Lesedi La Rona fails to sell at auction

Thursday, June 30, 2016

The biggest uncut diamond to be discovered in over a century failed to sell at a Sotheby's auction on Wednesday, but the chief executive of Lucara Diamond Corp, the company that found the gem, said there was interest from buyers in the diamond trade.

Bids for the 1,109-carat, tennis ball-sized stone topped out at $61 million - an amount that fell short of the undisclosed minimum reserve price.

Sotheby's had estimated that the diamond, found last November at Lucara's mine in Botswana, would sell for more than $70 million.

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