Diamonds are forever and many of the world's most famous diamonds are renowned for their incredible histories, magical allure, and sheer size.

These spectacular diamonds have carved out their significance with marking their significance with distinguished names such as The De Beers Millennium Star, The Taylor-Burton Diamond and The Star of South Africa.

Harry Oppenheimer, the doyen of the diamond industry, describes the De Beers Millennium Star as "the most beautiful diamond I have ever seen." The diamond is so great in size that the world's diamond experts cannot put a price on it.

Discovered in the Republic of the Congo, De Beers mined the Star in the early nineties. It took over three years for their diamond cutters to shape the stone with lasers. What emerged was the world's only internally and externally flawless, 203-carat, pear-shaped diamond. Appropriately called the De Beers Millennium Star, it was unveiled as the centrepiece of the De Beers Millennium diamond collection.

For more information about this fascinating diamond, please see www.adiamondisforever.com

 

If any gem could be noticed next to the beauty of Elizabeth Taylor it was this 69-carat, pear-shaped diamond. The stone was unearthed at the Premier mine of South Africa in 1966. Harry Winston cut and polished the rough stone from its original size of 244-carats.

The couple, surrounded by media attention were the foundation of many sensational stories. However, one that happens to be true is that Richard Burton did give Elizabeth Taylor one of the World's largest and most beautiful diamonds, appropriately named the Taylor-Burton.

When the gem went up for auction in 1969 it was Cartier who first obtained it. The very next day Richard Burton purchased the diamond, for an undisclosed sum of money, to give to his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Although Ms. Taylor is known for her love for diamonds, she put the Taylor-Burton up for auction 10 years later. The proceeds from the sale went to fund a hospital in Botswana.

The last recorded sale of the Taylor-Burton was in 1979 for nearly $3,000,000 to an anonymous buyer in Saudi Arabia.

More information about the Taylor-Burton diamond can be found at www.adiamondisforever.com

 

It was the mid-1800s, and England believed there was little potential in the mining possibilities of South Africa. However, by the late 1860s there were enough reports of discoveries of significant diamonds to warrant further investigation by Parliament.

At the same time, there were those in South Africa who did not want investigations of any sort into the discovery of South African diamonds. In fact, it was common practice for the earliest diamond miners to ship diamonds to another destination before they were sent to the intended destination, in order to disguise their origin.

Parliament hired J.R. Gregory to investigate. After what Gregory publicly stated was a thorough investigation of the diamond mining potential of South Africa, he concluded, very plainly, that none existed.

Speculation ran rampant among South Africa's diamond community as to what Gregory's motives were. Only days after Gregory's report was made public, a diamond of eighty-three and one half carats was found in the very region Gregory had purportedly investigated. It was called "The Star of Africa."

In a meeting of South Africa's Parliament, a statement referred to the Star of South Africa as, "[this] diamond, gentlemen, is the rock upon which the future prosperity of South Africa will be built." As for J.R. Gregory, the discovery gave him the dubious honor of having gross misjudgments known henceforth as to "do a Gregory".

To find out more about this diamond, visit www.adiamondisforever.com