Diamonds are indeed maybe forever, but they are not forever in view

EVERY diamond is a story as old as the earth and will outlast us all. Diamonds are very indeed forever but they are not forever in view.

For more than a half-century the whereabouts of one of the world’s most celebrated diamonds, the fabled Wittelsbach blue was unclear. Every person with knowledge of great gems was likely to be familiar with the stone: A grayish blue diamond taken to Europe in the 17th century from India and was given in 1664 to Infanta Margarita Teresa by her father, the king of Spain and eventually becoming a fixture of both the Austrian and Bavarian crown jewels. In 1964 the stone passed into private hands, and later its whereabouts becomes a mystery. Last December 2008, the Wittelsbach blue suddenly turned up at auction,  the centerpiece of Christie’s London sale of very important gems. Expected to acquire $15 million, the cushion cut stone which described as a fancy deep grayish blue and was fought over by rival diamond dealers and hammered down in a matter of minutes for the extraordinary price of $24.3 million, the most ever paid for a diamond at auction and a sum that may also have rendered the Wittelsbach blue, by weight, the most valuable product on earth.

The buyer was Laurence Graff, a billionaire diamond dealer whose clients run to other newly minted billionaires, and in short order its new owner made a series of startling decisions about the stone. First, he had it recut, reducing it from 35.52 to just over 31 carats, to eliminate the chips and “bruises” inevitable in a stone of its age but also to improve its clarity, brilliance and grade. Then he renamed it the Wittelsbach-Graff and struck an agreement with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to display it.

More Stories at Out of the Blue, Prestige and Riches