Sometimes the best things in life are worth waiting for. That's certainly the sentiment of Tallulah Willis, who turned to Instagram on Saturday to gush over her "warm, depthful, ancient" engagement ring, which finally arrived three months after she accepted a marriage proposal and stand-in ring from musician Justin Acee.



The official ring features an antique 4.03-carat "honey champagne" diamond in a chunky gold setting reminiscent of an Ancient Greek vase.



"It reminds me of amphora, the way shoulders are, which is that very beautiful Greek vase, very femme, very beautiful," the 31-year-old daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, wrote in an Instagram post. "I love imbuing an item or an object or a piece or a sliver of something with magic, because it’s just so beautiful."



The old mine-cut diamond, which is secured in a bezel setting, sports a cushiony shape that was most popular during the Georgian and Victorian eras, roughly from the early 18th to the late 19th century.

“Never knew a ring could encapsulate a love so perfectly,” Willis noted. “Warm, depthful, ancient."

Willis also gave a shoutout to the New York-based designer, Karina Noel, who helped her design the ring — as well as her new fiancé.

"I am blown away thank you @karinanoel - our design come to life is extraordinary - more photos to come I’m currently caught up getting to know her!" she exclaimed, adding, "I choose you everyday my love @justinacee ~~I cannot wait to be your wife."

On the designer's Instagram page, Noel reflected on her collaboration with Willis.

"Tallulah look what we created!!" she wrote. "What a special journey working on this ring with you, and seeing the way it reflects your relationship with Justin is just incredible. That antique honey diamond has such a quiet depth to it, like it’s always held a story…we knew it. And that setting is the perfect home for her. Deeply, deeply grateful to be part of it."

A ring with an ancient vibe was also favored by three-time Grammy winner Dua Lipa. Back in early February, the singer treated her 87 million Instagram followers to a closeup view of an engagement ring from beau Callum Turner. The ring was described as Etruscan- or gypsy-inspired, with a 2-to-2.5-carat round center diamond in a half-bezel setting on a chunky yellow gold band.

A half-bezel setting is a jewelry design where only half of the gemstone is secured by a metal rim, essentially covering the sides of the stone while leaving the top and bottom exposed. This setting allows more light to reach the gem while still providing security with the bezel style.

Credits: Tallulah Willis image and ring selfies via instagram / buuski. Ring closeup via Instagram / karinanoel.

"The Mediterranean Blue," a 10.03-carat Fancy Vivid Blue diamond, is expected to fetch upwards of $20 million as the headliner of Sotheby’s High Jewelry Sale on May 13 in Geneva.



The stone’s exquisite cushion shape, paired with its exceptional size, clarity and saturation, places it in rarefied territory among the world’s most celebrated blue diamonds.

That elite club includes the 15.1-carat “De Beers Cullinan Blue” ($57.5 million, Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 2022), the 14.6-carat “Oppenheimer Blue” ($57.5 million, Christie’s Geneva, 2016) and the 12.03-carat “Blue Moon of Josephine” ($48.5 million, Sotheby’s Geneva, 2015).



In addition to receiving the highest possible color grading for a blue diamond from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), The Mediterranean Blue has been found to be Type IIb, a quality level that represents less than 0.5% of all diamonds.

The Mediterranean Blue was crafted from a 31.94-carat rough diamond sourced at the Cullinan mine in South Africa in 2023. After a meticulous planning and cutting process lasting six months, The Mediterranean Blue was faceted into a cushion modified brilliant, a shape that lends a soft, refined look, while the skillfully positioned triangular and kite-shaped facets – characteristic of the brilliant cut – reflect light to create the captivating sparkle that makes this diamond come to life.

The diamond will be unveiled April 8 during a special exhibition hosted at the Bassam Freiha Art Foundation, a non-profit institution on Abu Dhabi’s landmark Saadiyat Island Cultural District. After that introduction, The Mediterranean Blue will be showcased in Tapei, Hong Kong and New York before its exhibition and sale in Geneva.

“The Mediterranean Blue represents one of nature’s rarest gems," noted Quig Bruning, Sotheby’s Head of Jewelry, Americas & EMEA. "Any vivid blue diamond is a discovery worth celebrating, but one as entrancing as this, particularly being over 10 carats, is a newsworthy event."

