JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Sellers and buyers of responsibly sourced, exceptional polished diamonds will be able to transact anonymously through the De Beers Auction Sales platform for the first time, when the group’s exceptional polished stones auction is held on June 29.

The diamond miner believes buyers and sellers will benefit from the confidence of using the business’s platform for exceptional stones and accessing its expertise, technology and distribution network to undertake sourcing and sales of highly desirable polished stones.

De Beers Auction Sales will employ its platform governance rules to facilitate transactions, ensuring they flow smoothly, and reduce counterparty risk as both buyers and sellers deal directly with De Beers Auction Sales.

All sellers must be registered and comply with the De Beers Auction Sales diamond trading standard, which sets out strict criteria in relation to seller integrity, diamond provenance and product integrity.

Buying is also only open to registered buyers.

All exceptional diamonds available for auction will be more than 2.5 ct in weight, or of fancy colour, and verified by De Beers Group’s International Institute of Diamond Grading & Research’s labs to confirm they are natural and untreated.

Almost 50 exceptional polished stones will be available at the first auction, including, a 7.21 ct, D colour, flawless pear-shaped diamond; a 1.57 ct fancy vivid yellow, internally flawless, cushion cut diamond; a 5.53 ct fancy yellow, VS1, cushion cut diamond and a 20.64 ct fancy light yellow, VS2, cushion cut diamond.

The separate auctions for third-party exceptional polished stones will occur on the same day as the first auctions of De Beers Group’s polished diamonds, manufactured directly from its own rough diamonds. The separate auctions will be held back-to-back, allowing buyers to source all polished diamonds on one day.

De Beers Auction Sales VP Neil Ventura noted that the new platform offered buyers the opportunity to buy attractive, responsibly sourced diamonds that have been validated by De Beers as being natural and untreated.

“While both polished auction initiatives are still in the pilot stage, we look forward to the learnings we will receive from these first events so that we can continue to innovate and enhance our offering to our customers – both buyers and sellers,” he added.