The 3.14-Carat 'Alpha' Diamond in Rio Tinto's Tender

Sydney-Rio Tinto just debuted the diamonds in this year's Argyle Pink Diamonds Tender, its annual sale of the best pink, red and violet stones to emerge from its mine in Western Australia The 2018 tender comprises 63 diamonds totaling 51.48 carats It's bigger than last year's offering, which had 58 diamonds totaling 4939 carats and included the largest red diamond in tender history.

This year's superlatives include the biggest vivid pink diamond in tender history, the 3.14-carat stone dubbed the "Argyle Alpha," and the weightiest purplish-red, the 2.28-carat "Argyle Muse." The diamond mining company described the Muse as having "An unrivaled potency of color," and noted that the 7.39-carat rough diamond from which it was cut yielded another stone in the 2018 tender, a 0.63-carat purplish-red stone The Muse and the Alpha are two of the diamonds selected as "Hero stones," the handful of diamonds Rio Tinto considers to be exceptional and names in each tender.

The diamond mining company, which is based in Perth, Australia, and mines its colored diamonds at the Argyle mine in Western Australia, premiered the collection in Sydney Thursday. . Source