THE CULLINAN

This was the largest lump of gem-diamond crystal ever discovered. In the rough, it weighed 3,106 carats; or about one and a third pounds. Because the rough had a cleavage face, many experts believe that the huge stone was only a piece of a much larger diamond which was broken up in the weathering process. Until recently, it was believed that the diamond was found in the Premier Mine in South Africa, by mine superintendent, Frederick Wells. It was then named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, who had discovered the mine in 1902 after persistent prospecting in the area. Now, there are con?icting reports which state that it was Thomas Evan Powell who, with the help of a native worker, sighted the CULLINAN, rough, and pointed it out to Sir Thomas Cullinan, owner of the mine. The Transvaal Government bought the rough for $750,000 and presented it to King Edward VII on his 66th birthday, November 9, 1907. Touched by the loyalty of his subjects, the king promised to keep the diamond among the Crown Jewels. In 1908, King Edward sent the stone to Asscher’s in Amsterdam for cutting. The yield was nine major gems, 96 small brilliants and more than nine carats of polished fragments. Only the two largest were retained for the Crown Jewels. The rest were given to Asscher for his fee. King Edward bought one for his consort, Queen Alexandra. The people of South Africa bought the other six major gems and presented them to Queen Mary in 1910. Thus, two of the CULLINANS are among the Crown Jewels and the other seven belong to the Royal Family:

I - 530.20-carat pear shape is the largest cut diamond in the world. Also called the GREAT STAR OF AFRICA, it is set in the Imperial Sceptre and is on permanent display in the Tower of London.

II - 317.40-carat square cut brilliant is the second largest diamond in the world. Also called the LESSER STAR OF AFRICA, this diamond is in the Imperial State Crown in the Tower of London.

III — 94.40-carat pear shape was set in Queen Mary's Crown, but also is worn with IV in a pendant brooch.

IV - 63.60-carat square brilliant was set in the same crown and also is worn in the pendant brooch.

V - 18.80-carat heart shape was set in a brooch for Queen Mary. At the coronation of George VI, Mary, as Queen Mother, wore the brooch in her crown in place of the KOH-I-NOOR, which had been removed and set in the crown made for George's wife, Elizabeth, who is now the Queen Mother.

VI - 1150-carat marquise was presented to Queen Alexandra by Edward VII. It was mounted in an emerald and diamond necklace and is worn by Queen Elizabeth II.

VII - 8.80-carat marquise is now a pendant on an all-diamond brooch owned by Queen Elizabeth II.

VIII - 6.80-carat brilliant of unusual oblong shape is now the center stone in the brooch to which the Cullinan VII is a pendant.

IX - 4.39-carat pear shape was mounted in a ring with a claw setting by Queen Mary. It was inherited by Queen Elizabeth II, but she rarely wears it.

The other 96 brilliants cut from the CULLINAN were dispersed and there is no record of most of their whereabouts. Two gems are in the possession of the family of General Botha, first Prime Minister of South Africa.

