Petra Diamonds Limited today announced that their 507 carat white diamond has been named The Cullinan Heritage.

The Cullinan Heritage diamond; image courtesy of Petra Diamonds

This spectacular and historic gem has been named to reflect the date of its recovery on Heritage Day in South Africa (24 September 2009), as well as its origins from the illustrious Cullinan mine, which has produced the majority of the world’s most famous and important diamonds, according to Petra.

The Cullinan Heritage will shortly be placed on tender in Johannesburg and Petra will announce the sales value achieved for this very rare diamond following completion of the tender towards the end of February.

Johan Dippenaar, Petra’s CEO, commented, “The Cullinan Heritage is not only exquisitely beautiful, but also of true historical importance. Since we announced the recovery of the diamond in September 2009, we have experienced a high level of interest from the trade and we look forward to announcing the results of the sale before the end of the month.”

The actual weight of the diamond is 507.55 carats and appears to be of exceptional colour and clarity – the key determinants of its value along with its obvious size.

At 507 carats (just over 100 grams) the diamond is thought to be one of the 20 largest high quality rough diamonds ever found worldwide, and ranks alongside other illustrious diamonds recovered at the celebrated Cullinan mine.

Cullinan has a special place in the history of diamonds as the source of the world’s largest gem diamond ever recovered, the ‘Cullinan’, at 3,106 carats rough.

It has also produced a further two of the world’s largest diamonds, the Golden Jubilee at 755 carats rough and the Centenary at 599 carats rough, and many other famous gems including the Taylor-Burton (69 carats polished).

The 507 carat diamond was recovered alongside three other special white stones of similar colour and clarity in the same production run: another very large stone of 168.00 carats and two other diamonds of 58.50 and 53.30 carats.

The Cullinan mine also produced a notable blue diamond which sold for a record price in 2009.

Rough diamond prices took a tumble in late 2008 and into the first half of 2009, but the diamond market has seen some recovery over the last few months. A diamond such as this however, is so exceptional that it’s value is rather subjective and largely detached from general market trends.