Stone’s names: Diamond, Brilliant.
Color: Diamonds are usually colorless. However, brown, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, red, gray and black variations are also found depending on the impurities present.
Description: Diamond is a mineral composed of pure carbon. Funny as it may seem a diamond is chemically the same as black opaque graphite and even ordinary soot!
Diamond is the hardest natural substance know to man, with a hardness of 10 on Mohs’ scale, so it can only be cut or polished only by another diamond. It can be identified by its hardness and adamantine luster. The hardness, brilliance, and sparkle of diamonds make them unsurpassed as gems. The name’s origin: Diamond derives its name from the Greek word adamas, which means “invincible”.Birthstone: Diamond is the Zodiac birthstone of Aries (Ram): March 21 – April 19 and the traditional stone for the month of April.
Wedding anniversary: Diamond is the anniversary gemstone for the 30th and 60th year of marriage.
Care and treatment: Diamonds should be stored separately. They can scratch other jewelry as well as each other.
Diamond facts: Diamonds from Indian deposits were known in ancient times. In the West the limited use of diamonds began in the late Middle Ages. The diamond, was thought to give its wearer strength in battle and to protect him against ghosts and magic. Only 20 per cent of diamonds are suitable for jewelry making. The rest are discolored or contain massive flaws. Because of their extreme hardness, diamonds have a number of important industrial applications. They are used in drill bits, glass cutters, masonry saws for shaping building stone, and for cutting other diamonds.
Shopping guide: If you want a nice diamond be prepared to pay a nice price. Low price means low quality.
Be aware of numerous imitations of diamonds: cubic zirconia, synthetic moissianite, synthetic rutile, strontium titanate, colorless topaz, colorless sapphire, and many others. Scratching glass is useless test as many imitations made of quartz , which also scratches glass. Consult a professional, independent retail jeweler to insure you are getting the real thing. If you are making a large investment in a diamond make sure that you are getting a diamond grading report from a reputable gemological laboratory.
Gem Lore: Diamond are said to be a great assistance for all brain diseases, beneficial in stomach area and to strengthen the owner’s memory.
Mystical power: Diamonds are said to give faith, purity, life, joy, innocence and repentance. They assist in developing concentration and in being straight-forward and honest. It is believed the diamond loses its brilliance if the health of the wearer degenerates and will only regaining it only when the owner recovers. Diamonds are also said to be an antidote to poison and is capable of detecting poison by exhibiting a moisture or perspiration on its surface. Supposedly, the higher quality the diamond, the better it supports these qualities.
Deposits: Diamonds are mostly found in Australia, Ghana, Zaire, Russia, USA (Arkansas, California, Colorado, and North Carolina), and Brazil.
Famous diamonds:
JUBILEE diamond: A flawless, clear white diamond weighing almost 651 carats in rough form, it was found in the Jaegersfontein mine in South Africa in 1895. It was faceted into a cushion brilliant of about 245 carats in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, from which it takes its name.
EXCELSIOR diamond: The world’s largest-known uncut diamond until the discovery of the Cullinan diamond in 1905. When found by a worker loading a truck in the De Beers mine at Jagersfontein, Orange Free State, on June 30, 1893, the blue-white stone weighed about 995 carats. After long study the Excelsior diamond was cut (1904) by I.J. Asscher and Company of Amsterdam into 21 stones ranging in weight from less than 1 carat to more than 70 carats.
CULLINAN diamond: The world’s largest gem diamond, which weighed about 3,106 carats in rough form when found in 1905 at the Premier mine in Transvaal, S.Af. Named for Sir Thomas Cullinan, who had discovered the mine three years earlier, the colorless stone was purchased by the Transvaal government and was presented (1907) to the reigning British monarch, King Edward VII. It was cut into 9 large stones and about 100 smaller ones by I.J. Asscher and Company of Amsterdam all flawless, and are now part of the British regalia. The largest one the Great Star of Africa, or Cullinan I, a 530.2-carat, pear-shaped gem set in the English scepter. The next largest is the most valuable stone in the imperial state crown, the 317-carat Cullinan II, sometimes called the Second Star of Africa.
HOPE diamond: A sapphire-blue gemstone from India, one of the largest blue diamonds known. It is thought to have been cut from a 112-carat stone brought to France by the jewel trader Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and purchased by Louis XIV in 1668 as part of the French crown jewels. This stone, later called the French Blue, was re-cut into a 67-carat heart in 1673 and disappeared after the crown-jewel robbery of 1792. The 45.5-carat Hope diamond, named for the London banker Thomas Hope, who purchased it in 1830, was apparently formed from it. The Hope diamond is on display in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
REGENT diamond also called PITT diamond: A brilliant-cut stone with a slight blue tinge that once was the outstanding gem of the French crown jewels; it was discovered in India in 1701 and weighed 410 carats in rough form. It was purchased by Sir Thomas Pitt, British governor in Madras, who published a letter in the London Daily Post to counter rumors that he had stolen the gem. The stone was cut to a 141-carat cushion brilliant called the Pitt diamond and was purchased in 1717 by the Duke of Orleans, regent of France–hence its present name. In 1792 it was stolen along with other crown jewels but was recovered. Napoleon I wore the stone in the pommel of his sword. It has been on display in the Louvre since 1887.
ORLOV diamond: A rose- cut gem from India, it is shaped like half an egg, with facets covering its domed surface, and the underside is nearly flat. It weighs nearly 200 carats. According to legend, it was once used as the eye of an idol in a Brahman temple in Mysore and was stolen by a French deserter, who escaped with it to Madras. Others contend that the authenticated history of the Orlov extends to the middle of the 18th century, when the stone (believed to be the long-missing Great Mogul diamond) belonged to Nader Shah, king of Persia. It was purchased in 1774 by Count Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov, who in an unsuccessful attempt to regain favor gave it to Empress Catherine II the Great. Catherine had it mounted in the Romanov imperial scepter, and it is now part of Russia’s Diamond Fund (which contains the tsarist regalia) in Moscow.
STAR OF THE SOUTH: An unblemished, 129-carat white diamond with a rosy glow, one of the largest ever found in Brazil; it weighed about 262 carats in rough form. It was discovered in 1853 in the Bagagem River (in Minas Gerais state) by a slave woman, who was given her freedom and pensioned as a reward.