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Famous Diamonds in the World The Archduke Joseph Diamond
The Archduke Joseph Diamond
Origin of name
The Archduke Joseph diamond acquires its name from Archduke Joseph August (1872-1962), a onetime proprietor of the diamond, who was a prince of the Hungarian line up of the Hapsburg dynasty.
Characteristics of the stone
The Archduke Joseph diamond is a D-color, 76.45-carat, internally unblemished diamond with a rectangular cushion-cut. The diamond has all the unique features of the best Golconda diamonds, flawless, with a high internal clarity and perfectly colorless nature, giving it a D-color GIA certification.
Being a D-color diamond, the Archduke Joseph is a Type IIa diamond, which are said to be chemically pure and structurally perfect diamonds. They are also known as the "purest of the pure" of all diamonds. However they constitute only about 1-2 % of all naturally occurring diamonds. These diamonds do not have any features that can report color to the diamonds.
Features
1) Presence of dirtiness such as boron, nitrogen and hydrogen.2) Structural distortion in the gemstone which can modify its inclusion band.
3) Introduction to natural irradiation that result a green color in diamonds.
Simply a few diamonds in nature can flee all these conditions. Thus the small percentage of their incidence. In feature approximately 98 % of all naturally occurring diamonds have nitrogen as impurity and are recognized as Type I diamonds.
History of the diamond
Early History
The diamond no distrust is of Indian basis, but it is not known precisely how the Archduke appears to hold the diamond. Archduke Joseph was a progeny of Emperor Leopold II, son of Empress Maria Theresa (1740-80), the Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia. Empress Maria Theresa was the owner of the famous Florentine diamond, a large light yellow Indian diamond, which was one of the most notable and unique diamonds in history.
Modern History
Archduke Joseph was the eldest son of Duke Joseph Carl Ludwig, a descendant of Leopold II. He is also known as Joseph of Alcsut. Joseph Francis (1895-1957) the son of Archduke Joseph inherited the famous diamond from his father. It is on proof that on June 1st 1933, the diamond was placed with the Hungarian General Credit Bank in the occurrence of a State Counselor. Conversely about 3 years later the diamond was sold to an European investor who kept it in a protected deposit box in France at some stage in world war II and thus runaway the consideration of the Nazis.
The stone had strangely vanished after this and its location unknown, until one day in June 1961, the sandstone came up for public sale in London. At that instance the stone received the reputation of being the chief ever, loose diamond, fine quality to be auctioned in Great Britain, but the diamond had to be reserved from the sale when the maximum appreciated £ 145,000 fell distant short of the definite predictable value of the stone. Consequently a group of Hatton Garden buyers made an ineffective proposition to buy the diamond. Yet again in the year, 1993, the diamond was set up for sale at a Christie's sale in Geneva and sold for a record amount of $ 6,500,000.
Currently, The Archduke Joseph is the assets of Molina Fine Jewelers, Phoenix, Arizona, has been a little re-cut from 78.54 carats to 76.45 carats.
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