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The 55.08-carat Kimberley Diamond, cut from a 490-carat rough diamond that once belonged to the Russian royal family.



  55-carat champagne colored diamond once part of the mysterious Russian crown jewels


July 14, 2013


A 55.08-carat champagne colored diamond with an illustrious although somewhat vague history has made its debut at the American Museum of Natural History. The Kimberley Diamond will remain on view through June 2014 in the museum's Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems.

The diamond was cut from a large and flat 490-carat stone found sometime before 1868 in South Africa at the Kimberley Mine, or Big Hole, the site of the country's most famous diamond rush. That diamond found itself into the Russian crown jewels.

It resurfaced after the Russian Revolution in 1921, where it was cut into an emerald-shaped 70 carater. It was later bought by a New York company, Baumgold Bros., New York City, who in 1958 recut it to its current size of 55.08 carats, improving its proportions and increasing its brilliancy.

Baumgold Bros. sold the stone to an undisclosed American buyer. The Kimberley Diamond at the American Museum of Natural History is said to be on loan from the Bruce F. Stuart Trust.

How exactly did the 490-carat rough diamond get from Russia into American hands is not completely clear. The Russian crown jewels were the property of the Romanov dynasty, whose rule over the Russian Empire came to a bloody end in 1917 with the Bolshevik revolution.

Reportedly, the country's new communist rulers were split about what to do with the jewels, even though they were in dire need of money. But evidently much of the collection was preserved by curators at the Kremlin in Moscow, who managed to convince the new leadership of the collection's historical significance, and some pieces are on display today at the Armory Museum.

But there also are records of auctions of other pieces that took place in the 1920s, and stories of Soviet agents caught with diamonds in their luggage. One of the pieces that did leave Russia, evidently, or part thereof, can be seen today at the American Museum of Natural History.

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