Cullinan is a regular destination for FOTR trains. Is it about to lose its tourist attraction?!
Miners unearth world's biggest diamond
· South African find is twice as big as the Cullinan
· Expert predicts feverish bidding on huge stone
David Beresford in Johannesburg and Lee Glendinning
Tuesday August 28, 2007
The Guardian
The world's biggest diamond, believed to be twice the size of the Cullinan, has been discovered in the North-West Province of South Africa. The find has electrified the diamond community, but the circumstances of the discovery are shrouded in mystery.
The diamond is expected to attract furious bidding from buyers worldwide and could fetch up to £15m.
A spokesman for the mining house which made yesterday's find, Brett Joli, said the diamond was being rushed to a bank vault in Johannesburg and would be kept there for a couple of days "until we calm down and decide what we are going to do". A security company was being hired to protect the precious stone.
The mining company which made the find has not been identified.
The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation said the stone was said to be twice the size of the Cullinan diamond.
Fred Cuellar, the founder of Diamond Cutters International and author of How to Buy a Diamond, said he first heard about the find a few days ago. "I get a phone call when any rare stone around the world is found and when I heard about this one it was stunning news.
"It caught everybody in the diamond industry offside. There will be a lot of mad bidding from a lot of private individuals as to who is going to buy this stone."
The Cullinan, which was found near Pretoria more than a century ago, was until recently acknowledged to be the largest cut diamond in the world, weighing in at 530.20 carats. In 1985 it lost the record to the Golden Jubilee, which was found in the same mine as the Cullinan and weighed 545.67 carats.
In its rough state the Cullinan weighed 3,106.75 carats. It now forms part of King Edward's sceptre and is in the Tower of London.
The Cartier diamond, famous as a gift from Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor, weighed a mere 240.80 carats rough and 69.42 carats cut.
Mr Cuellar said the most important information about the latest find was yet to be forthcoming, including whether it is colourless. "The reported size of the stone is accurate, but there are all these other factors we still don't know and what matters now is how wide, how clear and how well cut it will be.
"Will this diamond rank above the best quality diamonds in the world? I can tell you right now, no. But in as far as the list of the largest diamonds ever found in the world goes, would it make that list? Yes it would."
He said the first seven people who looked at the stone thought it was industrial grade, but that view has changed and it now appears to be a stone that will be cut into a piece of jewellery.
The quandary facing the owner of the diamond now is how best to cut the stone he said. "The thinking usually is with these types of things, we know how big we could get it but we don't know how much it will hurt us on the quality side."
The Cullinan, also known as the Star of Africa, was thought by some to be part of a larger stone which still lies somewhere undiscovered.
There will be interest in who made the find and how they will be rewarded. The black miner who discovered the Excelsior, said to be the second largest uncut diamond ever found, received a horse and saddle, and a sum of money.
Rock stars
· The Cullinan Diamond was discovered in 1905 and at 3,106 carats was the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found. Cullinan I, or the Great Star of Africa - at 530 carats formerly the largest cut diamond - was one of the 105 gems cut from it.
· The Koh-i-noor is part of the British crown jewels. It originated in India but seized by Britain as a spoil of war in 1849. The diamond supposedly brings good luck to female owners and misfortune or death to any male who wears or owns it.
· The Hope Diamond is a large (45.52 carat), deep blue diamond. It is legendary for the curse it supposedly puts on whoever possesses it. Previous owners include Kings Louis XV and XVI and Marie Antoinette.
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Mr Jolly and a murky tale of world's biggest diamond
David Beresford in Johannesburg
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
It was the kind of news item of which dreams are made. South Africa's national radio led its 8pm bulletin with an announcement that the world's biggest diamond had been discovered - and it was twice the size of the fabled Cullinan diamond.
An hour later the discovery had fallen to the fifth item on the national news. But if the South African Broadcasting Corporation was losing faith in it, the world was slowly waking up to the news. The phones of mining experts began ringing with calls from the international media demanding to know if the claim could be genuine. Most hedged their bets. "Unlikely, but..." was the judgment being offered and it was the "but" which spun headlines of the "monster diamond" around the world.
As the week progressed, the story got bigger and so did the diamond. It was finally claimed to be 8,120 carats - an extraordinary 1.64 kilos - compared with the mere 3,106.75 carats of the Cullinan, found in South Africa in 1905. A photograph began circulating on the web. It looked like a kryptonite stage-prop from a Superman film.
