World’s largest sapphire found in East Africa

What's believed to be the world's largest uncut sapphire, uncovered in the arid plains of East Africa, is now in a bank vault in Dallas.

A couple days after Christmas in December 2008, miners looking for gold uncovered a football-sized rock, a gem of nearly pure corundum. It has come to be called the Dodoma Sapphire - named for the region in Tanzania where it was found.

Dallas jeweler Carter Malouf said the Dodoma Sapphire is the second largest specimen ever uncovered and that its size, purity and pink vein in the mostly blue gem make it absolutely unique.

"The peach color, the lighter fleshy pink which they call padparadscha material, that's the rarest sapphire," Malouf said.
The jeweler has appraised the gem at $39 million.

Brent Berarducci, president of Dallas based Anco Energy, said his company had a small investment in the gold mining effort but once the sapphire was discovered purchased clear title to it and brought it to the United States.

"Anco Energy specializes in upstream gas and oil production," Berarducci said. "It's exciting to be involved in this but it is way beyond our area of expertise."

Berarducci would like to sell the Dodoma Sapphire either to a collector, a museum or some place where it would be on display.

Malouf believes it would be a shame to cut the gem up into individual stones.

"It would be best suited to a carving, something that would keep it in tact. Carve it into a beautiful sculpture. That would be the best thing," he said.
 

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