THE HOPE

The beautiful, captivating HOPE is undoubtedly the most famous diamond in the world, with a history weighted in superstition and tragedy. Jean Tavernier found the rough diamond (called the TAVERNIER BLUE — 112 carats) in India in 1642. He brought the stone to France where Louis XIV supposedly gave him a fortune for it. (A study by H. Tillander in 1975 proved that the HOPE is a result of the recutting of the TAVERNIER BLUE.) Tavernier supposedly gave the fortune to his son, who squandered it, and was killed by wild dogs in India at the age of 80. Louis XIV had a 69.03 stone cut from the Tavernier rough. Shortly afterwards he died from smallpox. Louis XV loaned it to one of his mistresses, Countess DuBarry, who was beheaded in the French Revolution. The diamond then went to Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, both of whom were beheaded in the revolution. The diamond was stolen from the French Treasury in 1792 and recut to its present 45.52 carats. In 1812 it surfaced in London in the possession of Daniel Eliason, a diamond merchant. It was purchased in 1830 for the gem collection of Henry Philip Hope for $90,000. When Hope died without marrying in 1839, the diamond passed to his nephew, Henry Thomas Hope, who showed it at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851. By then it was known as the HOPE diamond. The HOPE came down through the family to Lord Francis Pelham Clinton Hope, who married the American actress, Mary Yohe, in 1894. She had a replica of the blue made for her comeback, which proved unsuccessful. In 1906, Lord Hope was supposedly in dire financial straits and sold the diamond in partial liquidation of his debts. The diamond changed hands several times over the next five years, Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of Turkey, purchased the stone, but disposed of it in 1908 when faced with a revolution. Pierre Cartier then acquired it in Paris and in 1911 sold it to Mr. and Mrs. McLean of Washington, D.C. for $154,000. Despite the legend, Mrs. McLean often wore the HOPE. It could be coincidence, of course, but while she owned the stone, her son was killed in an automobile accident, her husband died, and her daughter took an overdose of sleeping pills. After Mrs. McLean's death in 1947, Harry Winston purchased the stone for $179,920, and presented it in 1958 to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., where it is on display. In 1975, it was weighed by an expert from the American Gem Society who discovered that the gem was 45.52 carats, not 44.50 carats as recorded for many years. As of 1982, the HOPE was valued at between $20 and $25 million. That same year it was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York City at a reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of Harry Winston, Inc., the Fifth Avenue jeweler. The host was Ronald Winston, president of the company since his father’s death in 1978.

THE STAR OF SOUTH AFRICA

Although the Eureka diamond turned the world’s attention to South Africa, it was the discovery of the Star of South Africa that started the diamond rush. Schalk van Niekerk was constantly on alert for pebbles that might be diamonds, after learning that the pebble he had given to John O’Reilly turned out to be the Eureka. Early in 1869, he found one such pebble in the possession of a shepherd boy on the Zendfontein farm near the Orange River. He offered 500 sheep, 10 oxen and a horse in trade for the stone, which he later sold in Hopetown for $56,000. News of the transaction sped on the winds of the veldt, and soon diamond prospectors were flooding into the district along the river. Louis Hond, a diamond cutter, bought the stone and cut it into an oval, three-sided brilliant of 47.75 carats. Hond sold it to the Countess of Dudley for $125,000. She had it mounted with 95 smaller stones in an ornament for her hair. The pear shaped diamond was auctioned in Geneva on May 2, 1974 for $552,000 to an anonymous buyer.

THE EUREKA

As one of the first major diamonds found in South Africa, this stone has been appropriately named. In 1867, a boy named Erasmus Jacobs found a pebble near the banks of the Orange River close to his home. About a month later, a neighbor, Schalk van Niekerk, admired the pebble, and offered to buy it. Mrs. Jacobs refused payment and gave the stone to him. Van Niekerk showed the pebble to John O’Reilly, a traveling peddler, who borrowed or bought it from him. Later, the stone was identified as a 21-carat yellow diamond worth $2,500. O’Reil1y sold it for that sum to Sir Philip Wodehouse, who had the diamond shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. Sometime afterwards, the stone was cut into a 10.73-carat brilliant. For many years, it was owned by Peter Locan of London, who showed it in 1959 at the Ageless Diamond Exhibition in London. In 1966, the EUREKA returned home when it was purchased by De Beers Consolidated Mines. After it was shown at the Johannesburg Diamond Pavilion, De Beers presented it to the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town. It is not known who gave the diamond the name EUREKA, but in South Africa, many still call it the O’REILLY.

