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Coloured Diamonds. 137
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Vienna
and bought for a trifle by the late Mr. George Samuel, at that time
Consul there, who sold it to the author for £200. Some years
afterwards, it was sold for £300. Subsequently it passed into the
possession of a jeweller in Bond Street, who sold it to an American for
£600, and afterwards, it was sold for over ;£1,000 to a great
New York jeweller, and I understand it has since been sold, for
something like 7,000 or 8,ooo dollars.
Among the treasures of the famous Grüne Gewölbe, or " Green
Vaults," of Dresden, is a pale Green Diamond weighing 48-1/2 carats,
and valued at £30,000. It is not, however, to be compared, in respect
of colour, with the green one mentioned above, and is indeed more of
the colour of an aquamarine.
The
collection of coloured Diamonds in the Vienna Museum, which was brought
together by Herr Virgil von Helmreicher, a Tryolese by birth, but long
resident in Brazil, is undoubtedly the most complete in Europe.
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BLUE DIAMONDS.
Diamonds
of a faint bluish tint are not unfrequently found, but their defect is
that they are usually more or less opalescent, and therefore they
formerly ranked as stones of inferior quality, though they now realize
high prices in America.
The
only Blue Diamonds known until lately were found in the old Indian
mines, probably those of Gani-Colour, visited by Tavernier, and the
first mention we have of a Blue Diamond in Europe refers to a stone
then considered unique. It weighed in the rough 112-1/4 carats, was
bought by Tavernier in India in 1642, and was sold to Louis XIV. in
1668. It is described as " d'un beau violet." It would
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