Jagersfontein Mine
open-pit mine
Jagersfontein Mine was an open-pit mine in South Africa, located close to the town of Jagersfontein and about 110 kilometres (68 miles) south-west of Bloemfontein. Since it was first established, two of the ten biggest diamonds ever discovered, the Excelsior and the Reitz (now called the Jubilee), were mined from Jagersfontein. The term "Jagers" has since been coined to denote the distinctive faint bluish tint of the gems from this mine. Among geologists, Jagersfontein is known as a kimberlite pipe, and a prime locality for mantle xenoliths, some of which are believed to have come from depths of 300–500 km (190–310 mi).
It is the biggest hand-excavated hole in the world at 19.65 hectares (48.6 acres), slightly larger than the Big Hole of 17 ha (42 acres) in Kimberley, which had previously claimed the title.
Early history
The mine was discovered in 1870. The first diamond, a stone of 50 carats, was found by farmer J.J. de Klerk in August of that year, and digging immediately began, starting a diamond rush. The discovery a few weeks later of the much richer mines at Bultfontein and Du Toits Pan, followed by the great finds at De Beers and Colesberg Kop (Kimberley) caused Jagersfontein to be neglected for several years. Up to 1887 the claims in the mine were held by a large
number of individuals, but coincident with the efforts to amalgamate the interest in the Kimberley mines a similar movement
took place at Jagersfontein, and by 1893 all the claims became the property of one company, which had a working arrangement
with the De Beers corporation.
For the duration of the mine's remaining operational history, it was run by De Beers up to 1972, when it was deproclaimed.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Jagersfontein Mine” as open-pit mine. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6122519. Authority coordinates are -29.765, 25.419. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1870, 1887, 1893 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jagersfontein Mine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.