550 carat Rough Diamond Sold for $16.5 Million

The Letseng Star, a 550 carat, Type IIa, D color rough diamond was sold for $16.5 million, Gem Diamonds announced. The diamond has been sold into a profit sharing arrangement, under the company's new sales and marketing strategy the miner added.

Gem Diamonds recovered the diamond on August 19 at its Letseng mine in the Kingdom ofLesotho. The Letseng Star is currently ranked as the 14th largest white diamond on record and is the fourth diamond of such historical significance to be recovered at Letseng since 2006.

Under, the Letseng Star has been sold into a profit sharing arrangement for a rough price of $16.5 million, payable immediately.

Letseng Diamonds will then further benefit from a significant share of the downstream polished margin uplift resulting from the sale of the polished diamonds cut from the Letseng Star, the diamond miner stated.

"Gem Diamonds' strategy of maximizing revenue generation from our rough diamonds by seeking value-added initiatives further up the diamond value chain is gaining importance for the Group, and we are becoming increasingly successful in selling rough and polished diamonds with good margins being realized," said CEO, Clifford Elphick.

November Birthstone: Topaz

Topaz is one of the most imitated and misrepresented birthstones.  Although the name comes from the island of Topazios and its noble history began over 6000 years ago, most of what our ancestors called Topaz was actually citrine quartz.  Citrine is a beautiful gemstone and is available in a variety of hues from lemon to smoky.  But the centuries of misrepresentation resulted in dubbing rare, peachy to pink Topaz as Precious or Imperial Topaz. Precious Topaz is very durable rating 8 on the Mohs scale.  Today, most Topaz is mined near Ouro Preto in Brazil.

Blue Topaz is another very popular color of Topaz that often imitates the December birthstone, Blue Zircon.  There are a wide variety of treated Topaz gems available today in a rainbow of colors.