a part of the Britain’s Crown Jewels.
Brett Jolly, a shareholder at the mine, said the stone had been taken to a bank vault in Johannesburg, under tight security.
No further information about the stone is available and tests are expected to be done to examine its worth.
A spokesperson for De Beers, the world’s biggest diamond mining company, said the north-west province was not known for producing gems and greenish stones were even rarer. De beers dominate diamond mining in Africa.
Meanwhile we can keep our fingers crossed, for if the stone happens to be a genuine diamond, then it would surely be the stone of the century!
Via: BBC
Instablogs Network 2005. All rights reserved.