Most luxury items nowadays tend to be made from rare metals and precious stones that add to their value; the rarest the material or stone, the better. On February 22, an amazing discovery was made by the Rio Tinto mining group, an incredibly rare pink diamond. This seemingly little rock is actually the biggest rough pink diamond that was ever found in Australia, weighing 12.76 carats. Such stones are simply priceless and they are either presented in museums, given to royalty or auctioned off. To get an idea about how rare such a stone actually is, Christie’s, a popular auction house, has only sold 18 polished pink diamonds over 10 carats during its 244 years of business.
The pink diamond, known as The Argyle Pink Jubilee, is indeed an incredible find and after two months of planning, the worker will need 10 days to cut and polish it to the right specifications. It will then be evaluated by a team of experts, promoted on a large scale and sold later this year. Having this rare stone will be an amazing task as the whole world is looking forward to see the final result and of course, the price.
A similar stone, The Williamson Pink was given as a gift for the Queen on her wedding day and it was later set into a brooch. The Argyle Pink Jubilee is estimated to be worth around $50 million but it is never sure when it comes to rough diamonds as a big portion of it can be lost in the cutting process. The intensity of color and the clarity of the final cut stone will be the decisive factors that will give its selling price. The record for the most expensive jewel is a £29 million paid by Laurence Graff in 2010 for a pink diamond.
When it comes to pink diamonds, Australia is the main location. More precisely, the Argyle mine in the East Kimberley region, located in Western Australia; this is where more than 90% of pink diamonds are found. The Argyle Pink Jubilee is without precedent and it is very likely that we will not see one like it again.
