The world's second-largest gem-quality diamond
has been sold to a London jeweller for $53m
(£39.5m).

Laurence Graff, chairman of Graff Diamonds ,
bought the diamond privately after it failed to
meet its reserve price at an auction last year .
The 1,111-carat stone was recovered by
Canadian firm Lucara Diamond Corp in Botswana
two years ago.
Lucara said the price was an improvement on
the highest bid received at Sotheby's in June
2016.
The diamond is named "Lesedi La Rona", which
means "our light" in Botswana's Tswana
language.
The stone was first formed between 2.5 to three
billion years ago and is roughly the size of a
tennis ball.
As well as its size, the diamond has been
certified as being of "exceptional quality and
transparency" by the Gemological Institute of
America.
Mr Graff said "The stone will tell us its story, it
will dictate how it wants to be cut."
The company says it will be scanned using state-
of-the-art 3D equipment that searches for
inclusions - small imperfections in the heart of
the stone - to decide how the diamond will be
polished.
Then an expert team will examine the diamond
using microscopes to pick up and navigate any
further pinpoint inclusions.
They will then work out how to cut the diamond
and into how many individual stones.
Graff acquired another 373-carat diamond that
was originally part of "Lesedi La Rona" earlier
this year.
The company says it will cut the smaller
diamond first and with the knowledge gained
from that, they will decide how to work on the
larger gem.
The "Lesedi La Rona" is the largest gem-quality
diamond discovered in more than a century, and
the second-largest ever. The largest was the
3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond, discovered in
South Africa in 1905.
Graff described the stone as "the world's most
valuable rough diamond".

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