The Blue Diamond. This is one of the most mysterious and expensive stones in the world, and its location is still unknown. A series of setbacks related to stone began in 1989 when a Thai cleaner, hired by a wealthy family from Saudi Arabia, stole many rare jewelries, including the Blue Diamond, and carried a loot stolen in a bag of a vacuum cleaner.
He managed to transport his booty to Thailand. The local government was aware of the crime, but the police caught the thief after the cleaner managed to sell most of the stolen jewelry.
The Thai government returned the remaining jewels to the family, but the Blue Diamond was not among them, and almost all the treasures were fakes. Several members of the family went to Thailand to search for a diamond, but were killed or missing, never finding a precious stone.
“Blue Frenchman” or “Hope”. This diamond was one of the most charming and expensive stones in the French treasury. A large stone, a rare sapphire color with a mysterious red shade weighed 69 carats. Like many of Versailles’s jewels, this stone was abducted in the troubled times of the Great French Revolution. Diamond of Marie Antoinette is wrapped in a web of secrets, and it is believed that he is cursed.
The diamond had many owners, and his second, more famous name of the owner was given to the Dutch banker Henry Philip Hope. The descendants of Hope were on the verge of bankruptcy and decided to sell the stone to Pierre Cartier. Cartier almost desperate to find a buyer for such an expensive decoration, when suddenly there was an American Evelyn Walsh Macklin. It was a secular lady, a lover of the life of the jazz era, bathed in luxury, money and champagne.
She was warned about the curse of “Hope”, but the millionaire only joked and assured that it would bring good luck to her. However, Evelyn made a mistake, the bad luck began several years after the purchase of the stone. One child died of a fever, the daughter committed suicide, the husband lost in gambling, squandered all of their millions and ended his life in a madhouse. Evelyn categorically did not want to part with the stone and died at the age of sixty alone. There were no people wishing to take possession of the “Hope” stone, and today the cursed stone is in the Smithsonian Museum.
“Kohinur” and “Derianur.” There is a belief that “Kohinur” can only be worn by a woman, and for a man, the diamond is deadly. Maharajas, sultans, millionaires – many diamond owners died a terrible death, they lost all their fortune.
In translation from Persian “Kohinur” means “mountain of light”, and “Derianur” means “the sea of light”. It is believed that these stones are brothers, two parts of one giant diamond, divided by Shiva between the three sons of the Sultan. When the young men ascended the throne, the country was struck by hunger and epidemics, which did not stop until the rulers established a giant statue of Shiva, and “Kohinur” and “Derianur” did not become eye sockets of the stone statue of a deity.
Since 1849, the deaths associated with Kohinur have ceased, since the jewelry was sent to Queen Victoria in the UK, where the stone remains to this day and adorns the crown of Elizabeth II. Apparently, the prophecy does not lie: the diamond did not bring the queen a misfortune. India from time to time asks to return “Kohinur” to its historic homeland, but Britain believes that the place of a diamond is in the royal crown.
«Black Orlov». There is a legend that the diamond “Black Orlov” was stolen from the eye socket of the statue of Indian Brahma. Since ancient times it is believed that jokes with gods are bad, they do not favor thieves. According to legend, the black diamond was purchased by Princess Nadezhda Orlova (whose name was given to the stone), and soon after the purchase she committed suicide by jumping off the roof.
However, this is just a legend, but the fact that the first known diamond seller J. Paris in 1932 for an unknown reason also jumped from a skyscraper in New York is an established fact.
The history knows another diamond with a name “Orlov”, only, this stone is not black, but white, with a green tint. The jewel was also stolen from the statue of Brahma by a French soldier. The diamond bears the name of Count Orlov, who gave the stone to Catherine II. Catherine inserted a rare stone in the scepter, and today “Orlov” can be seen in the Diamond Fund.
“Peregrina”. This pearl has become famous all over the world. The slave who discovered the perfect pear-shaped bead, was given freedom, and King of Spain Philip II sent it to Maria Tudor along with a proposal to marry him. Maria was so impressed by the pearl that she accepted the offer, and wore jewelry all the time.
In 1558, when Mary was at death, her husband who did not succeed in widowage took Peregrine and ran to make an offer to Maria’s half-sister, Elizabeth I. However, the future Queen of England rejected the proposal of Philip. Another well-known owner of Peregrina was Napoleon. The pearl was inherited in his family, but in 1873 it was sold to James Hamilton.
In the XX century, “Peregrine” at the auction Sotheby’s bought by Richard Burton. The pearl became Elizabeth Taylor’s gift for Valentine’s Day. The famous couple married and divorced twice, and Taylor herself married eight times! After the death of the actress in 2011, “Peregrina” was bought at auction for a fabulous amount, which was almost 12 million.
“Sancy”. Pear-shaped diamond “Sancy” may seem white, but it has a yellowish, opaline shade. It owes its name to Nicolas de Sancy, a French soldier, who later became Ambassador of France in Constantinople. It was he who bought a rare stone, and later lent it to kings.
“Sancy” served its owners differently. For example, Henry III fastened a large stone to the beret, which covered his bald head, but Henry IV used stone as a guarantee of solvency when creating a new army. Legend has it that the servant was supposed to deliver the diamond to the palace of Nicolas de Sancy, but he was missing, and with him the stone disappeared.
After some time the body of the servant was found in the forest, not far from the palace, and after the autopsy “Sansi” was also found: a devoted servant swallowed the stone so that the robbers would not take it. “Sancy” was abducted during the Great French Revolution, along with other priceless treasures of Versailles, and in 1828 the diamond was bought by the Russian prince Nikolai Demidov. Today, “Sancy” is in the Louvre, where it was reunited with another famous diamond from Versailles – “Regent”.
