Origin of name
The name Incomparable was given to this diamond by its
owners, the Zale Corporation, the Dallas based jewelry store chain, who
purchased the enormous rough diamond from De Beers, and unveiled it to the
world in November 1984, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Zale
Corporaion. Perhaps the name seems to reflect the original intention of the
owners of the diamond, to eventually transform it into the largest faceted
diamond in the world, surpassing the 531-carat Cullinan I diamond, which had
held the coveted position since 1908.
Characteristics of the
diamond
The Incomparable diamond is a 407.48-carat, fancy
brownish yellow diamond, with the highest clarity grade of internally
flawless (IF). The cut of the diamond is described as a shield-shaped step
cut. A new technical term coined by Mr. Marvin Samuels, a co-owner of the
diamond, and head of the team of master-cutters who fashioned this unique
diamond, describes the cut as a "triolette shape." The dimensions of the
stone are 53.90 x 35.19 x 28.18 mm.
The Incomparable diamond is the 3rd largest faceted
diamond in the world after the 545.67-carat Golden Jubilee diamond and the
530.20 Cullinan I diamond. It is also the largest faceted yellow diamond in
the world. See table below.
List of famous yellow diamonds
|
S/N |
Name |
carat weight |
shape/cut |
color |
|
1 |
Incomparable |
407.48 |
shield shaped |
fancy brownish yellow |
|
2 |
Oppenheimer |
253.70 |
natural octahedral |
yellow |
|
3 |
De Beers |
234.65 |
cushion |
light yellow |
|
4 |
Red Cross |
205.07 |
cushion |
canary yellow |
|
5 |
Florentine |
137.27 |
double rose-cut |
light yellow |
|
6 |
Sarah |
132.43 |
cushion |
fancy vivid yellow |
|
7 |
Tiffany Yellow |
128.54 |
cushion |
canary yellow |
|
8 |
Vainer Briolette |
116.60 |
briolette |
fancy light yellow |
|
9 |
Mouna |
112.50 |
cushion |
fancy intense yellow |
|
10 |
Ashberg |
102.48 |
cushion |
dark orange yellow |
|
11 |
The Alnatt |
101.29 |
cushion |
fancy vivid yellow |
|
12 |
Walska |
95.00 |
briolette |
yellow |
|
13 |
Shah Diamond |
88.70 |
table |
yellow |
|
14 |
Porges |
78.53 |
asscher |
fancy yellow |
|
15 |
Victoria Transvaal |
67.89 |
pear |
brownish yellow |
|
16 |
Peacock |
20.65 |
radiant |
fancy intense yellow |
|
17 |
Shepard |
18.30 |
cushion |
fancy intense yellow |
|
18 |
Eureka |
10.73 |
cushion |
brownish yellow |
History
The Incomparable diamond was discovered in the
early 1980s, in the town of Mbugi Mayi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(former Zaire). This is the same area where subsequently in the year 1990,
the 777-carat rough stone that yielded the exceptional quality Millennium
Star diamond was discovered.
In the rough state the diamond weighed 890 carats, making
it the 4th largest gem-quality rough diamond to be discovered in the world.
See table below.
