The largest rough diamond found in more than a century has been shown to some of LVMH’s most high profile customers.
The 1,758-carat stone has already created a huge splash from the high-end jewellery marketplace.
The rock named “Sewelo,” which means significance or “rare find” in the Tswana tongue of Botswana from where the rock was found is that the size of a tennis ball.
Right now the rock looks like a lump of coal – as it’s still coated from the black carbon from where it’s been mined.
It’s the second-biggest diamond ever discovered, following on from the 3,100-carat “Cullinan” mined in neighbouring South Africa in 1905, which moved to decorate Britain’s crown jewels.
Louis Vuitton, a part of the LVMH luxury conglomerate, surprised the jewellery industry by beating out other high-end jewellers such as Cartier and Graff to obtain the diamond, that will soon be cut down into individual pieces.
“It is the largest potential we have at the moment,” Louis Vuitton chief executive Michael Burke told the Financial Times about the rare find.
By showing the rough diamond to its collectors, LMMH is hoping to set itself apart from the rarefied world of top jewellery.
“No jeweller has done that (show the rough stone) – that is not the way high-end jewellery functions, it does not show what happens behind the scenes,” Burke said. He added that LV wants to be, “utterly transparent in what mine it came from and associating the final client in the creation of the final stone”.
Louis Vuitton has not said how much it paid for the rock, but it did say that 5% of the sale of the diamond would go towards community projects in Botswana.
LVMH group is making waves in the high-end jewellery sector, after buying Tiffany & Co. earlier this year.
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