THE WORLD'S FOURTH LARGEST DIAMOND SOLD

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 152, 29 June 1935, Page 25

THE WORLD'S FOURTH LARGEST DIAMOND SOLD

The Jonker diamond, which has just been sold to a New York merchant at a price in the neighbourhood of £ 150,000, is the four.th largest diamond in the world (writes Douglas West in the "Daily Mail"). ■ It was found little more than a year ago at Elandsfontein, South Africa, and is named after Jacobus Jonker, a former Boer farmer on whose claim the stone was turned up by a native boy. The diamond was sold by Jonker to Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, chairman of the Diamond Corporation, at a price said to exceed £60,000, and" was brought to London. , . Like most of the great diamond finds, Jonker'si discovery was due to chance. , "Hie Cullinan, the largest diamond in the'world, was found in 1905 by an overseer who was going his rounds through the Premier Diamond Mine, near Pretoria. Noticing something glistening in the soil, he dug it up with a pocket-knife. It was a huge diamond, three times the size of any known gem, and weighed, uncut," 3025J carats. It was named the "Cullinan," after the then chairman pf the Premier Mine. • . ■ The diamond was presented by the Transvaal Government to King Edward VII. It was cut into nine large and several smaller stones, the largest of which, the "Star of Africa," is mounted in ihei Royal Sceptre.

Although the Culliinui is the largest diamond ever found, it is believed in many of the South African diggings that tHere is a missing half. Immense sums have been expended in unavailing efforts to trace it." The second largest diamond in the world is the Excelsior —now cut into nine stones. The Pitt or Regent Diamond, the weight of which has been reduced by cutting to 137 carats, was valued not many years ago at £450,000. It was discovered in 1701 by a slave in the Parteal Mine; Napoleoix .wore it in his sword at his coronation, and it is still in the possession of the French nation. ' The English Royal Family possesses another glorious diamond —the famous Koh-i-Noor gem which was presented to Queen Victoria by the East India Company on the annexation of the Punjab in 1850. It then weighed 186 carats, but it was reduced to 106 carats after a second cutting. There is a legend in India ■ that should this splendid jewel ever be worn by a man ruler of Great Britain, India would be lost to the British Empire. Legends gather very easily around diamonds. Strangest of all is the "curse" which is said to follow wearers of the Hope diamond, once worn by Marie Antoinette. It was stolen in the French Revolution, has frequently changed hands since, and its owners have been dogged by a remarkable run of ill luck.