But still nobody was dismissing the claim, least of all Brett Jolly, who said he was its owner. The diamond would be kept in a Johannesburg bank vault for a couple of days "until we calm down and decide what we are going to do", he said in a radio interview. All he would otherwise say about the find was that it was made in the North West province, an area extremely rich in minerals, but not particularly noted for its diamonds.
Then Mr Jolly became elusive. His mobile phone was turned on to an answering machine and the email address it offered produced no reply.
Information about Mr Jolly was hard to come by. He was, apparently, a property developer involved in a timeshare company where there was a falling out of the directors. When he found the stone, he apparently attacked it with an angle-grinder to see if it was hard enough to be a diamond.
Mining industry yarns are as big as the fish that got away. Afrikaans newspapers quoted a prediction by the famous Afrikaans prophet Siener van Rensburg, who said that such a diamond would be found in the area of Mr Jolly's discovery. It would be known as the "skaapkop" diamond because it was shaped like a sheep's head.
Beeld newspaper quoted a diamond digger who said the prophecy was that two brothers would find the Skaapkop diamond. "But one wouldn't make it. Now everyone is afraid to find it." It is not known whether Mr Jolly has any siblings. Mr Jolly has asked Ernest Blom, the Johannesburg-based president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses - which oversees the diamond industry - to examine the stone and rule on its authenticity.
Mr Blom told the Guardian that he would be seeing Mr Jolly over the weekend and would examine the stone early next week. He had only seen the fuzzy photograph of it. "It looks like a greenish coloured stone," he said. "A diamond that size is rare. But a green diamond, on top of that, makes it doubly, doubly, doubly rare."
But Mr Blom refused to dismiss Mr Jolly's stone. "Everybody is sceptical because of the size. I have a philosophy that nature is an incredibly intricate thing and it gives us these surprises from time to time. Let's hope this is one of those surprises."
David Beresford in Johannesburg
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
It was the kind of news item of which dreams are made. South Africa's national radio led its 8pm bulletin with an announcement that the world's biggest diamond had been discovered - and it was twice the size of the fabled Cullinan diamond.
An hour later the discovery had fallen to the fifth item on the national news. But if the South African Broadcasting Corporation was losing faith in it, the world was slowly waking up to the news. The phones of mining experts began ringing with calls from the international media demanding to know if the claim could be genuine. Most hedged their bets. "Unlikely, but..." was the judgment being offered and it was the "but" which spun headlines of the "monster diamond" around the world.
As the week progressed, the story got bigger and so did the diamond. It was finally claimed to be 8,120 carats - an extraordinary 1.64 kilos - compared with the mere 3,106.75 carats of the Cullinan, found in South Africa in 1905. A photograph began circulating on the web. It looked like a kryptonite stage-prop from a Superman film.
But still nobody was dismissing the claim, least of all Brett Jolly, who said he was its owner. The diamond would be kept in a Johannesburg bank vault for a couple of days "until we calm down and decide what we are going to do", he said in a radio interview. All he would otherwise say about the find was that it was made in the North West province, an area extremely rich in minerals, but not particularly noted for its diamonds.
Then Mr Jolly became elusive. His mobile phone was turned on to an answering machine and the email address it offered produced no reply.
Information about Mr Jolly was hard to come by. He was, apparently, a property developer involved in a timeshare company where there was a falling out of the directors. When he found the stone, he apparently attacked it with an angle-grinder to see if it was hard enough to be a diamond.
Mining industry yarns are as big as the fish that got away. Afrikaans newspapers quoted a prediction by the famous Afrikaans prophet Siener van Rensburg, who said that such a diamond would be found in the area of Mr Jolly's discovery. It would be known as the "skaapkop" diamond because it was shaped like a sheep's head.
Beeld newspaper quoted a diamond digger who said the prophecy was that two brothers would find the Skaapkop diamond. "But one wouldn't make it. Now everyone is afraid to find it." It is not known whether Mr Jolly has any siblings. Mr Jolly has asked Ernest Blom, the Johannesburg-based president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses - which oversees the diamond industry - to examine the stone and rule on its authenticity.
Mr Blom told the Guardian that he would be seeing Mr Jolly over the weekend and would examine the stone early next week. He had only seen the fuzzy photograph of it. "It looks like a greenish coloured stone," he said. "A diamond that size is rare. But a green diamond, on top of that, makes it doubly, doubly, doubly rare."
But Mr Blom refused to dismiss Mr Jolly's stone. "Everybody is sceptical because of the size. I have a philosophy that nature is an incredibly intricate thing and it gives us these surprises from time to time. Let's hope this is one of those surprises."