London, February 25: London’s Natural History Museum has displayed Sun Drop, a bright yellow diamond roughly the size of a woman’s thumb and weighing more than 110 carats.
One of the world’s biggest diamonds, Sun Drop is on loan to the museum from Cora International diamond manufacturers, the state-funded media reported.
“I’ve never seen a stone such as this,” said museum’s minerals curator Alan Hart.
“A one carat diamond is what most people are familiar with, and are really pleased to own. You can see how exceptional this diamond is.”
According to the Cora International chief executive, Suzette Gomes, the cut of a diamond has a main role in disclosing its beauty.
“If the color is weaker you would cut a square… to keep the color and make it stronger,” she explained. “If your color is very strong, you would cut a pear shape.”
Most diamonds are small and colorless and the ones used in jewelry are typically less than five carats.
Color in diamonds is due to the presence of other substances or structural defects. Small amounts of boron, for instance, create a blue stone, while exposure to radiation during formation will result in a green tint.
Pink diamonds are the result of structural defects, while yellow ones are created due to traces of nitrogen in the carbon.
Strong colors, however, are unusual, and larger stones with high color levels are especially rare.
It takes about six months to find a rough diamond and present it as a polished, precious stone.
The stone should be closely analyzed, so that imperfections and inclusions do not cause it to shatter during the cutting process.
Nobody has come up with a possible price for Sun Drop.
Gomes said pricing stones was “not something we normally talk about,” and that “the value at the moment is undetermined”.
—-Agencies