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Origin  History Diamonds
in the US: Do it Yourself Mining In
the Beginning But
it all began in India Trust:
The basis of all trading Mazel
u Broche Sea
Diamonds Let
there be Light and Fire Color
in Diamonds: When Least is Best Famous
Color Birthmarks Russian
Connection: Mining on the Tundra Fit
for Kings, Quins and Elizabeth Taylor Diamonds
in Israel Seeds
from Carob The
day Mr. Asscher Fainted
Origin
April is the luckiest month of all, since diamonds are its
birthstone. More and more women are dressing in these brilliant,
dazzling gemstones as effortlessly as they throw on their favorite
sweater. Actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Halle Berry and super models
Cindy Crawford and Stella Tennant, among others, are seen everywhere
wearing their diamond solitaire necklaces.
Most diamonds are more than 100 million years old, and many are
over three billion years old, making diamonds the oldest of all
gemstones. They are also the hardest substance known to man, made of
carbon that is crystallized deep within the earth.
First discovered over 3,000 years ago in India, diamonds are
found today in remote parts of the world, such as Australia, Russia,
Botswana, and South Africa. Their unique hardness and high
refractive index have inspired legends. To the Greeks, they were
teardrops from the gods. To the Romans, they came from the falling
stars that tipped the arrow of Eros, the god of love. For Hindus,
diamonds were the lightning that armed the hand of the god Indra.
Women are now buying diamonds for themselves. What's new is that
customers are more educated, and as more and more women gain
professional ranks, they want quality stones.
When it comes to wearing diamonds, there's no wrong way. Diamond
brooches adorn business suits. Diamond studs are worn to the gym.
This ground swell of wearing diamonds every day started a few years
back when designers like John Galliano and Donna Karan popularized
them on their runways. Most recently, Galliano and other major
European designers showed elaborate Belle Époque settings, and Oscar
de la Renta showed diamonds exclusively in his collections. A lot of
upwardly mobile professional women took note. They are today's
diamond customers who want diamonds, can afford them, and don't have
to wait for an engagement or 25th wedding anniversary to own them.
Nor is there one style or trend that customers want. Never before
have so many American designers marketed diamond jewelry under their
own names. Noteworthy are Henry Dunay, Whitney Boin, Jose Hess and
Michael Bondanza. And at Tiffany's, their classic six-prong setting
is always popular, but the store's Diamonds By the Yard necklaces of
round diamonds set in platinum or 18 karat gold typify the
diamonds-for-day trend.
When purchasing diamonds, customers are adhering to the 4 C's --
cut, color, clarity, and carat weight -- but increasingly, they seek
finer cut stones. Customers should understand that it is the cutting
that releases the true brilliance of a stone.
With something so precious, remember to rely on a
well-established jeweler, with a wide selection of merchandise, who
is qualified to determine a diamond's value and quality. Little
wonder the Greeks named diamonds "adamas." It means unconquerable.
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History
Each diamond is unique. Like fingerprints, no two are exactly
alike.
Diamonds have decorated kings, inspired poets, delighted movie
stars, brought untimely death to the famous and infamous--even been
credited with curing illnesses. British monarchs added them to their
royal treasure troves. French kings adored them. Jehan Shah, builder
of the Taj Mahal, wore an 88-carat heirloom at his coronation in
1628.
The compulsion to own the very best survives in today's world of
dwindling monarchies.
Consider recent diamond auction fever. In 1988 alone, nine
diamonds sold at either Christie's or Sotheby's New York auctions
brought prices of between $185,200 and $926,315 a carat. Consider,
too, that American shoppers spent almost $12 billion on diamond
jewelry last year--30% more than they spent on all beauty aids and
more than six times what they spent on furs. They said "I love you"
with engagement rings. They said "I love you more than ever" with
anniversary bands. They celebrated birthdays and Christmas and
special private moments with tennis bracelets and cocktail rings and
necklaces and pendants, all of them ablaze with diamonds. The top
social set--and a few beauty queens--drew all eyes with their
shimmering new tiaras.
Diamonds are the ultimate symbol of romance. More than 500 years
ago, in 1477, Maximilliam of Austria gave a diamond ring to Mary of
Burgundy to seal their marriage vows. Maximillian had obviously paid
heed to what the ancients said, namely that the third finger of the
left hand connected directly to the heart by the Vein of Love.
That's the finger he chose for Mary's ring.