THE KOH-I-NOOR

The KOH-I-NOOR was first reported in 1304 as a diamond in the possession of the Rajah of Malwa. Later, it fell into the hands of the Sultan Baber. For the next two centuries, it was one of the precious jewels of the Mogul Emperors. In 1739, Nadir Shah of Persia invaded Delhi. His systematic pillage of the city failed to uncover the huge stone, but then he was told by one of the harem women that the conquered Mogul emperor had hidden it inside his turban. Taking advantage of oriental custom, Nadir Shah invited his captive to a feast and suggested they exchange turbans. Retiring from the feast, Na-dir Shah unrolled the turban and released the great gem. Seeing it, he is supposed to have cried, ”Koh-i-Noor! ” (Mountain of Light). Tradition has it that this christened the diamond. The gem went back to Persia with Nadir Shah. But he was assassinated in 1747, and the diamond fought over by his successors. It was in the jewel chamber of Lahore, capital of Punjab, when that state was annexed to British India in 1849, and the East India Company took it as a partial indemnity for the Sikh Wars. The KOH-I-NOOR was presented to Queen Victoria in 1850 to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the East India Company by Queen Elizabeth I. Valued at $700,000, the KOH—I-NOOR was displayed at the Crystal Palace Exposition in London in 1851. Since people were disappointed that the diamond did not show more fire, Victoria decided to have it recut. Mr. Voorsanger, the most able cutter at Coster’s in Amsterdam, was brought to London for the job, which reduced the size of the diamond from 186 carats to 108.93 carats. Acceding to the wishes of her Indian subjects, Victoria wore the great diamond as a personal ornament. From this probably came the superstition that only queens could wear the KOH-I-NOOR safely. Victoria willed it to her daughter-in-law, Queen Alexandra, who wore it at her coronation in 1902. In 1911 a new crown was made for the coronation of Queen Mary with the KOH—I—NOOR as the central stone. In 1937, it was transferred to the crown of Queen Elizabeth (now Queen Mother) for her coronation. On state occasions the Queen Mother continues to wear the diamond in the circlet of her crown. At other times, the KOH-I-NOOR is displayed with the British Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. In 1953, India claimed that the KOH-I-NOOR rightfully belonged to that country and asked Britain to return it. Pakistan made the same request in 1976, challenging the legitimacy of the stone's present ownership- on both occasions Britain refused, contending that the history of the famous was too confused to justify handing it over to another country.

THE TAYLOR-BURTON

This pear-shaped diamond was offered at auction in November 1969 by the Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York, with it came the understanding that it could be named by the buyer. Cartier of New York successfully bid $1,050,000 and immediately christened it, CARTIER. Actor, Richard Burton bought the stone the next day for his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, for an undisclosed sum. But before delivering it, Cartier exhibited the diamond to huge crowds in both New York and Chicago. Renamed the TAYLOR-BURTON diamond, it made its debut at a charity ball in Monaco in mid-November, where Miss Taylor wore it on a pendant. After the auction, it was disclosed that the previous owner had been Mrs. Paul Ames, sister of Walter Annenberg, the noted publisher. She had bought it in 1967 from Harry Winston, who had it cut from a 240.80-carat rough found in the Premier Mine, South Africa in 1966. In 1978, Liz Taylor announced that she was putting this diamond up for sale through the company of Charles Anthony Diamond Investments. Miss Taylor was said to be planning to use part of the proceeds from the sale to build a hospital in Botswana. Iust to inspect the diamond, which was under 'guard in Paris, prospective buyers had to pay $2,500 to cover the cost of showing it. In June 1979, Henry Lambert, the New York jeweler, said he had bought the diamond for nearly $3 million. By December 1979, Lambert had sold the stone. It was last reported to be in Saudi Arabia.

THE DRESDEN GREEN

This almond shaped stone is the largest apple-green diamond known. Although it is of Indian origin nothing was known of it until Frederick Augustus II of Saxony purchased the diamond at the Leipzing Fair in 1743 for about $150,000. Set in an elaborate shoulder knot, the stone was exhibited with the other Crown jewels of Saxony in the famous Green Vaults under the Dresden palace. After World War II, these gems were confiscated by the Russians, but were returned to Dresden in 1958 and are again on display.

