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The Kimberley Octahedron is an uncut diamond discovered in 1964
in South Africa in the Dutoitspan mine, one of the
diamond mines situated in the Kimberley region of South Africa. The name of
the diamond reflects its place of origin, the internationally renowned
diamond producing region where the first diamonds were discovered in 1871.
The Kimberley Octahedral diamond was so enormous that it turned out to
be the largest naturally formed octahedral diamond crystal in the world, and
it was the seventh largest gem-quality rough diamond ever discovered in the
world in 1964. Today it is the 14th largest gem-quality rough diamond ever
discovered.
The diamond has been preserved in its natural octahedral state, and is
yellow with a weight of 616 carats. As the diamond remains uncut the usual color and clarity grades and type of cut applicable to
cut and polished diamonds, do not apply for this diamond. The diamond can
only be described in terms of its shape (octahedral), color (yellow) and weight (616 carats).
However the intense shades of yellow such as fancy intense and fancy
vivid come under Type Ib, but these diamonds are
very scarce constituting only about 0.1 % of all naturally occurring
diamonds. The canary yellow diamonds also belong to this rare group. The
remaining shades of yellow such as fancy yellow, fancy light yellow, light
yellow, very light yellow, and faint yellow all belong to Type Ia, which constitute almost 98 % of all naturally
occurring diamonds.
The owners of the diamond De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd., who were
aware of the rarity of this exceptional find decided to preserve it for the
sake of posterity, as the chances of finding a similar diamond of such
enormous size was extremely remote.
The diamond is today exhibited in the "Diamond Vault" of the
visitors center of the
"Kimberley Big Hole" together with the "Eureka Diamond"
the first diamond to be discovered in South Africa on the banks of the orange
river in 1867.
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