Diamonds, too, offer an awesome connection with a Darwinian
pre-history and lands populated with dinosaurs, not people. The
youngest volcanic rock in which diamonds are brought to the earth's
surface is about 70 million years old. When you pick up your diamond
jewelry--ring, cuff link or tiara--you are literally holding a piece
of geological history in your hand.
The diamond world is truly global. Today, the two richest sources
of gem quality diamonds are Botswana, an emerging Third World
country which relies on these gemstones for three quarters of its
total revenues, and the former Soviet Union, whose bountiful mines
are clustered in the frozen Siberian tundra.
For some curious reason, the most productive mines seem almost
always to be found in inaccessible regions. The world's top
producer, which only went into full operation in 1987, is the Argyle
mine in the remote northern section of Western Australia. Last year,
it produced more than 35 million carats, though most of them were of
industrial quality.
The great trading and cutting centers are just as international:
New York, Antwerp, Tel Aviv, and Bombay are the primary cutting
locations. They may soon have new rivals as twin moves to cut cost
and build employment encourage new cutting facilities in Bangkok and
even in China, which is just beginning to dabble in the art. London
remains the focal trading stop.
Diamonds are hard beyond belief. It was ever so, as Pliny the
Elder (A.D. 23 to 79) recorded long ago. The Greeks called diamond
"adamas" or unconquerable. Pliny wrote that "the best way to test
adamas is upon the anvil; strike even upon the point of the adamas
with a hammer as hard as you can, it defies all blows and instead of
the stone yielding, the hammer flies into pieces and even the anvil
splits in half."
No one knows if Pliny was talking practice or theory, but
1,900-plus years later one thing is sure: don't even think about
trying this experiment today, experts insist.
Flawless, colorless diamonds--the most perfect, desirable and,
therefore, most costly--are the rarest of the rare. Of the 100
million or so carats mined each year, those in the very top grade
number in the hundreds. What's more, about half of a rough diamond's
total weight is lost in the cutting process.
Diamonds personify value. The luxury car, the private plane, the
regal fur are all passing pleasures. Diamonds are lifelong reminders
of love and attachment--and having sealed a bond for one generation,
they can be passed unblemished to the next. Diamonds are forever.
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Diamonds in the US: Do-it-Yourself
Mining
Not all diamond mining is dramatic. The operation at Murfreesboro
in Pike County, Arkansas, is a down home affair called Crater of
Diamond. It's in the center of a state park and for more than 20
years has been "mined" by tourists who pay $3 a day for the right to
dig for gems. It can be a rewarding experience. In one recent year,
close to 80,000 people paid for the privilege of grubbing around the
surface of the only persistent diamond mining venture in North
America and took home a total of 1,400 diamonds. Most of the
crystals are small. But there have been some heart-thumping
exceptions--notably the 40.23-carat Star of Arkansas found in 1924
and the 32.45-carat Star of Murfreesboro found in 1964.
A geological survey of the Pike County area in 1889 noted the
presence of volcanic material similar to that in which southern
Africa's diamonds are found. No one paid much attention until 1906
when an enterprising prospector named John Huddleston discovered two
stones which Tiffany & Co. confirmed were diamonds.
Over the next 50 years a half dozen different companies--among
them the Ozark Diamond Mines Corp. and the North American Diamond
Corp.--tried to mine the area. One company spent the entire year of
1948 producing diamonds valued at $948.60!
But the area is arousing serious mining interest again. A
four-company group now wants to conduct a major geological survey at
the mine and is willing to put up $350,000 for the test. The most
optimistic forecast on what may be found: $5 billion worth of
diamonds.
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In the Beginning...
Getting to know about diamonds is like taking an armchair tour of
some of the world's most exciting places. Today the tour can spin
you to such faraway cities as London, Hong Kong, Antwerp, Tel Aviv
and Kinshasa; in each a new dimension is added to diamond's story.
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But it all began in India
Jean Baptiste Tavernier, a plump, jowly Frenchman, favored exotic
clothes and travel to exotic places. He was born in Paris in 1605,
apprenticed to a jeweler in his youth, and set out at age 22 to
become the Charles Kuralt of his day, with a dash of Marco Polo
thrown in.
One of his major achievements was to bring back from India a
gemstone that was to become a marvel in the decoration of French
royalty and nobility--the diamond.