According to Sotheby's, only 0.3% of diamonds display a color that would be described as predominately blue among all diamonds submitted to GIA annually and, of those, only a small number are rated Fancy Vivid weighing 10 carats or more.

A fabulous fluke of nature, a blue diamond owes its color to the random presence of boron within the diamond’s carbon structure. Scientists believe that blue diamonds form about 400 miles below the surface, four times deeper than about 99 percent of all other diamonds.

Credits: Images courtesy of Sotheby's.

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you inspirational songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, the talented members of the One Voice Children’s Choir dazzle us with their interpretation of Rihanna’s “Diamonds.” The choir's official video at the end of this post has been viewed on YouTube more than 247 million times.



In the song, the youngsters inspire their peers to “shine bright like a diamond” and embrace the wonders that life has to offer.

They sing, “Find light in the beautiful sea, I choose to be happy / You and I, you and I, we’re like diamonds in the sky / You’re a shooting star I see, a vision of beauty / When you're near me, I’m alive / We’re like diamonds in the sky.”

Ranging in age from five to 18, the One Voice singers are directed by Masa Fukuda. The group was originally assembled by Fukuda to perform at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, but remained together after the sporting event. The group has about 180 members and performs 50 to 70 times each year.

The group competed during Season 9 of NBC’s America’s Got Talent in 2014 and reached the quarter finals. Earlier in the competition, judge Howard Stern told the young contestants that they were "gold," but Howie Mandel was not as impressed.

“They are gold,” Mandel agreed. “I’m looking for a diamond.”

Despite Mandel’s thumbs-down verdict, Stern, Mel B and Heidi Klum voted in favor of the group and they moved on in the competition. The choir director’s decision to perform “Diamonds” and produce the companion video was in direct response to Mandel’s criticism.

The group's YouTube channel boasts 4.93 million subscribers and more than 1.1 billion views. "Diamonds" remains the group's most popular video.

Rihanna scored her 12th #1 single with “Diamonds” in 2012. In fact, the song topped the charts in 20 countries and became a Diamond-certified record in April 2024 after its sales surpassed 10 million worldwide. It is one of the best-selling singles in music history. Rihanna's official video of "Diamonds" has been viewed an extraordinary 2.4 billion times.

Rihanna characterized the song as “happy and hippie.”

“It’s hopeful. It gives me a great feeling when I listen to it,” she said during an iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas. “The lyrics are hopeful and positive. It’s about love and the gears are different than what people will expect.”

The song was written by Sia Furler with Benjamin Levin, Mikkel S. Eriksen and Tor Erik Hermansen. Sia told New York Times Magazine that she came up with the lyrics for “Diamonds” in just 14 minutes.

According to SongFacts.com, “Diamonds” became the third diamond-titled song to score a #1 chart appearance. The others were Gary Lewis and the Playboys’ “This Diamond Ring” (1965) and Elton John’s “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” (1974).

Please check out the video of the One Voice Children’s Choir performing “Diamonds.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“Diamonds”
Written by Sia Furler, Benjamin Levin, Mikkel S. Eriksen and Tor Erik Hermansen. Performed by the One Voice Children’s Choir.

Shine bright like a diamond
Shine bright like a diamond

Find light in the beautiful sea, I choose to be happy
You and I, you and I, we’re like diamonds in the sky
You’re a shooting star I see, a vision of beauty
When you're near me, I’m alive
We’re like diamonds in the sky

I knew that we’d become one right away
Oh, right away
At first sight I felt the energy of sunrays
I saw the life inside your eyes

So shine bright tonight,
You and I
We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky
Eye to eye,
So alive
We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky

Shine bright like a diamond
Shine bright like a diamond
Shining bright like a diamond
We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky

Shine bright like a diamond
Shine bright like a diamond
Shining bright like a diamond
We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky



Credit: Screen capture via YouTube / One Voice Children's Choir.

In modern times, diamond-tipped tools, such as drill bits, burrs and saw blades, are used to carve and shape gemstones due to their exceptional hardness and ability to cut through just about any material.



