The Star of Sierra Leone

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

was discovered by

miners A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...

on February 14, 1972, in the Diminco alluvial mines in the

Koidu Koidu Town (or Sefadu; officially known as Koidu City) is the capital and largest city of the Kono District in the Eastern Province, Sierra Leone, Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Its population is 128,030 based on the 2015 census. It is the fi ...

area of

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

. It ranks as the fourth-largest gem-quality diamond and the largest alluvial diamond ever discovered. On October 3, 1972, Sierra Leone's then-President,

Siaka Stevens Siaka Probyn Stevens (24 August 1905 – 29 May 1988) was the leader of Sierra Leone from 1967 to 1985, serving as Prime Minister from 1967 to 1971 and as President from 1971 to 1985. Stevens' leadership was often characterized by patrimonial ...

, announced that

Harry Winston Harry Winston (né Weinstein; March 1, 1896December 8, 1978) was an American jeweler. He donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958 after owning it for a decade. He also traded the Portuguese Diamond to the Smithsonian in ...

, the New York City jeweller, had purchased the Star of Sierra Leone for under $2.5 million. The stone was initially cut into an emerald shaped stone weighing but was later re-cut due to an internal flaw, eventually resulting in 17 separate finished diamonds, of which 13 were deemed to be flawless. The largest single finished gem was a flawless pear-shaped diamond of . Six of the diamonds cut from the original rough were later set by Harry Winston into the "Star of Sierra Leone" brooch. A rare characteristic of the stone is its perfect chemical purity: it is ranked as a type IIa diamond, a category which includes less than 1% of all diamonds.The Star of Sierra Leone by Famous diamonds
24hgold.com. Retrieved on 2011-03-28.

References

Diamonds originating in Sierra Leone Individual diamonds {{gemology-stub

See also

References