'I never said it was a diamond'

2007-08-29 22:13

Sherilee Bridge

Johannesburg - The World Federation of Diamond Bourses' president, Ernie Bloom, has been appointed to appraise the giant gem which is believed to be the largest diamond discovered in the world.

This is according to Brett Jolly, the property developer who owns an interest in the North West mine where the gem was discovered on Monday afternoon.

Light green in colour, the gem weighs 1.6kg or about 7 500 carats - which is more than twice the size of the world-record-holder the Cullinan Diamond, which weighed about 3 106 carats uncut.

Jolly, who had just concluded a meeting with his attorneys to determine what to do next, said "it is in the hands of professionals now".

Inundated with calls and e-mails over the discovery, Jolly said he was perplexed over the criticism generated by media commentators.

"All I said was that I had a stone. I don't know if it's a diamond, I certainly never said it was," Jolly said.

Jolly would not be pushed into identifying the mine for security reasons and also would not identify the privately-owned company that owns the mine since some shareholders had not been informed.

General skepticism

But after generating much hype in the last two days, excitement over the "world's biggest diamond" has faded into general skepticism over the genuine value of the find.

Les Milner, a gem scientist with the Jewellery Council Laboratories, the umbrella organisation of South Africa's precious stones trade, said a find of that size was extremely rare.

Milner, who analyses gems on behalf of De Beers, said even if it was a diamond of poor quality it would be "the find of the century".

Fluorite crystal?

James Allan, a former top-rated diamond analyst now at corporate finance firm Allan Hochreiter, was quoted in several publications as saying he would be surprised if it was a diamond and suggested it may be a fluorite crystal.

While the North West is better known as the platinum province - since 94% of South Africa's platinum is found in the Rustenburg and Brits districts - the North West also produces a quarter of South Africa's gold, as well as granite, marble, fluorspar and diamonds.

Mining contributes 23.3% to the North West economy and the province makes up 22.5% of the South African mining industry as a whole.

If Bloom finds the stone to be of gem quality, it will have to be registered with the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) before it can be sold.

According to Mining Weekly, the company would have 48 hours in which to register the find with the DME and 40 days to register it with the international industry body.

- I-Net Bridge (News24)