The Dream Diamond

The stone glinted like sunshine, spreading its burning light from a 100.09 carat diamond, suspended from a white diamond necklace.

"I was mesmerized," says Laurence Graff, of the moment he saw the raw lump of rock crystal in Kimberley, South Africa. "It was an intense golden yellow and one of the rarest yellow diamonds I had ever seen. I knew the polished stone within would be more than exceptional."

By the time it reached London's Kensington Palace, where the jeweler received the Queen's Award for the fourth time last month, the cut and polished stone had lost nearly half its original 190.72 carat weight.

The so-called "Dream Diamond" even had been sent to the Gemological Institute of America to test its natural authenticity. It had been transformed, by Safdico's Nino Bianco in New York, over nine months with a cushion cut to bring out its brilliance. But it was still the largest yellow diamond in the world.

The royal recognition (in fact, an industry award recommended by the government) was to mark Graff's overseas expansion, not just with new stores in the United States, Asia, the Middle East and Russia (accounting for the fact that 95 percent of the company's sales are to overseas customers) but also as a vertical company with mines and cutting factories through South Africa.