For that special lady . . . if you're rich enough!

The 'largest known pear-shaped fancy vivid yellow diamond in the world' is to be auctioned at Sotheby's in November. Discovered in South Africa last year, it's been cut by Cora International to form a 110.3-carat gem, expected to sell for $11-$15 million.

The Sun-Drop Diamond was on display earlier this year at the Natural History Museum in England. Here's a video report about it.

I must admit, I'm ambivalent about diamonds. They're undoubtedly very beautiful stones, but really, when push comes to shove, they're nothing but highly compressed carbon - coal, if you like! They're relatively common in nature, and can now be made in laboratories almost to order. The extraordinarily high prices they command are artificially orchestrated, principally by the de Beers marketing combine. Other producers, who could flood the market with diamonds if they chose, thereby reducing their price, prefer not to do so because they benefit from the artificially high prices maintained by de Beers' market manipulations.

In theory, a gem similar to the Sun-Drop Diamond could be manufactured in a laboratory for a few thousand dollars. That's certainly all I'd be willing to pay for it. However, I daresay someone with more money than sense will buy it at auction, for close to the asking price. I wonder when the unnaturally inflated importance and value imparted to diamonds by de Beers will be revealed for the sham it really is?

Peter