A huge Australian opal, iridescent in all the colors of the rainbow, was found in 1946 in one of the mines in southern Australia and since then has been shown to the general public for the first time. According to CNN, the Adelaide Museum of South Australia acquired the 998-gram exhibit for $ 675,000. "The size of the Fire of Australia (stone name - ed.) Is comparable to a softball ball, while still displaying the richness of the spectrum," says the director Museum Brian Oldman, highlighting the exceptional rarity of the natural exhibit.
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Most of the unique colored stones are in the hands of private collectors, and they will be lucky to look at them only if the owner decides to put the jewel up for auction. Nevertheless, some gemological masterpieces can be seen in the public domain, in one of the following public museums.
Cullinan Diamond
3106.75 ct
Tower, London
© The Granger Collection / Tassphoto.com
The Cullinan or "Star of Africa" is the largest diamond ever found. The 100x65x50 mm stone was discovered in 1905 in South Africa and was named after the owner of the mine, Sir Thomas Cullinan. The government of the Transvaal bought the find and presented it as a gift to the British king Edward VII. Scotland Yard had to work hard to deliver the gift to Buckingham Palace in value and safety. The huge diamond was divided into 9 large and 96 small fragments. Each of the 9 large diamonds is part of the British crown jewelery: Cullinan I (530.2 carats) adorns the royal scepter, Cullinan II (317.4 carats) shines in the crown of the British Empire; the pear-shaped Cullinan III (94.4 carats) and the square Cullinan IV (63.6 carats) make up a magnificent brooch.
Diamond "Orlov"
189.62 ct
Diamond Fund of Russia, Moscow
© gokhran.ru
Orlov is the most famous of the seven historical gems kept in the Diamond Fund. The stone was discovered in India in the late 17th - early 18th centuries and initially weighed more than 400 carats, but after cutting (the stone has an original Indian cut in the form of a dome), its weight more than halved. Since 1784 "Orlov" has been decorating the imperial scepter of Catherine II.
Spinel "Ruby of Catherine the Great"
398.72 ct
Diamond Fund of Russia, Moscow
© gokhran.ru
Many historical examples of red spinels have long been mistakenly considered rubies. Several of the largest spinels today adorn the regalia of European monarchs and are included in national treasures: Timur's ruby (361 carats), covered with Indian inscriptions, is kept in Buckingham Palace, the Black Prince's ruby (170 carats) shines in the crown of the British Empire along with the Cullinan II diamond. The Ruby of Catherine the Great is installed in the upper part of the Great Imperial Crown, created for the coronation of Catherine II in 1762 by the court jeweler Georg Friedrich Eckart and the diamond master Jeremiah Pozier - the crown served for the coronation of all monarchs of the Russian Empire up to Nicholas II.
Hope Diamond
45.52 ct
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington
© naturalhistory.si.edu
The world's most famous blue diamond was found in India and brought to Europe in 1653 by the French merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. After King Louis XIV, a couple of French kings, the English monarch George IV, the British aristocrat Henry Philip Hope (who gave him his name), jeweler Pierre Cartier, daughter of Washington Post owner Evelyn Walsh-Maclean and American jeweler Harry Winston, owned the stone. In November 1958, Winston sent a unique stone as a gift to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, simply by sending a precious cargo measuring 25.60 x 21.78 x 12.00 mm by postal parcel post.
Dresden green diamond
41.2 ct
Treasury Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vaults), Dresden
© Universal History Archive / UIG via Getty Images
The only large green diamond weighs more than 8 grams. The first mention of a pear-shaped diamond in historical documents dates back to the 1720s. For more than two hundred years, the stone that adorns the agraph of a hat set has been kept in the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vaults) treasury of Dresden, founded by Duke Friedrich August II, an avid collector of art and jewelry. After World War II, along with other Dresden treasures, the stone was taken to the USSR and returned home in 1958.
Emerald "Patricia"
632 ct
American Museum of Natural History, New York
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A rare dihexagonal stone (with 12 facets) was found in Colombia at the Chivor emerald mine in 1920 and got its name in honor of the daughter of the mine owner, Patricia. The following year, the owner of the unique emerald crystal, Fritz Klein, presented the gemological find as a gift to the American Museum of Natural History, where it is still located.
Sapphire "Star of India"
563 ct
American Museum of Natural History, New York
© amnh.org
The famous star sapphire rests solemnly in the Hall of Gems, and it was found about 250 years ago in Sri Lanka. The first owners of the precious find did not sell it to the British East India Company, which dominated the market for precious minerals in Southeast Asia at that time, otherwise the sapphire had every chance of becoming part of the British Empire's treasury in the Tower. The stone ended up in the hands of other Europeans, and in the 19th century passed to the American financier John Pierpont Morgan.>