Last September, Petra Diamonds discovered a 507 carat white diamond in the Cullinan mine of South Africa – the same mine from which the Star of Africa and many other British crown jewels were taken years ago.  Judged to be one of the twenty largest high-quality rough diamonds ever discovered, the stunning new stone sold for a whopping $35.3 million last week to a Hong Kong jewelry company.  The sale sets a new record for the highest price ever paid for a rough diamond, and has heightened anticipation of what the final polished gem may look like.  Many feel that it has the potential to join the ranks of some of the most important jewels in the world.

Regular readers of our blog may remember previous stories of exceptionally large gemstones and a game we like to play in which we compare the actual stone’s price to Diamond Nexus Labs’ own standard price of $99 per carat.  That means that if we were to produce a Diamond Nexus simulant replica of this staggering new diamond, it would be priced at $50,193.  That’s approximately 1/700^th of the price of the mined diamond.  Bear in mind, however, that after cutting, the mined diamond will actually weigh much less than 507 carats, and will probably cost even more than its current $35.3 million.  How big will the change be?  Until the new jewel is unveiled, we can only speculate.