But, did you know that ancient jewelers knew that secret more than 2,000 years ago?

According to a new study published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, the ancient nomadic tribes that traversed Central Asia used diamond drills to perforate gemstones when crafting necklaces, bracelets and pendants.

The researchers employed Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to study the interior drill hole surface of 51 stone beads recovered from the ancient Rabat Cemetery in Uzbekistan. All of the bead varieties — including carnelian, agate, and garnet — rated a 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. Diamond, by comparison, carries a Mohs rating of 10 and is the hardest naturally occurring material known to man.

The burial site, in the historic region of Bactria (encompassing parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) was used by the nomadic Yuezhi people from the second century BC to the first century AD.

Of the 51 beads studied, 41 presented markings associated with the use of a diamond drill. The researchers noted that the Yuezhi used two distinctive types of diamond drills to perforate gemstones. The ancient jewelers used a single diamond drill to start the hole, and then switched to “a narrower double diamond drill with two symmetrically placed diamonds at the tip of the drill” to finish their work.

There was also evidence that the artisans drilled holes from both sides of the same bead, with the holes converging in the middle.

The researchers pointed out that there are significant differences between the diamond drilling techniques used in Bactria and those seen on similar beads from the Indus Valley (modern-day Pakistan, northwest India and northeast Afghanistan). This finding suggests that the drilled beads were manufactured locally and not imported from the Indus region.

Other ancient civilizations successfully drilled holes in gemstones without the assistance of diamonds. Instead they used a combination of tools and abrasives, including copper tubes, sand and possibly other materials, such as quartz or corundum, often with the aid of a bow drill or similar rotating mechanisms.

Credit: AI-generated gem market image by The Jeweler Blog using ChatGPT and DALL-E 3.

A rare gem-set ring once worn by a bishop in medieval England is set to hit the auction block at Noonans Mayfair in London on March 26.



Dated to the late 12th or early 13th centuries, the gold ring is set with a central hexagonal cabochon sapphire surrounded by smaller bezel-set satellite stones, specifically two garnets and two emeralds, in a cruciform arrangement. Noonans Mayfair set the estimated selling price in the range of £15,000-£18,000 (approximately $19,500-$23,400).

The ring had been unearthed in November of 2019 by metal detectorist Mark Sell in the village of King Row, Shipdham, about 100 miles northeast of London. Shipdham had been the site of one of England's largest settlements when the ring was crafted 800 years ago.

Sell, a 63-year-old retired firefighter from Swaffham, had been scouring a field for a few hours using a XP Deus metal detector when he heard a faint signal. He dug down about 9 inches and was amazed to see a thin line of gold peeking out from a clod of mud.

"And as I wiped away the mud, I could see the bezel of a medieval gold jeweled ring," he told Noonans. "I could also see that the ring was complete with all of the original jewels still in place and was in pristine condition.”

Sell reported the find to the landowner and handed it over to the county's Finds Liaison Officer. According to NPR.org, the Finds Liaison Officer is part of the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme, a program run by the British Museum that aims to record people's everyday archeological discoveries into a historical database.

According to Noonans, the British Museum put the treasure (now called "The King Row Ring") on temporary display while it was in its care.

Noonans' jewelry expert Laura Smith was confident the ring was owned by a bishop due to its distinctive design.

“This form of medieval ring, with a principal cabochon stone, usually a sapphire, surrounded by smaller collet-set (bezel-set) satellite stones (garnets or rubies, and emeralds), can be securely dated to the late 12th or early 13th century, and is associated with the bishopric (office of the bishop)," she said.

The ring is billed as one of the top lots of Noonans Mayfair sale of "Jewellery, Silver and Objects of Vertu." The proceeds from the sale of The King Row Ring will be shared between Sell and the landowner.

Noonans reported that the Norwich Castle Museum has shown interest in acquiring the ring for its permanent display.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Noonans.

As skygazers in North America were enjoying the spectacle of a total lunar eclipse late Thursday night, a lunar lander captured the same eclipse — including a "diamond ring effect" — from a totally different point of view.



And the results were spectacular.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander, which successfully descended to the moon's surface on March 2, became only the second spacecraft to capture an eclipse from another celestial body. The first occurred in 1967 when NASA’s Surveyor 3 was on the moon gathering data in preparation for the Apollo missions.