THE EXCELSIOR

This diamond was discovered in 1893 at the Jagerfontein Mine in South Africa. It was the largest diamond in the world until the CULLINAN was found some 12 years later. The big rough was picked up by a native worker in a shovelful of gravel he was heaving into a truck. He hid it from his overseer and delivered it directly to the mine manager, who gave him a fine horse with a saddle and bridle, plus a cash settlement. Of exquisite blue-white color and irregular shape, the diamond was not cut until 1903 when it was entrusted in Asscher’s Diamond Co. in Amsterdam. The yield was 21 stones, ranging in size from 69.68 carats to less than one carat. The diamonds were all sold separately, many of them handled by Tiffany's in New York, their present owners are unknown. EXCELSIOR I resurfaced in January 1984, when it was purchased and resold by Graff Diamonds Ltd. of London.

THE PINK STAR

Formerly known as the Steinmetz Pink, this fancy vivid pink beauty was mined by De Beers in 1999 and weighed 132.5 carats in the rough. The Steinmetz company spent nearly two years painstakingly cutting the stone into a scintillating 59.60, mixed oval brilliant shape. It is the largest known stone to be rated Vivid Pink and was sold at auction by Sotheby’s in Geneva on November 13 2013 for a record setting price of $83,187,381 to New York diamond cutter, Isaac Wolf.

THE HORTENSIA

This peach-colored stone was named after Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland, who was Josephine’s daughter and the stepdaughter of Napoleon I. The HORTENSIA had been a part of the French Crown Jewels since Louis XIV bought it. Along with the REGENT, it is now on display in the Louvre, Paris.

THE KRUPP

This emerald-cut diamond was part of the estate of Vera Krupp, ex-wife of the German munitions maker. It was sold at auction by Parke-Bernet in 1968, and bought for $305,000 by the late Richard Burton for his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, who wore it in a ring.

THE TIFFANY

The TIFFANY, the largest golden diamond known today, was not worn as jewelry for almost 80 years after its discovery. Since then, however, it has been seen by more than 25 million people over almost 70 years of continuous display. The rough diamond, weighing 287.42 carats, is believed to have been found in the Kimberley Mine in South Africa in 1878. Whatever its origin, the diamond was bought by Tiffany & Co. in 1879, and cut in Paris to a cushion shape brilliant of 128.51 carats. It was given 90 facets, 32 more than the standard brilliant cut, and these extra facets give the great yellow diamond the effect of smoldering fire. The TIFFANY was shown at the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893, at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, at the Chicago Century of Progress in 1933-34, and at the New York World's Fair in 1939-40. The diamond also has been on display through the years at Tiffany's New York, where it is still exhibited today. The first time the diamond was worn as an ornament was in 1957 at the Tiffany Ball in Newport. Mrs. Sheldon Whitehouse, the ball’s chairperson, had the honor of wearing the TIFFANY, mounted for the occasion in a necklace of white diamonds. In 1971, the diamond was exhibited at the 100th anniversary celebration of the opening of the Kimberley Mine in South Africa. (The mine was closed in 1914 and is now known as the Big Hole.) At the end of 1983, the TIFFANY diamond was valued at $12 million.

THE STAR OF SOUTH AFRICA

Although the Eureka diamond turned the world’s attention to South Africa, it was the discovery of the Star of South Africa that started the diamond rush. Schalk van Niekerk was constantly on alert for pebbles that might be diamonds, after learning that the pebble he had given to John O’Reilly turned out to be the Eureka. Early in 1869, he found one such pebble in the possession of a shepherd boy on the Zendfontein farm near the Orange River. He offered 500 sheep, 10 oxen and a horse in trade for the stone, which he later sold in Hopetown for $56,000. News of the transaction sped on the winds of the veldt, and soon diamond prospectors were flooding into the district along the river. Louis Hond, a diamond cutter, bought the stone and cut it into an oval, three-sided brilliant of 47.75 carats. Hond sold it to the Countess of Dudley for $125,000. She had it mounted with 95 smaller stones in an ornament for her hair. The pear shaped diamond was auctioned in Geneva on May 2, 1974 for $552,000 to an anonymous buyer.

