A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum. Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapphires. Ruby is one of the traditional cardinal gems, alongside amethyst, sapphire, emerald, and diamond. The word ruby comes from ruber, Latin for red. The color of a ruby is due to the element chromium.
The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found on Earth, weighing 3,106 carats (621.20 g), discovered at the Premier No.2 mine in Cullinan, South Africa, on 26 January 1905. It was named after Thomas Cullinan, the owner of the mine. In April 1905, it was put on sale in London, but despite considerable interest, it was still unsold after two years. In 1907, the Transvaal Colony government bought the Cullinan and Prime Minister Louis Botha presented it to Edward VII, the British king who reigned over the territory, and it was cut by Joseph Asscher & Co. in Amsterdam.
The Star of India is a 563.35-carat star sapphire, one of the largest such gems in the world. It is almost flawless and is unusual in that it has stars on both sides of the stone. The greyish-blue gem was mined in Sri Lanka and is housed in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
The diamond hoax of 1872 was a swindle in which a pair of prospectors sold a false American diamond deposit to prominent businessmen in San Francisco and New York City. It also triggered a brief diamond prospecting craze in the western United States, in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado.
Mogok is a town in the Thabeikkyin District of Mandalay Region of Myanmar, located 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Mandalay and 148 kilometres (92 mi) north-east of Shwebo.
Philip Arnold (1829–1878) was a confidence trickster from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and the brains behind the legendary diamond hoax of 1872, which fooled people into investing in a phony diamond mining operation. He managed to walk away from the hoax with more than half a million dollars.
Harry Winston was an American jeweler. He donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958 after owning it for a decade. He also traded the Portuguese Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1963 in exchange for 3,800 carats of small diamonds.
Jack Roland Murphy, known as "Murph the Surf" or "Murf the Surf", was convicted of murder in 1969. He was also involved in the biggest jewel heist in American history, the 1964 burglary of the jewel collection of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Murphy is also known for being a surfing champion, musician, author, and artist.
George Frederick Kunz was an American mineralogist and mineral collector.
Prong setting or prong mount refers to the use of metal projections or tines, called "prongs", to secure a gemstone to a piece of jewelry. A prong setting is one component of what is known to jewelers as a head, a claw-shaped type of binding that is welded or soldered to a jewelry item to mount a gemstone to the jewelry item. A common setting for diamond engagement rings, the prong setting allows light to strike a gemstone from more angles, increasing its brilliance.
The Tiffany Yellow Diamond is one of the largest yellow diamonds ever discovered. Its carat weight was originally 287.42 carats in the rough when stolen in 1878 in the Kimberley mine in South Africa. It was cut into a cushion shape of 128.54 carats with 82 facets—24 more than a traditional round brilliant—to maximize its brilliance. The facet pattern features eight needle-like facets pointing outward from the culet (bottom) facet. Jewelry and diamond historian Herbert Tillander refers to this as a "stellar brilliant cut", and lists the gem in his book, Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry – 1381 to 1910 (1995), among other such diamonds: the Cullinan Diamond, the Koh-i-Noor, the Polar Star, the Wittelsbach, and others.
Brown diamonds are the most common color variety of natural diamonds. In most mines, brown diamonds account for 15% of production. The brown color makes them less attractive to some people as gemstones, and most are used for industrial purposes. However, improved marketing programs, especially in Australia and the United States, have resulted in brown diamonds becoming valued as gemstones and even referred to as chocolate diamonds.
Graff is a British multinational jeweller based in London. It was founded by British jeweller Laurence Graff in 1960. A vertically integrated company, Graff operations comprise the design, manufacture and retail distribution of jewellery and watches.
The Comtesse de Vendôme is a diamond necklace composed of 116 diamonds, including a centerpiece 125-carat diamond, and an estimated value of approximately 31 million dollars. The necklace was stolen from the Tokyo jewelry boutique Le Supre-Diamant Couture de Maki on March 5, 2004 by thieves who are believed to belong to the Pink Panthers crime ring.
Confederate Gulch is a steeply incised gulch or valley on the west-facing slopes of the Big Belt Mountains in the U.S. state of Montana. Its small stream drains westward into Canyon Ferry Lake, on the upper Missouri River near present-day Townsend, Montana. In 1864, Confederate soldiers on parole during the American Civil War made a minor gold discovery in the gulch, but the discovery of the sensationally rich Montana Bar the following year—one of the richest placer strikes per acre ever made—led to other rich gold strikes up and down the gulch, and touched off a frantic boom period of placer gold mining in the area that extended through 1869. From 1866 to 1869, the gulch equaled or outstripped all other mining camps in the Montana Territory in gold production, producing an estimated $19–30 million worth of gold. For a time, Confederate Gulch was the largest community in Montana. In 1866, Montana had a total population of 28,000, and of these, about 10,000 (35%) were working in Confederate Gulch.
Murph the Surf, also known as Live a Little, Steal a Lot, is a 1975 film based on a jewel burglary involving the surfer Jack Roland Murphy, who had the nickname "Murph the Surf". Starring Robert Conrad, Don Stroud and Donna Mills, it was directed by Marvin J. Chomsky. The New York Times edition of October 20, 2019 revisited the true story of Jack Murphy's theft of the irreplaceable gemstones from a poorly guarded Museum of Natural History.
The Trust is a 2016 American crime drama film directed by Alex and Ben Brewer, written by Ben Brewer and Adam Hirsch, and starring Nicolas Cage, Elijah Wood, Sky Ferreira, Jerry Lewis, Kevin Weisman and Steven Williams. The film was released on DirecTV on April 14, 2016, before being released on video on demand and in theaters on May 13, 2016, by Saban Films. Although Max Rose was released after The Trust, this film marks the last role that Jerry Lewis filmed before his death in 2017.
Golconda diamonds are mined in the Godavari delta region of the present-day states Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, India. Golconda Fort in the western part of modern-day Hyderabad, was a seat of the Golconda Sultanate and became an important centre for diamond enhancement, lapidary and trading. Golconda diamonds are graded as Type IIa, formed of pure carbon, are devoid of nitrogen, and are large with high clarity. They are often described as diamonds of the first water, making them among history's most celebrated diamonds. The word "Golconda diamond" became symbolic of diamonds of incomparable quality.
The Dresden White Diamond is a 62-carat (12.4 g) cushion-cut diamond that probably originated from the Golconda mines in Southern India.
"Valloweaster" is the 11th episode of the seventh season of the American television police sitcom series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and the 141st overall episode of the series. The episode was written by executive producer Luke Del Tredici and Jeff Topolski and directed by Matthew Nodella. It aired on April 9, 2020, on NBC.
