The dramatic deep inner glow of South Sea Pearls makes them the most valuable of all pearls. Two round luminous South Seas are complemented by a halo of pave set diamonds and set in 14K white gold with omega backs.

ICE Price: $1,995.00

world's largest diamond was the Cullinan, found in South Africa in 1905. It weighed 3,106.75 carats uncut. It was cut into the Great Star of Africa, weighing 530.2 carats, the Lesser Star of Africa, which weighs 317.40 carats, and 104 other diamonds of nearly flawless colour and clarity. They now form part of the British crown jewels.

The Cullinan was three times the size of the next largest diamond, the Excelsior, which was also found in South Africa. The world's largest documented polished diamond - unearthed in 1986, also in South Africa - is called Unnamed Brown. It weighs 545 carats and was cut down from a 700 carat rough diamond. It took an international team of expert cutters 3 years to complete the masterpiece. Another impressive diamond that also took 3 years to cut, and also is part of the British crown jewels, is the Centenary Diamond. It weighs 273.85 carats and is the world's largest flawless diamond.

Not all diamonds are white. Impurities lend diamonds a shade of blue, red, orange, yellow, green and even black. Vivid blue, green and pink diamonds are the rarest. They are not the rarest gemstones, however. That title goes to a pure red ruby. Diamonds actually are found in abundance; thousands are mined every year. 80% of them are not suitable for jewellery - they are used in industry.

t is estimated to be capable of producing a 150 carat polished gem stone, dwarfing the Koh-i-Noor diamond which is part of the Crown Jewels. A spokesman for Gem Diamonds, who own the mine, added that initial examination suggested that the white diamond, which has yet to be named and valued, has a completely flawless centre.
The mine, which was owned by famous diamond company De Beers for many years, has already produced three of the world’s biggest diamonds including the 603 carat Lesotho Promise, the 493 carat Leteng Legacy and the 601 carat Lesotho Brown.
Clifford Elphick, chief executive officer of Gem Diamonds, said ‘Preliminary examination of this remarkable diamond indicates that it will yield a record breaking polished stone of the very best colour and clarity.’
The find is still dwarfed by the Cullinan Diamond which was discovered in 1905.
At 3,106 carats it was the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found but the biggest polished stone produced from it, the Great Star of Africa - 530 carats - is a teardrop shape.
The Koh-i-noor is a round cut but at 105 carats it is smaller than the potential size of the new find. It originated in India but was seized by Britain as a spoil of war in 1849. It supposedly brings good luck to female owners and misfortune or death to any male who wears or owns it.

WORLD'S LARGEST DIAMOND

A huge gem stone which could become the largest polished round diamond in history has been discovered.
The massive stone is the 20th largest rough diamond ever found, weighs 478 carats and is said to be of outstanding clarity.
It was recovered earlier this week at the Letseng Mine, in Lesotho, a small kingdom in South Africa.
Another similar sized rough stone from the same mine was recently valued at $12million.
But the clarity and round shape of the new gem mean it could be worth considerably more and in its polished state could fetch tens of millions of pounds.

Two teams of U.S. researchers have found that carbonados — or black diamonds-com from outer space. Helped with funds from the National Science Foundation (NSF), they discovered nitrogen and hydrogen in these porous black diamonds found only in Brazil and the Central African Republic. And these elements are not found in conventional diamonds extracted from mines from volcanic rocks. They think these carbonados were part of asteroids which landed on Earth about 3 billion years ago.

This research was done by jozsef Garai and stephen Haggerty of Florida International University, along with Case Western Reserve University researchers Sandeep Rekhi and Mark Chance. For this project, they used the infrared synchrotron radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory and a technology named Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy or FTIR (Link to wikipedia)

So even the NSF agreed that these diamonds come from far beyond the Earth. Here is an explanation.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

COLOUR:
Diamond is available in pale yellows, browns, grays, and also white, blue, black, reddish, greenish and colorless.

LUSTER:
Diamond is adamantine to waxy.

TRANSPARENCY:
crystals are transparent to translucent in rough crystals.

CRYSTAL SYSTEM:
it is isometric; 4/m bar 3 2/m.

CRYSTAL HABITS:
Include isometric forms such as cubes and octahedrons, twinning is also seen.

HARDNESS:
The hardness od the diamond is about 10.

SPECIFIC GRAVITY:
The specific gravity of diamond is 3.5 (above average).

CLEAVAGE:
It is perfect in 4 directions forming octahedrons.

Diamond is a polymorph of the element carbon. Graphite s another polymorph. The two share the same chemistry, carbon, but have very different structures and properties. Diamond is hard, Graphite is soft (Which is also present in the "lead" of a pencil). Diamond is a good conductor of electricity, current can pass easily through it. Diamond is the ultimate abrasive, Graphite is a very good lubricant. Diamond is transparent, Graphite is opaque. Diamond crystallizes in the Isometric system and graphite crystallizes in the hexagonal system. Somewhat of a surprise is that at surface temperatures and pressures, Graphite is the stable form of carbon. In fact, all diamonds at or near the surface of the Earth are currently undergoing a transformation into Graphite. This reaction, fortunately, is extremely slow