Virtually nothing is known of early Indian diamond mining other
than it was centered between the modern cities of Hyderabad and
Anantapur, about 350 miles southwest of Bombay, the present Indian
"diamond capital." The most famous mine was the Golconda.
Mining was well established by the mid-seventeenth century. In a
single mine, Tavernier reported, there were "about 60,000 persons at
work, men, women, and children, the men being employed to dig, the
women and children to carry the earth."
Indian royalty of the day relished these gemstones riches. Again,
Tavernier:
"When the King seats himself upon his throne, there is a
transparent jewel with a diamond pendant of 80 or 90 carats
encompassed with rubies and emeralds so hung that it is always upon
his eye. Upon each side of the throne are two parasols, the handles
covered with diamonds. This is the [Peacock] throne which Tamerlane
began and Cha-Jehan finished. It is reported to have cost 160
million Livres. Behind this is a tub where the king bathes, the
outside whereof shines all over with diamonds."
India's primacy in diamond production lasted until the 1720's,
when diamonds were discovered in Brazil in the state of Minas
Gerais--later to become famous as one of the most gem-rich locations
in the world.
A Portuguese soldier of fortune, Bernardo da Fonesco Lobo, is
credited with the original find. He'd gone to Brazil in search of
gold but was intrigued by some pebbles he discovered when washing
the sands of the Rio dos Marinhos. Lobo had served in India and
though his "pebbles" might be diamonds-- something later confirmed
by authorities in Lisbon.
The mines Gerais discovered were followed by a number of finds in
other states, the biggest in Bahia in 1844. In the following 20
years, production peaked and then declined rapidly.
But the Portuguese Crown had by then taken full advantage of the
diamond yields. Soon after Lobo's first strike, the Crown kicked out
all Brazilian gold miners and handed over the diamond concessions to
a few favorites, who built a huge slave labor force to work in the
mines. For this generosity to the mine owners, the Portuguese
monarchs were suitably rewarded--in diamonds.
The Brazilian stones were of good quality and the country
produced some 16 million carats between about 1750 and 1850. But
they could not shake off the stigma that they were inferior to
Indian stones.
The outcome: enterprising dealers, many of them Dutch, shipped
Brazilian diamonds to Goa on India's west coast and then sold them
locally as Indian goods. Amazing Carbon Soot from a smoky
candle--soft, black, opaque, so worthless it is wiped away as a
nuisance. This is the element called carbon. The diamond in a
queen's tiara--harder than any other natural substance, colorless,
transparent, flashing with all the brilliance of fresh dew, so
costly it is worth a king's ransom-- this also is carbon, nothing
more, nothing less. The difference between them is this: soot forms
at ordinary temperature and pressure; diamond at a temperature and
pressure so high it is equivalent to that existing 150 miles below
the earth's surface.
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Trust: The Basis of All Trading
In the stark, cavernous lobby of the US diamond industry's "home"
in New York City, elevator doors bang monotonously. Throughout the
day they pour out an endless army of diamond people--dealers,
messengers, secretaries, cutters. Most distinctive are the Hasidic
Jews with their flat-brimmed black hats, long black coats and,
often, resplendent beards. This is pure New York, a kaleidoscope of
color and quickly- shifting patterns. In this world the total
business is trading diamonds.
Half a world away the scene is totally different. It is early
morning and Rampura Main Road in Surat, India's diamond cutting
center, is a spectacle of movement. Buzzing scooters, beeping taxis,
ox carts that vie for inches of the narrow street, destitute men
hauling bags of cement, push cart merchants and women walking with
their saris ablaze in the dusty wake of passing traffic.
Around 10 a.m., just as the heat of the day takes hold, young men
began collecting on the street. First by tens, then quickly by the
hundreds. Within an hour, the throngs of white shirted young men
have squeezed all other traffic onto different streets and the real
business of Rampura Main Road begins: trading diamonds.
Geographical boundaries are irrelevant to diamond dealers. They
live more in a state of mind than in a country. Similar methods of
business and codes of conduct are held in equal respect in Surat and
New York, in Tel Aviv and in Antwerp, in London and Los Angeles--in
all the trading places of the world, whether they are street curbs
or elegant office suites.
The dealer's world is his bond. Woe betide the person who cheats
or lies. He will be shut out of the diamond world as absolutely as a
shunned Amish sinner.
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Mazel u Broche
The Hebrew words for "luck" and "benediction" are the seal to any
buying or selling. No money need change hands. The deal is made; the
diamonds and money will be delivered. This extraordinary trust makes
diamond trading unique.
