GOLCONDA DIAMOND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21576, 22 August 1933, Page 9

GOLCONDA DIAMOND

FAMOUS STONE'S HISTORY

TRAGEDIES RECALLED LONDON, Aug. 15 The famous Golconda diamond, which has been sold to a London diamond merchant by the Archduke Joseph for £25,000, is not only the most magnificent Indian diamond in existence, but also has the most romantic history. The diamond was found about a century ago by an Indian digger at Golconda, in the State of Hyderabad. The finder was murdered by an overseer named Turner to whom he showed the stone/ Turner, pursued by the police, swallowed the diamond and died in agony in the arms of his captors. The police doctor who made a post-mortem examination discovered the diamond in the dead man's stomach, concealed the stone and sold it to a wealthy English planter, who caused it to be included in a costly diadem ordered for a well-known English 'dancer who was performing in Calcutta at the time. During her return journey to England the dancer mysteriously disappeared from the ship, and in 1849 a down-at-heel individual offered the diamond to a British peer known as a collector of precious stones. The peer, however, informed the police, who, on going to interrogate the would-be vendor, found him in a squalid lodging-house with his throat cut. i Three years later, the diamond was bought by an Amsterdam jeweller, who, in 1870, sold it to the treasurer of the House of Hapsburg, in whose posession it remained during the tragedies of. the Archduke Rudolph, Empress Elizabeth and the Archduke Francis Ferdinand.