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, Earth and moon align perfectly in space with Earth in the middle, leading it to cast a shadow on the moon. The moon is still visible as it takes on an eerie reddish hue.

But when viewed from the moon, the Earth effectively blots out the sun in a total solar eclipse. All that can be seen is a glowing halo that looks like a ring. The blast of bright light that finally peaks out from behind the Earth after the period called "totality" looks very much like a scintillating diamond.



"Blue Ghost got her first diamond ring!" Firefly Aerospace wrote on its website. "This marks the first time in history a commercial company was actively operating on the Moon and able to observe a total solar eclipse where the Earth blocks the sun and casts a shadow on the lunar surface. This phenomenon occurred simultaneously as the lunar eclipse we witnessed on Earth. We hope to have more shots to share soon!"

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander is currently perched in Mare Crisium, or "Sea of Crises," a 300-mile-wide impact basin on the northeastern region of the moon's near side.

The aerospace company is a private enterprise, but is cooperating with NASA on its current mission. Among its payload is a suite of NASA science and tech instruments.

Credits: Eclipse image and Blue Ghost illustration courtesy of Firefly Aerospace.

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you fun songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, the Thai-German pop star known as Ploychompoo performs “Diamonds,” a 2017 tune about a boyfriend who brings out the best in her and gives her the confidence to shine like a precious stone.



In the song, the multi-talented 24-year-old, whose birth name is Jannine Weigel, uses diamond terminology to tell her love story. She admits that she doesn’t always “wake up feeling flawless,” but her boyfriend recognizes that beauty is only skin deep.

He’s the only one who’s been able to discover her true essence, and his love has transformed her. She describes her new self as a finely faceted gem. (Ironically, the singer's stage name has gemstone ties. "Ploychompoo" means “pink sapphire" in Thai.)

She sings, “All of the stars are aligning / My heart, it beats like a lion / ‘Cause every time you hold me / And tell me that you love me / You got me cut like a diamond.”

In his interpretation of the song, co-writer and producer Gabriel Alberto Azucena, also known as Gawvi, references the immense pressure that is needed for a beautiful diamond to form.

“The song is simply about understanding that we all at some point have struggled with doubts,” he said. “Sometimes we can find ourselves questioning our identities and purpose, but we have to remember that the pressure and tough times we experience are simply ingredients to allow for our inner true beauty to shine.”

Weigel was born in Steinfurt, Germany, in 2000, to a German father and a Thai mother. She and her family moved to Thailand in 2010, where the youngster started working as a model. After just three months of training, at the age of 11, she earned third place in a national singing contest for children. In 2013, she started her own YouTube channel which now has 4 million subscribers. By 2015, she had released her first single and shortly thereafter earned movie and television roles.

Please check out the lyric video of Weigel performing “Diamonds.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“Diamonds”
Written by Gabriel Alberto Azucena, Jannine Weigel and Jordan Adelberger. Performed by Jannine Weigel.

I may not wake up feeling flawless
And my emotions can be reckless, yeah
And I know, yeah I know, yeah I know
Yeah I know I ain’t perfect
But I glow, yeah I glow, yeah I glow
You say that I’m worth it

You’re the only one who saw beyond my skin deep
And into my heart completely
You got me cut like a diamond

Oooh, oooh, all of the stars are aligning
Oooh, oooh, my heart, it beats like a lion
‘Cause every time you hold me
And tell me that you love me
Oooh, oooh, you got me cut like a diamond

The difference in me is so drastic
From day to night it’s automatic
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
Who’d I be without ya
But I glow, yeah I glow, yeah I glow
It’s not a question

You’re the only one who saw beyond my skin deep
And into my heart completely
You got me cut like a diamond

Oooh, oooh, all of the stars are aligning
Oooh, oooh, my heart, it beats like a lion
‘Cause every time you hold me
And tell me that you love me

Oooh, oooh, you got me cut like a diamond
You got me cut like a diamond
You got me cut like a diamond
‘Cause every time you hold me
And tell me that you love me
Oooh, oooh, you got me cut like a diamond