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Sea Diamonds
An enterprising Texan named Sammy Collins drew worldwide
attention in 1962 when he announced that he'd recovered 50,000
carats of diamonds worth $1.5 million from the seabed of the
treacherous Diamond Coast of South West Africa.
Collins figured that since diamonds had been found in abundant
amounts along the coast, most likely carried there by the Vaal and
Orange rivers from some far inland deposit, they also ought to be
found under the ocean.
Over a period of three years, Collins used the equivalent of huge
vacuum sweepers to suck some 400,000 carats of diamonds from the
seabed. His adventures set off a mini-rush by others to try this new
type of exploration but terrible working conditions and uncertain
diamonds deposits sent most into early obscurity.
Today, with improved technology, De Beers and others are once
again probing the waters of the South Atlantic, bringing closer the
prospect of viable undersea diamond recovery in the 1990's.
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Let There be Light and Fire
The time and place: 1919, London, the British Imperial capital
city, still rejoicing over Germany's defeat in the Great War ended
the previous fall.
The man: 21-year-old Marcel Tolkowsky, a student in mechanical
engineering and son and grandson of Antwerp diamond cutters.
The event: creation of a new diamond cut designed to release the
maximum "fire" from the heart of the stone. Young Marcel had just
etched his name into diamond history with his design of the
Tolkowsky cut or, as it's more often called today, the Ideal cut.
We're talking about what many experts consider the most critical
of the diamond's often discussed 4 C's - cut, clarity, color, and
carat weight (more on the final three later).
Cut is what turns an opaque, dullish gray pebble into a mirror of
light. In its ultimate form, a finely shaped diamond is a
masterpiece of mathematics, its angles precisely drawn. In a classic
cut, each of the 58 facets is aligned in exact relationship to the
others to achieve maximum beauty.
This is the beauty seen across a dance floor or a dining room as
a brilliant flash of light, alive with a rainbow of changing colors.
It's what sets the diamond apart as the paragon of gemstones. It's
what makes the diamond so special, so valued.
Achieving this goal took thousands of years.
The first crude attempts to improve on nature were made in India,
where it was discovered that diamond, like wood, possesses a grain
and that diamond can be split or cleaved along that grain. The
Indians also discovered that when two diamonds are rubbed together
some of the surface of each stone will be chipped or worn away - and
used this technique to give some spark and life to the rough stones.
It took many years and European know-how to move cutting beyond
the state of wonder to the state of beauty.
Progress was marked by three watershed events: the late
fifteenth-century discovery of Louis de Berquem of how to use a
wheel impregnated with diamond dust to polish a diamond (the concept
is still in use today); the seventeenth-century invention, by a
Venetian lapidary named Vincent Peruzzi, of a 58 facet cut, ancestor
of today's popular brilliant cut; and the eighteenth-century
discovery (inventor unknown) that a diamond could be sawed. Until
then, unwanted portions of a stone had to ground away, causing
tremendous loss.
The cutter's art is designed to make the maximum use of light.
Put simply, a brilliant-cut diamond takes in light, bends the rays,
bounces them around within the stone, and then ejects them broken
into the colors of the spectrum.
Just how light is broken up depends on minute differences in how
a diamond is cut. A lot of differing opinion is centered on how wide
the table (the flat top surface of the diamond) should be. Those who
swear by the Tolkowsky or Ideal cut say the table should be 53% as
wide as the overall width of the stone at its widest point. Others
favor a table somewhere between 57% and 65%.
It all really comes down to a balance of "fire" versus "light".
The Tolkowsky backers say his cut does a better job of breaking down
light into the entire spectrum, sending back a shining rainbow of
colors from the diamond. They glory in this "fire".
Those favoring a wider table insist that their cut allows the
diamond to return much more "light"--as much as five times more than
the Tolkowsky. This brilliance, they say, is especially stunning
when seen from an angle, and that's how most people see a diamond.
Personal preferences will decide which diamond a person buys.
What's really important is to understand what a critical difference
a cut can make.
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Color in Diamonds: When Least is
Best
It's ironic that the very best color for a brilliant diamond is
no color at all. The reason is simple: absence of color means no
conflict to dim the beauty of the natural light entering the stone
and breaking into its spectral elements--the brilliant reds and
blues and violets.
