Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (2)

The Alleged "World's Largest Diamond"
August 28, 2007

By now you have probably seen one of the many articles about the reported soccer ball-sized 7,000-carat diamond (the largest ever!)

Is it true? Well according to the man behind the claim: "I don't even know that it's a diamond yet. I'm a property developer, not a diamond miner. We put it on a garage grinder and the thing won't scratch, so what can it be?"

So ...  the only thing to back this up is one man's word that it didn't scratch in the "garage grinder." 

Answering the "what can it be" question, my colleague Gary Roskin bets it's carved topaz, with flourite a second guess. He feels the whole thing "is just too good to be true," noting the diamond still considered the world's largest, the 3,100-carat Cullinan, "looks like a frosty mountain with a flat side, without a discernable crystal shape."

"This looks like a perfect octahedron, and 7,000 carats to boot," he says.  

This South African blogger also notes this stone would be "more than 150 times the size of the largest green diamond ever found."

At least one South African newspaper also seems to indicate the whole thing is a little fishy ...

At the Cape Times' request, Jolly arranged for a cellphone photograph of the "diamond" to be sent to its reporter.

Jolly said the photograph was taken by the man who was driving the stone to Johannesburg, where it would be stashed in a security vault until it could be valued by experts.

"(The driver) literally pulled over and took a snap with his cellphone," said Jolly.

The photograph shows the "diamond" next to a cellphone - but the picture was obviously not snapped in a car. The stone is on a table in a room.

Hmmm ... Perhaps the most amazing is how much press this pretty tenuous story has gotten. People really do like writing about diamonds.

So is it for real? See pictures here. We report, you decide.

UPDATE:  I talk to Jolly here.

Posted by Rob Bates on August 28, 2007 | Comments (2)