List of largest gem-quality rough
diamonds discovered in the world
|
Name |
Country of discovery |
Year of discovery |
Carat Weight |
Position |
|
Cullinan |
South Africa |
1905 |
3,106 |
1 |
|
Excelsior |
South Africa |
1893 |
995 |
2 |
|
Star of Sierra Leone |
Sierra Leone |
1972 |
969.80 |
3 |
|
Incomparable |
Zaire |
1984 |
890 |
4 |
|
Great Mogul |
India |
1650 |
787 |
5 |
|
Millennium Star |
Zaire |
1990 |
777 |
6 |
|
Woyie River |
Sierra Leone |
1945 |
770 |
7 |
|
Golden Jubilee |
South Africa |
1985 |
755 |
8 |
|
President Vargas |
Brazil |
1938 |
726.60 |
9 |
|
Jonker |
South Africa |
1934 |
726 |
10 |
|
Jubilee-Reitz |
South Africa |
1895 |
650.80 |
11 |
|
Unnamed |
South Africa |
1984 |
620.14 |
12 |
|
Sefadu |
Sierra Leone |
1970 |
620 |
13 |
|
Kimberley Octahedral |
South Africa |
|
616 |
14 |
|
Lesotho Promise |
Lesotho |
2006 |
603 |
15 |
|
Centenary |
South Africa |
1986 |
599 |
16 |
|
De Grisogono |
Central Africa |
|
587 |
17 |
|
Jacob-Victoria |
South Africa |
1884 |
457.50 |
18 |
|
Zale light of peace |
Sierra Leone |
1969 |
435 |
19 |
|
De Beers |
South Africa |
1888 |
428.50 |
20 |
|
Niarchos |
South Africa |
1954 |
426.50 |
21 |
The story of the accidental discovery of the diamond is
quite interesting. A young girl was playing outside her uncle's house, where
rubble from a nearby diamond mine had been dumped. The rubble had originated
from old mine dumps from the nearby MIBA Diamond Mine. Mine dumps consist of
soil and rubble that have already been screened for diamonds or have been
rejected during the recovery process as being too bulky to be worth scanning
for diamonds. The girl picked up an unusual stone from the rubble, perhaps
out of curiosity and after playing with it for sometime gave it to her
uncle, instead of throwing it back to where it belonged. After close
examination her uncle realized that it was an unusually large diamond, and
after confirming the stone was indeed a rough diamond, he sold it to some
local African diamond dealers. The local diamond dealers carried the rough
stone to Kinshasa, the capital city of Zaire, and met a group of Lebanese
diamond dealers operating in the capital city. The Lebanese having examined
the rough stone and being convinced of it's genuineness, purchased the rough
stone from the African dealers for an undisclosed amount.
The Lebanese dealers carried the stone to Antwerp in
Belgium, which is renowned as a global power house in the diamond
trade. It is estimated that 85 % of the world's rough diamonds and about 50
% of the world's polished diamonds, pass through Antwerp every year. At
Antwerp, the unusually large rough diamond was purchased by a senior
buyer of the De Beers Company. The stone was then examined by Sir Phillip
Oppenheimer, a Director of De Beers and President of the Central Selling
Organization, a body that controls much of the world diamond trade. Mr.
Oppenheimer was impressed by the enormous size and the color of the rough
stone, but however decided to sell the diamond to Donald Zale, Chairman of
the Board of the Zale Corporation, the Dallas based jewelry store chain.
Donald Zale purchased the diamond in partnership with two other prominent
diamond dealers of New York, Marvin Samuels of the Premier Gem Corporation,
and Louis Glick. The enormous rough diamond was finally unveiled to the
world, on the important occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Zale
Corporation, that fell in November 1984. Thereafter, the rare and enormous
rough diamond, was put on display at the Natural History Museum of the
Smithsonian Institution, in Washington DC.
The next step was the difficult task of subjecting the
stone to a detailed and exhaustive scrutiny, with a view of identifying any
faults or inclusions that may exist, and recommending the most appropriate
cut for the stone that would bring out it's hidden beauty. This was assigned
to a team of master cutters, supervised by Mr. Marvin Samuels, one of
the co-owners of the stone, who had a wealth of experience in the faceting
and polishing of large diamonds.
A careful examination of the stone revealed that the
external structure and shape of he stone itself, would pose a serious
challenge to any experienced cutter. The stone was highly irregular in
shape, broader at one end and narrower at the other. The surface of the
stone was quite rough with depressed and elevated areas, cavities and
cracks. One side of the stone was sunken and pitted, and the other side was
ridged. Having studied the stone externally, the team decided to have a
closer look at the interior of the stone. This necessitated the opening up
of a "window" on one side of the stone, as the general surface of the stone
was completely opaque. The selected area of the stone was grounded to make a
flat surface like a facet, and then thoroughly polished. This helped to open
up the interior of the stone for closer inspection, and to everyone's great
relief the interior of the stone appeared to be free of inclusions.