The most common measure of diamond color comes from the
Gemological Institute of America. The purest, colorless stone
carries a D rating and this scale goes right through the alphabet to
Z--designating a diamond with a strong brown cast. (The scale starts
with D because at the time the system was created in the early
1950's the business was plagued with hucksters offering AA and AAA
diamonds--and the GIA wanted to distance itself from this hype).
Gradations on the color scale are so precise and so minute that
it's almost impossible for an untrained eye to see them. You have to
go fairly far down the scale, perhaps to an I or J, before an
amateur starts to pick up a yellowish tint.
Color, like the other three C's of cut, clarity, and carat
weight, has a big impact on price. A D diamond costs much more than
a G which is equal in every other aspect.
Colorless is ideal for a white diamond. But color in a diamond
can be a blessing, if it's deep enough and attractive enough. We're
talking here about what are called fancy colored diamonds. Talk
about being desirable: in April 1987 at Christie's auction house in
New York, an 0.95 carat fancy purplish-red diamond sold for $880,000
or $926,315 a carat!
These gems come in all colors. Among the most famous: the vibrant
blue Hope, the Dresden Green, the Black Orloff (a real rarity) and
the golden brown Earth Star. Today, Australia's Argyle mine is
yielding some fabulous pinks.
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Famous Color
Step into the great room housing the Smithsonian Institution's
gemstone exhibit any day of the week, and you'll see a familiar
scene. One display always draws a special crowd. It houses one of
the most famous diamonds in the world, the Hope.
A similar story is true at the Dresden Historical Museum in
Germany. Only there the display houses the Dresden Green. The common
link--apart from the extraordinary beauty of their color--is that
both were mined in India.
The fabled dark blue Hope is surrounded with legends of
misfortune and disaster in two royal houses. This 44.52-carat
diamond, now on permanent display in the Smithsonian Institution, is
believed to be the larger portion of a stone originally sold to
Louis XIV of France in 1668. It was stolen in 1792 during the French
Revolution and never recovered. The diamond in its present form was
bought in 1830 by Henry Philip Hope (for whom it is now named).
It remained in the Hope family until 1908 when it was acquired by
Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of Turkey. Later owners were Pierre Cartier,
Edward B. McLean (then the owner of the Washington Post) and Harry
Winston, who donated the diamond to the Smithsonian in 1962.
The Dresden, a 41-carat apple-green stone, began its march to
celebrity in 1743 when Frederick Augustus II of Saxony bought it at
the Leipzig Fair and added it to his nation's crown jewels. The
lovely, pear-shaped stone, the largest of its color in existence,
continued as part of the Saxon Regalia for some 200 years but was
confiscated by the Russians Trophies' Organization in 1945. The
Soviets returned it two years later and it now is displayed in the
Dresden Historical Museum.
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Birthmarks
A birthmark is a small, genetic quirk--an identifier that a
person carries through life. The French aristocracy found them so
appealing they added imitations, applying tiny beauty spots to
highlight a cheekbone or dimple.
Most diamonds have birthmarks. Depending on their position within
the gem, some are obvious but most are unimportant. They come in
various forms--tiny carbon specks, little featherlike lines, minute
bubbles and so on. In many cases they aren't visible to the naked
eye.
The flawless diamond, in which no blemish of any kind can be seen
even under 10 power magnification, is obviously the most
sought-after stone. But these are rare indeed and priced
accordingly. Just as there is a Gemological Institute of America
color scale, so is there one for clarity. It starts, naturally
enough, with flawless and then moves down through "very very
slightly included" to "slightly included" to "imperfect."
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Russian Connection: Mining on the
Tundra
Larisa Popugayea and Fyodor Belikov are not household Russian
names but they have a special place in diamond history--on Aug. 21,
1954, they discovered a Siberian diamond field that would make their
nation one of the greatest producers of all time.
The mining area in the desolate, frozen (winter temperatures drop
to -140 F) province of Western Yakutia is full of diamond riches.
Once the Russians determined how to mine and live under the vile
weather conditions, they quickly brought a number of major mines
into production. The Mir, or Peace, became the most famous.
Today Russia continues as a major producer, with much of its
output made up of high-quality diamonds. The government willingly
(if quietly) sends its rough diamonds into normal distribution
channels. The Russians also polish some stones, and these are
normally sold to the international trade through the Antwerp
marketplace.
Of Sacred Sties, Deserts & Seawalls Devil Devil Spring in the
hot, empty Kimberly region of Western Australia is one mysterious
symbol of the difficulties facing modern diamond mining.
