Diamonds in South Africa

PostBy Avi Paz Group At 25.08.2010

More than one story of how diamonds came to be discovered in South Africa exists, but all cite the year as 1866 or 1867 and the location as Daniel Jacobs' De Kalk farm on the banks of the Orange River.

In one version, Jacobs' son found a pebble that turned out to be a diamond. In another, the child who found the shiny pebble was the farmer's daughter, who wanted to make a doll's lamp of the pretty stone that eventually attracted the interest of a visitor to the family's home.

In any case, the pebble made its way into the hands of Shalk Van Nierkerk, who had it valued by gemologist Dr. W.G. Atherstone. The 21.25 carat diamond was then sold to the Governor of Cape Colony for $2500 – and according to some – Van Nierkerk gave half the sum to the child who found it.

Three years later, Van Nierkerk found and sold another De Kalk diamond – the 47.69 carat Star of Africa, which had weighed 83.5 carats in the rough – fetched £25,000 when it was resold in London. In 1974, the hammer went down on the Star of Africa for approximately £225,300.

In 1871, the name De Beers entered the annals of South Africa's diamond industry when cook Esau Damoense of the Red Cap Party prospectors, who had been sent out to dig on the De Beers brothers' farm as punishment, found a diamond weighing 83.50 carats. The news spread, and the De Beers' hillside was overrun by diamond prospectors. Eight hundred claims were established within a month, and the hillside gradually turned into the Kimberley Mine's "Big Hole."

From 1872 to 1914, miners working with decidedly low-tech apparatus – pickaxes and shovels – extracted 2,722 kg. of diamonds.  The Big Hole itself was 240 meters deep, only 175 meters of which remain visible above the water that has since accumulated. The Kimberley Mine below the Big Hole had been mined to almost 1100 meters by the time it closed in 1914. 

As far as the business end went, small mining companies established in South Africa were consolidated into two main diamond firms – The Kimberly, under Cecil Rhodes and Charles Rudd, and De Beers. In 1888, as mining at the Big Hole was still going strong, these two firms merged, establishing De Beers Consolidated Mines.

South Africa remains one of the most prolific diamond producing nations in the world. Its 2009 production of rough diamonds stood at over 6.1 million carats valued at $885.5 million.