Grandview Klein, London Jewelers unveil centennial diamond in old mine cushion cut
A 63-carat rough will become a 20.26-carat D-flawless old mine cushion, a centennial tribute that pairs antique form with De Beers-backed traceability.
Grandview Klein and London Jewelers used JCK Las Vegas to unveil a 63-carat rough diamond that will be cut into a 20.26-carat D-color, flawless old mine cushion, a shape chosen to echo one of the earliest diamond styles. The polished weight was selected as a direct nod to London Jewelers’ 100th anniversary, turning the stone into both a technical showcase and a centennial emblem.
The decision to finish the diamond as an old mine cushion cut matters as much as the size. Old mine proportions carry the softened corners, high crown, and chunky faceting that collectors associate with antique jewelry, and they have never lost their place in the language of high jewelry. Here, that historic silhouette gave the project a deliberate sense of lineage, even as the final stone will be one of the rarest types on the market: a D-color, flawless diamond.
The stone will be cut in Botswana under De Beers Group’s Origin traceability program, which documents a diamond’s journey from rough to polished and uses blockchain-backed verification to track its path. In a market where provenance claims are often broad and vague, that level of documentation gives the project more substance than the usual centennial splash. The public message is clear: this was not just about size, but about where the diamond came from, who handled it, and how it was transformed.
London Jewelers framed the unveiling through its own family history. Charles London opened the first store on School Street in Glen Cove, New York, in 1926 after emigrating to the United States in 1923; his wife and three children joined him in Glen Cove in 1929. The company now operates 16 stores on Long Island and in New Jersey and is run by the fourth generation of the family.
Grandview Klein brought a parallel legacy of New York diamond dealing to the table. Julius and Jacob Klein, Holocaust survivors, came to the United States in 1947 and built separate wholesale diamond businesses in New York before merging them in the 1980s. Grandview Klein Diamonds was founded in 2019 by AD Klein, with Moshe and Shaya Klein continuing the family business, and the company says it maintains De Beers sightholder status and cutting operations in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.
Mark and Candy Udell, Moshe Klein, De Beers CEO Al Cook, and Don Gaetsaloe, permanent secretary of Botswana’s Ministry of Minerals and Energy, were among those present. The project reads as more than a branding exercise, but only partly: it is also a carefully staged argument that antique diamond proportions still command prestige when they are paired with documented origin, top-color grading, and a family story that spans nearly a century.
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