The owners and cutters of the rough diamond were then
confronted with the same dilemma faced previously by owners of large
diamonds like the Excelsior and Cullinan. Should they go in for a larger
diamond with greater size and weight, that could be a challenge to the
coveted position held by Cullinan I, as the largest faceted
diamond in the world, or should they settle for several smaller diamonds of
high quality, flawless and free of inclusions, that could be disposed of
easily. In other words the choice was clear. One had to decide between size
and quality. Most in the team favored the former, which would mean having a
faceted stone exceeding the magic number 531 carats, which was the recorded
weight of Cullinan I, the world's largest faceted diamond. But, as the work
on the stone proceeded for the second successive year, it became apparent to
Mr. Samuel and his team, that the idea of surpassing the weight of Cullinan
I, has to be abandoned. Instead the team decided on a lesser option that
combined both size and quality. Accordingly they decide to have one large
stone, but not a big as Cullinan I, and several smaller or satellite stones,
all of extremely high quality.
The rough stone was eventually sawn into one large piece
and 14 smaller fragments. The team then decided that faceting of the smaller
fragments should be completed first, before faceting of the largest piece.
Mr. John Sampson White, the then curator of Mineralogy at the Smithsonian
Institution, Washington DC, was then invited to come and have a look at the
fragments of the rough stone. The most striking feature of the fragments
that drew his immediate attention was the variation in color of the
fragment, that he had not noticed before, when the stone was in one piece.
Some fragments were rich yellow with a slight brown overtone, others were
pale yellow, and the rest were almost colorless. The largest piece appeared
to be of a medium yellow color, after the removal of the fragments. Being an
expert mineralogist Mr. Samson White immediately came to the conclusion that
the rough diamond had not been uniformly colored, but extra-ordinarily
color-zoned, i. e. the crystal had been composed of sharply defined areas of
differing colors. Each of the color zones, represented a change in the
environment that must have occurred as the crystal was building up. The
stone must have been colorless at one stage, then a zone of pale yellow
diamond would have been added, followed by a thinner layer of brownish
yellow or amber colored diamond. When the initial fragments of the rough
stone were cut the brownish yellow or amber-colored zone, that constituted
only a part of the crystal surface was removed, leaving only a medium yellow
colored stone. Fourteen satellite gems were cut from the fragments, the
largest being cut in the shape of a kite, weighing 15.66 carats. The other
13 diamonds were of different shapes and sizes, varying in weight from 1.33
carats to 6.01 carats.
When faceting of the largest piece of rough stone was
completed, it yielded a diamond weighing 407.48 carats, making it the second
largest faceted diamond in the world, after Cullinan I (530.20 carats). This
was no small consolation for the owners of the diamond, who had ambitious
plans of transforming the rough into the world's largest faceted diamond.
But, the Incomparable diamond could not hold on to this prestigious second
position for long, because a rough yellowish brown diamond discovered in the
Premier diamond mines in 1985, was fashioned into a cushion-cut diamond
weighing 545.67 carats, making it the world's largest faceted diamond. This
diamond eventually came to be known as the Golden Jubilee diamond, when it
was presented to the King of Thailand by his loyal subjects, to mark the
50th anniversary of his coronation in 1997.
On October 19th, 1988, the Incomparable diamond was put
up for sale at an auction held in New York. This was supposed to be the
first time that such a large diamond was offered for sale at a public
auction. The reserve price of the stone was placed at $ 20 million, but the
highest bid obtained for the stone was only $ 12 million. Therefore the
stone had to be withdrawn from the sale. Even the highest bid of $12 million
made by the late Theodore Horvitz of Geneva, goes on record as the highest
price ever bid at an auction for a singe stone.
In November. 2002, the Incomparable diamond made an
unusual appearance on the internet auction site EBay. A reserve price of £
15 million sterling was placed on the stone, but the stone remained unsold
as the auction time ran out.
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