Big Diamonds

Second to 'Lucy', the largest diamond ever recorded is the Cullinan diamond, found at the Premier mines in South Africa in 1905 by Frederick Wells, a mine superintendent, in the wall of a mine, thinking it was a large piece of glass. It weighed 3106 carats and was named after the mine owner Sir Thomas Cullinan. Wells was paid $10, 000 for finding the stone. It was cut into 105 seperate diamonds, the largest two being The Star of Africa, and The Lesser Star of Africa.

The Star of Africa was cut in Amsterdam by the worlds most prestigious diamond cutters, the Ascher brothers, and it took them months to decide on the right cut for the historical diamond. The story is... on the first cut, the blade broke, on the second, on splitting the diamond the way they wanted, they both fainted immediately under the pressure.