Whiteflash-Diamond Playground

From Times Online - Clifford Elphick was having lunch last month when he got a text message asking him to the call the office. Gem Diamonds, his company, had just discovered the world’s eighteenth-biggest white diamond in Lesotho. “I had a message saying ‘Phone me urgently’,” he says. “I thought: ‘This is either good news or bad news.’ Funnily enough, we did order a bottle of champagne and have a toast.” The uncut 493-carat diamond is expected to fetch up to $10 million (£4.9 million) when sold this month in Antwerp. It is the latest example of the burgeoning price growth in the diamond market. While metals such as copper and zinc have stolen the headlines during the current commodity boom, diamond traders are now benefiting from their very own version of a “super-cycle”. In a market notorious for various grades and specifications, average prices for rough diamonds – those yet to be cut or polished for the retail trade, a process that can take 18 months – are up by 10 per cent year-on-year. (full story)