A precious rock has been unveiled in Botswana. It is the biggest blue diamond ever discovered in Southern Africa. At the unveiling on Wednesday, state-owned Okavango Diamond says the rarest stone in the world sits in the very top bracket of all-time historical blue diamond finds.
The oval-shaped diamond has been named “The Okavango Blue” in honour of the Okavango Delta, the country’s wildlife-rich world heritage site. In 2016, a massive intense blue diamond, known as The Cullinan Dream sold for $24.5 million at a Christie’s auction in New York, breaking all records and becoming the most expensive gem of its kind ever sold at auction.
Last year, a 6.16-carat blue diamond, secretly passed down through European royalty over three centuries, fetching $6.7million at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva — $1.4 million more than what experts expected it to sell for.
Botswana is one of the world’s largest producers of diamonds, accounting for about 80 per cent of its exports as revenue source. For Okavango Diamond Company Managing director, Marcus Haar, it is little surprise that blue diamonds are so sought after around the world as only a very small percentage of the world’s diamonds are classified as “fancy coloured”.