It is an aboriginal sacred site, a water hole used once a year
for young people's initiation ceremonies. It's also smack on the
fringe of the world's most productive diamond mine, the Argyle.
Back in 1982, when large-scale development of the $400 million
Argyle mine was starting in the remote northwest corner of the
country, planners identified 58 such sites in the mine area. Because
of the delicacy of the aboriginal issue, access to critical areas
was negotiated case by case. Devil Devil stays off limits to the
miners; Barramundi Gap, which gave a commanding view of the
mountainous terrain, was absorbed into the mine.
To an outsider, most sacred sites seem unremarkable. But at one
time the entire Argyle development timetable was threatened as
negotiations dragged on and on.
Elsewhere in today's diamond world, mining is beset with such
difficulties, some of them extreme. Take Angola, for example. The
graceful, sweeping waterfront vistas of Luanda, the capital of the
former Portuguese colony, contrast sharply with the nation's
diamond-producing, civil war-torn interior. Only recently has enough
peace returned to allow serious prospecting to start again. In the
global scheme, Angola is potentially one of the richer gem diamond
producers of the future.
Next door in Botswana, today's prime gem diamond producer, there
is no war. But there are natural enemies--desert, heat and a land
devoid of any industrial infrastructure. In 1967, when geologists
discovered the first of Botswana's three great diamond pipes at
Orapa, the country was one of the world's poorest nations,
subsisting on barren land with family or tribal agriculture. To open
and develop a major mine was a transportation and technological
marvel but, in partnership with De Beers, Botswana has now done it
three times.
The chronicle is similar for most of Africa, the bountiful center
of world diamond production. In Namibia a vigilantly maintained wall
of sand protects an incredible seashore diamond mine from attack by
the rolling, breaking seas of the South Atlantic. In Zaire, another
of the world's great diamond producers, nomad tribes poach brashly
in the mining areas and smuggle many thousands of carats across
porous national borders.
South Africa is the granddaddy of the continent's diamond rushes.
The opening of its mines, starting in the late 1860's, is the stuff
of legend. Those were the rough and tumble days of riches and
misery, glory and defeat, of the frail English adventurer Cecil
Rhodes, of his political and business empire building-- and of the
creation of diamond's most famous name, De Beers.
Today, only about 9% of all gem diamonds come from this source,
making it the world's fifth largest producer.
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Fit for Kings, Queens and Elizabeth
Taylor
Liz Taylor not only has an impressive list of ex-husbands; she's
also right up there with royalty when it comes to owning diamonds.
Back in 1968 she bought the 33.10-carat Krupp diamond for
$305,000--but the big one came the following year, thanks to Richard
Burton. It didn't come easily. When a magnificent 69,42-carat
diamond came on the block at Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York, two
bidders quickly left the field behind: Robert Kenmore, chairman of
the Kenton Corp.--which at the time owned Cartier operations in the
US--and a representative of Burton's. In the end Kenmore won out
with a bid of $1,050,000.
Not to be deterred, Burton then negotiated a private purchase of
the stone for $1.1 million--and Liz dazzled millions of her fans
whenshe wore what became the Taylor-Burton diamond.
She decided to sell the stone in 1978. After some on-again,
off-again dealing, Liz made the sale for $2.8 million.
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Diamonds in Israel
In 1940, a tiny nation, then known as Palestine, harassed by
hostile nations and in a desperate struggle to survive, had the
foresight and fortitude to establish an organized diamond industry.
In its first operating year, it exported diamonds valued at $70,000.
Today Israel is an international diamond center whose annual
exports have topped $2.6 billion. How it emerged as one of the
world's four major cutting and trading centers and as a major
exporter of polished diamonds is a story of hard work, skill and
determination. The Israeli industry has had to deal with enough
crises to make most business people throw in the towel, but is has
always bounced back--generally stronger than ever.
Erasmus Jacobs' Pretty Pebble It all began in a casual, haphazard
way. In the summer of 1866, a water pipe leading out of a dam became
stuck on the sunbaked Jacobs farm near the Orange river in South
Africa, in a poor district with the bittersweet name of Hopetown.
Farmer Daniel Jacobs fussed with the pipe a bit and then asked his
young son Erasmus to search the veld for a thin branch to poke
through it. Erasmus wandered around until he found the branch he
wanted, and then sat down in the shade of a tree to rest.
