This diamond is too big to sell

Apparently, there is something as too good to be wanted like this 1,109-Carats rough diamond

The diamond, owned by Canada’s Lucara Diamond Corp and was up for auction last summer at Sotheby but failed to be sold. Experts say Lucara will have to cut its tennis ball-sized rough diamond to find a buyer. It had a reserve $70 million at the auction. Bidding stalled at $61 million.

The diamond is named ‘Lesedi La Rona’, or ‘Our Light’ and was mined from Botswana. It is a 1019 carats stone and the second stone known in history to have been over 1000 carats.

Expert, Kieron Hodgson at Panmure Gordon thinks that a stone becomes too big when it weighs over 1,000 carats. “At the end of the day, it’s about understanding what the stone can produce. And the industry now doesn’t work on hunches as much as it used to 20-30 years ago.”

Furthermore, the diamond industry is an arcane business that is understood by a select few. It has no spot market trading, no guarantee that ‘roughs’ will yield any value, and a punishing grading system that can dramatically swing values. Stones in the hundreds of carats come with additional risk, from the multi-million-dollar price tags and cutting process that can take months or years, to capricious customer demand, and only a very few companies in the world has the finance and skill to sell the Lesedi.

This article was adapted from Fortune Magazine. More info on it can be found here.