THE UNCLE SAM

The UNCLE SAM, weighing 40.23 carats in the rough, has the honor of being the largest diamond found in North America. It was discovered in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, in 1924. Later, Schenk &Van Halen, the New York diamond cutters, fashioned the rough into a beautiful 12.42-carat emerald cut. Valued at more than $150,000, it was owned by Peiken Fifth Avenue for many years. In 1971, it was acquired by Sidney De Young, the Boston dealer, and subsequently sold to a private collector.

THE WHITTELSBACH-GRAFF

This brilliant blue diamond of Indian origin, was part of the gift that Philip IV of Spain gave to his daughter on her marriage to Leopold I of Austria in 1664. The diamond passed to the Wittelsbach family of Bavaria when Maria Amelia was betrothed to Charles Albert of Bavaria in 1722. It remained among the Wittelsbach jewels until 1931, then mysteriously disappeared after having been offered unsuccessfully for sale. Reappearing in Belgium in 1961, it was bought by a group headed by diamond dealer, I. Komkommer of Antwerp. In 1964 it was purchased by a private collector. On December 10 2008, London Jeweler Laurence Graff paid $23.4 million for the Wittelsbach, a record price for a diamond at the time, which he then renamed the Wittelsbach-Graff. In a controversial move, Graff & Co. had the legendary stone re-cut in order to remove some chips and enhance the vividness of its blue color. As a result the color grade improved from “Fancy deep grayish-blue” (the same classification as the HOPE diamond) to fancy deep blue. In addition, the clarity grade improved from VS1 to internally flawless. The stone is currently in the possession of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Chalifa. He paid a reported record $80 million for the diamond.

THE SPOONMAKER'S

This beautiful pear shape, set in a double frame of 49 smaller diamonds, is one of the chief treasures of the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul.There are many interesting stories about its history. One is by the Finance Minister Sari Hehmet Pacha who, reporting on the events of 1090, explains how the SPOONMAKER’S was discovered. He says the diamond was found in the Egrikapi section of Istanbul. A merchant exchanged it for three spoons. A goldsmith bought it from the spoonmaker and showed it to one of his colleagues, who recognized it as a diamond and demanded part of its worth. Hearing of the argument, the chief goldsmith took V away the stone and paid each man 500 piastres. Soon, the Sultan demanded to see the stone and decided to keep it for himself. Probably of Indian origin, the stone most likely was cut in the 17th century. It is recorded in the treasury listing requested by Sultan Mehmet IV, completed on October 29, 1680. D For many years, the diamond was record‘? as weighing 84 carats. It is now known thijlthi this referred to ”old carats”. Its metric weight is 86 carats. There is some evidence that this diamond is the same as the TURKEY II.

THE STAR OF SOUTH AFRICA

Although the Eureka diamond turned the world’s attention to South Africa, it was the discovery of the Star of South Africa that started the diamond rush. Schalk van Niekerk was constantly on alert for pebbles that might be diamonds, after learning that the pebble he had given to John O’Reilly turned out to be the Eureka. Early in 1869, he found one such pebble in the possession of a shepherd boy on the Zendfontein farm near the Orange River. He offered 500 sheep, 10 oxen and a horse in trade for the stone, which he later sold in Hopetown for $56,000. News of the transaction sped on the winds of the veldt, and soon diamond prospectors were flooding into the district along the river. Louis Hond, a diamond cutter, bought the stone and cut it into an oval, three-sided brilliant of 47.75 carats. Hond sold it to the Countess of Dudley for $125,000. She had it mounted with 95 smaller stones in an ornament for her hair. The pear shaped diamond was auctioned in Geneva on May 2, 1974 for $552,000 to an anonymous buyer.