Some yards away, in the glare of the sun, he noticed that a stone
appeared to be blinking at him and, curious, he walked over and
picked it up. It was to him, in his language, a mooi klip, a "pretty
pebble." Slipping it into the pocket of his corduroy suit, he took
it home to his youngest sister. She was pleased to put it among the
pebbles used in a game named "Five Stones."
The children were playing this game when the local welfare
officer, Schlak van Niekirk, came in about a month later. He too
noticed the stone, picked it up, took it to the window and tried to
scratch the pane with it. Mrs. Jacobs told him that if he fancied it
he could have it. So Van Niekirk put it in his pocket and a few days
later sold it for a few pounds to an Irish peddler who toured the
district when he was not out shooting lions.
There is some question whether Van Niekirk knew he was selling a
diamond, but Jack O'Reilly was sure he had bought one. He wrote his
name carefully on his own window with the stone and then took it to
Grahamstown to geologist Dr. W. Guybon Atherstone for an expert
opinion. Atherstone, who let a local bishop write his name on still
another window pane with it, told O'Rilley in due course that it was
indeed a diamond and worth five hundred pounds, or about $2,500, and
O'Rilley took it to the governor of the Cape colony, Sir Philip
Wodehouse, and sold it to him for just that.
Clear, blue-white and about the size of a sparrow's egg, it
weighed 21.50 carats and, as a very mooi klip indeed, attracted a
lot of attention. In its home territory it had been known as the
O'Reilly; when put on exhibition in Paris soon after it was called
the Eureka--Greek for "I've got it."
With its exhibition the first diamond rush began.
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Seeds from the Carob
The final C is carat weight. What is carat? The original "carat"
were the seeds of a tree; on that, most experts agree. But they
disagree on the type of tree, where it grows and the size of its
seeds. The best guess is that the Carob tree, or Ceratonia siliqua,
which is native to the Mediterranean and Near Eastern countries.
Their nearly uniform weight led to their use for weighing pearls,
gold and diamonds in ancient days.
To be more practical, the modern carat equals 1/142nd of an
avoirdupois ounce or, in meteric terms, one fifth of a gram (200
milligrams). Each carat is divided into 100 points. Thus a diamond
is described as weighing 1.32 carats--or one carat and 32
points.
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The Day Mr. Asscher Fainted
How do you cut a very large piece of rough diamond?
Very carefully.
But the planning of the cutting is much more exacting than the
cutting itself. It can take months of study to decide just how to
strike the first blow; the goal is to have the diamond break into
manageable pieces. The horrible alternative is that the crystal may
shatter.
The cutter who handles the biggest pieces of rough--and they are
very few and far between--is under immense pressure. The head of the
Asscher Diamond Co. of Amsterdam, who was assigned the awesome task
of cutting the world's largest known diamond, the 3601-carat
Cullinan, had a doctor stand by when he hit the critical blow. His
first attempt failed; reportedly he fainted after his second,
successful, blow.
Diamond cutting in New York won international respect in 1936
when Lazare Kaplan, a legendary figure in the US industry, cut the
726-carat Jonker Diamond. He devoted almost an entire year to
studying the stone, making models in both plaster and lead.
Kaplan and a number of veteran European cutters disagreed on the
direction of the Jonker's grain; if Kaplan were wrong he would
shatter the stone and send half a million 1936 dollars down the
drain. On April 27 of that year he made his final decision, struck
the cleaving knife and the Jonker "fell apart in my hand exactly as
planned."
In recent times, what was first called the Zale diamond, an
890.25-carat golden yellow stone, was unveiled to the public in New
York in November 1984. But it was not until 1988 that Marvin Samuels
and Louis Glick, who by then owned the gem, were ready to bring to
market the final product--a 407.48-carat diamond called The
Incomparable. Incomparable it may be, but when it went to auction in
October 1988 the owner withdrew it when the top bid attracted was
$12 million.
The Cullinan is the greatest diamond of all time. It was found
late one afternoon in 1905 by the superintendent of South Africa's
premier mine.
In 1907, the Cullinan was sold to the Transvaal Government, which
presented it to Britain's King Edward VII.
Asscher eventually shaped nine major gemstones and ninety-six
smaller ones from the original Cullinan. The largest cut diamond in
existance, the pear-shaped 520.20-carat Cullinan I (also called the
Star of Africa) is held in the Tower of London, mounted in the
Sovereign's Royal Scepter.
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