Polished-diamond collection, including 51-carat Dynasty, to go up for online auction

Russian miner Alrosa created the five polished diamonds from the 179-carat Romanov rough diamond, which was found in 2015

An employee shows the main 51.38-carat diamond during Russian miner Alrosa's presentation of the Dynasty polished diamonds collection in Moscow, Russia, August 1, 2017. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva

The 51.38-carat diamond will be auctioned online in November. Tatyana Makeyeva / Reuters

Aug 02, 2017

Russian miner Alrosa said on August 1 that it plans to sell a rare collection of five polished diamonds produced domestically, including a 51.38-carat gem, at an online auction in November.

The huge, traditional round-cut diamond is named Dynasty, and it has a 1-inch diameter that's equal in size to the visible part of a human eye. The stone has a 57-facet traditional round brilliant cut with triple excellent cut, D colour and VVS1 clarity.

The 'Dynasty' diamond, cut from the 179-carat Romanov rough diamond discovered by Alrosa PJSC, is displayed in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017. In 2015, Alrosa discovered a giant, 179-carat rough diamond in a mine in the northeast region of Sakha, naming it Romanov after the family that ruled for more than 300 years before the Russian Revolution. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg — Dynasty was cut from a 179-carat rough diamond. Photo by Andrey Rudakov / Bloomberg

The other stones in the collection are a 16.67-carat round-cut diamond, a 5.05-carat oval diamond, a 1.73-carat pear-cut diamond, and a 1.39-carat diamond.

According to Alrosa, it is potentially the most expensive diamond manufactured in the history of Russian jewellery because of its quality.

It took 18 months for Alrosa's specialists to create five polished diamonds for the collection from a 179-carat Romanovs rough diamond, which was extracted at one of the company's mines in Russia's far eastern Yakutia region in 2015.

[ The world's largest flawless fancy vivid pink diamond ]

[ Trace the paternity of your emerald ]

The collection is dedicated to the Tsar Peter the Great, who built the city of St Petersburg, and the Romanov dynasty, which ruled Russia for 300 years, Alrosa, the world's largest producer of rough diamonds in carat terms, said in a statement.

Alrosa's decision to produce these polished diamonds and sell them online fits with a broader industry quest to find new ways to the market and add value on the part of gem producers. Alrosa and Anglo American's De Beers unit, which for the first time auctioned polished stones this year, produce about half of the world's rough diamonds.

During a media presentation of the collection in a luxury hotel in Moscow, Alrosa's chief executive Sergey Ivanov said that the company planned to sell the whole collection in one set. According to him, the starting price at the auction should be not less than US$10 million (Dh36.7 million).

* Reuters

The long read: Secret jewellery and hidden watches