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$12,360,000: The price paid Monday for "The Lesotho Promise," the 10th largest white diamond ever discovered and the largest diamond found this century, by the South African Diamond Corporation at an auction in Antwerp, Belgium. $20,000,000: The price the diamond, found at the Letseng Diamond Mine, Lesotho, is expected to fetch once it has been cut up. 603: The weight of the golf ball-sized diamond in carats (the unit of measurement for gemstones defined as a fifth of a gramme or seven thousandths of an ounce). It was the largest gem found since the 777-carat Millennium Star was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1993 by a young girl playing outside her house. 3,106: The size in carats of the biggest rough diamond ever found, known as "The Cullinan," found in South Africa in 1905. $372,000,000: The estimated value of Cullinan I, or the "Great Star of Africa" -- the largest stone cut from the Cullinan and the second-largest cut diamond in the world -- part of the Crown Jewels owned by the UK's Queen Elizabeth II on display at the Tower of London. 22 August, 2006: The date the Lesotho Promise was discovered. "The diamond sorters, a black woman, went into the room and put her hands into the glove box and she opened up the compartment and this jewel that you see over there fell out in front of her," said Clifford Elphick, CEO of Gem Diamond Mining. "As reported to me, she started screaming and the rest of the staff thought she had been electrocuted and they ran into there to see if she was okay to be confronted with the Lesotho Promise." |