You’re the only one who saw beyond my skin deep
And into my heart completely

You’re the only one who saw beyond my skin deep
And into my heart completely
You got me cut like a diamond

Oooh, oooh, all of the stars are aligning
Oooh, oooh, my heart, it beats like a lion
‘Cause every time you hold me
And tell me that you love me
Oooh, oooh, you got me cut like a diamond
You got me cut like a diamond
You got me cut like a diamond

‘Cause every time you hold me
And tell me that you love me
Oooh, oooh, you got me cut like a diamond



Credit: Photo by Sry85, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

Lady Gaga revealed on Tuesday’s episode of the Howard Stern Show how her now-fiancé Michael Polansky proposed to her with a simple blade of grass — before augmenting the symbolic, but modest, token of his love with an oval-cut diamond ring said to be worth upwards of $2 million.



“He got me two rings and one of them was the blade of grass and that’s the first one he proposed with,” the diva told Stern. “I love them both, but the blade of grass, you can’t replace something that has a meaning like that.”

Polansky, a 41-year-old tech entrepreneur, was well prepared when he proposed to Gaga on April Fool's Day of 2024. The couple had been dating since 2019 and talked about their future together.

“He said to me, ‘If I ever proposed to you, how do I do that?'” Gaga told eonline.com earlier this month. "And I said, ‘Just get a blade of grass from the backyard and wrap it around my finger.’ And he did. He did that when he proposed.”

The editors of pagesix.com clarified that the blade of grass was actually cast in resin so it could be wearable. Gaga, 38, reportedly wears the resin ring above her massive oval-cut diamond ring, which features a center stone weighing approximately 10 carats with a value of $500,000 to $2 million.

Although the couple was engaged in April of 2024, the paparazzi didn't spy the ring until September at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. People.com reported that the large oval diamond is set on an 18-karat white and rose gold diamond pavé band accented with natural pink ombré diamonds. It also includes a hidden white diamond halo. (Ombré is a style where diamonds are used in a gradient effect, where the color transitions from light to dark or vice versa.)

The blade of grass proposal was the inspiration for a romantic ballad on Gaga's brand new Mayhem album. Appropriately titled "Blade of Grass" and co-written by Gaga and Polansky, the song includes the following lyrics: "Come on and wrap that blade of grass / Around my finger like a cast… / Come on and wrap that blade of grass / And we'll make it last."

“It’s a love song between the two of us," Gaga told usatoday.com, "but sometimes when we find love in our lives, it can also help us reflect on what it took to get there.”

She called the single "haunting and beautiful.”

“That song gets to last forever and hopefully one day our kids will hear it,” she told eonline.com.

Credit: Photo by Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

New York City Transit workers recently came to the aid of a distraught woman who had accidentally dropped an irreplaceable 18-karat gold ring into a subway grate above the "6" line in East Harlem.



Bronx resident Myra Lora and her boyfriend were walking along Lexington Avenue at 103rd Street when Lora went to take off a glove. As the glove slipped off, so did her gold ring — a ring engraved with the names of her three children.

She had worn the sentimental keepsake for 25 years.



The ring fell through the grate, but not down to the subway level. Miraculously, it landed on a support structure just inches below the sidewalk.

The couple could see the ring through the grate, but it was out of reach.

The next morning, the couple sought the help of the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority), and in less than an hour a team of NYC Transit Maintenance of Way employees arrived on scene.



The trio cordoned off the area and lifted the grate with curious onlookers taking pictures and videos of the rescue mission. Then, MTA employee Latasha Goodall ceremoniously plucked the ring from its precarious perch and placed it on the finger of a grateful Lora.



The 70-year-old resident cried tears of joy and gave Goodall a big hug.



“This is such an overwhelming moment for me because this ring has been on my finger for 25 years and has extraordinary emotional value to me,” said Lora. “No words can describe my happiness at being reunited with this ring, and I am so grateful to the New York City Transit workers who returned it to me.”

Goodall was equally overjoyed.



"I'm so happy we were able to reunite Myra with her most precious jewel," Goodall said in a press release. “I feel so lucky to experience these moments when these incidents occur, and Myra’s graciousness and appreciation made reuniting her with that ring so special."

NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow praised his crew for going above and beyond for their fellow New Yorkers.

“We all see platform controllers, conductors and bus operators, but there are a lot of people behind the scenes who we don't always see who keep the city moving and care about New Yorkers.”

Credits: Images courtesy of Marc A. Hermann / MTA.

On January 26, 1905, Captain Frederick Wells was conducting a standard inspection of the Premier Mine in South Africa about 18 feet below the surface when a glint off the wall caught his eye. At first, he thought it was a shard of glass embedded by a practical joker. But, then he pulled out his pocket knife and pried the object from the wall.



What he extracted was the now-famous 3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond, the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever discovered. The Cullinan weighed 621 grams (1.37 pounds) and was 10.1 cm (3.97 inches) long, 6.3 cm (2.5 inches) wide and 5.9 cm (2.3 inches) deep.

Two years later, the mine owners sold the Cullinan for £150,000 to the South African Transvaal Colony government, which intended to present it to King Edward VII on his 66th birthday as a commemorative tribute to five years of peace between the two countries following the Second Boer War.

The challenge of shipping the world's largest diamond from South Africa to the King of England would provide the first of two examples of how officials used decoys and diversions to ensure its safe passage.

This is how royalasscher.com described the plan: "With the ravenous eyes of the international press watching the diamond’s every move, the colonial government set up a decoy of armed guards and military personnel, intentionally making a grand production of transporting the Cullinan to the British capital."

Actually, the Cullinan diamond was shipped to London in a plain box via registered post. And the diversionary tactic worked perfectly.

(Interestingly, luxury jeweler Harry Winston would use a similar method to deliver the Hope Diamond from his New York office to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, a half century later.)

The British King was advised that the Cullinan needed to be cleaved into smaller stones before it could be cut and polished. This was enormously complex and involved significant risk for a stone valued in 1908 at £250,000, more than £38.4 million ($49.4 million) today. The King hired M.J. Levy & Nephews to oversee the operation. At the time, insurance was taken out “against loss, theft and damage of every kind, excepting damage caused by cutting.”

M.J Levy & Nephews arranged for the diamond to be cut and polished by the renowned Asscher Company in Amsterdam, which had successfully cut the previously largest known diamond, the 995.2-carat Excelsior, five years earlier.

And here is where the second decoy operation was put into motion.

For Joseph Asscher to cut the stone, the Cullinan would need to make another perilous journey to the heart of the diamond cutting industry — Amsterdam.

Once again, with much fanfare and public attention, a sealed box supposedly containing the Cullinan was placed on a Royal Navy ship destined for The Netherlands. In this case, the box was empty.

Joseph Asscher’s brother, Abraham, meanwhile boarded a passenger ship heading to the same destination. Stowed away in the deep pocket of his heavy coat lay the uncut diamond that had become the talk of the world.

The mission was a success as Abraham and the Cullinan arrived safely at Tolstraat 127, Amsterdam, the headquarters and cutting factory of Asscher Diamond Company.

After an extensive period of studying the stone, Joseph Asscher started the cutting process by creating an incision in the diamond of approximately 6.5mm deep. It has been reported that Asscher broke his tool when he initially struck the stone. A week later, after developing stronger tools, Asscher successfully cleaved the Cullinan into two principal parts, weighing 1,977 carats and 1,040 carats.

It’s been reported that the failed first attempt was done in front of a gallery of the press and local dignitaries, while the second attempt was accomplished with nobody in the room, except for a Notary Public. Legend has it that Asscher struck the diamond so hard that he fainted after it split.

Over the following months, these diamonds were further polished and cut to create nine principal stones, 96 smaller diamonds and a quantity of polished “ends.”

The largest of the Cullinan gems, the Great Star of Africa (Cullinan I), weighed 530.4 carats and was set atop the Sovereign’s Sceptre. The 317-carat Second Great Star of Africa (Cullinan II) was set in the Imperial State Crown.

And how was Asscher compensated for his work? The master diamond cutter was paid in “chippings,” the small fragments that result from the cutting process. And some of those diamond fragments still live more than 100 years later in the bridal sets of Asscher’s descendants.

Credit: Cullinan replica photo by James St. John, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.