Most Expensive Gems No One Can Buy For Any Price

there are few items as valuable as a large gem however although many are virtually priceless many of them also have unbelievable backstories so today we're going to be running down some of the most valuable gems that no one can buy the first gem we are going to be looking into is the supposedly cursed hope diamond originally a 115.6 carat blue diamond the gem was first mined in india where it reportedly was used as the eye of a statue in a hindu temple however it was stolen from its homeland by french merchant jean-baptiste tavenye in 1666 upon finding this out the priests in the temple supposedly put a curse on the owner of the diamond the first person to live out this curse was tavernier himself although reports are conflicting some accounts claim that he came down with a raging fever soon after stealing the diamond and then after dying from the fever his body was ravaged by wolves this curse then supposedly passed on to king louis xiv of france the man whom tavignay sold the diamond to with this diamond being renamed the blue diamond of the crown once the king acquired it in 1673 he soon after had the misfortune of succumbing to gangrene what's more the curse also affected his extended family as all of his legitimate children save one ended up passing away during childhood yet the curse wasn't finished just yet the next owner nicholas fauquet was soon imprisoned for life after obtaining the diamond and the next two owners after him were king louis xvi and marie antoinette and we all know what happened to them but if you don't it's nothing to lose your head over the gem then changed hands while marie antoinette was in prison being given to another member of french royalty princess marie louise yet she fared even worse than marie antoinette and well the details are far too brutal for our audience unfortunately even once the jewel changed hands and left french territory the curse ended up going with it the first foreigner to receive it was dutch jeweler wilhelm falls who supposedly re-cut the diamond to disguise its identity yet he didn't have the jewel for long as he fell victim to his son who stole the diamond the younger falls then perished by his own hands in 1830 the next owner simon montourides of greece perished tragically when he accidentally drove himself and his wife and child off a cliff in their horse-drawn carriage on his way to make a deal to sell the diamond after some time evelyn walsh mclean born august 1 1886 and the heiress to the washington post bought the diamond however even though she lived across the ocean in the united states the curse still ran strong this can be seen by the fact that her nine-year-old son and 25 year old daughter both perished in tragic circumstances and her husband left her for another woman and left her massively in debt by her life's end as a result of all this turmoil the final private owner harry winston effectively gave away the diamond for free after just nine years of ownership and it is now on display at the smithsonian yet even after this sale it continued to harass its handlers this can be seen through james todd the mailman who delivered the diamond to the smithsonian this is because after he performed the simple task of delivering the diamond he went on to receive a major leg injury in an accident a head injury and another and to top it off he had his house burned down in a fire if that doesn't make this jewel a demonic diamond we don't know what does it's now valued at 350 million dollars but we're pretty sure if it was only one dollar no one would dare buy it would you the next valuable stone while not cursed has an equally interesting past known as the star of india it is a near flawless sapphire with a rare star pattern measuring in at around 536 carats it is likely the largest sapphire to have ever been cut although we know that it was found in modern-day sri lanka it is unclear as to exactly how gem expert george coons got his hands on it in the late 1890s regardless soon after coons acquired it it was passed off to american billionaire jp morgan in 1900 for the paris exposition and in 1901 jp morgan donated it to the american museum of natural history but what makes this gem infamous is that it was stolen from the museum on october 29 1964. the thieves entered the museum through a bathroom window and were not only able to sneak into the exhibit but they didn't set off the star of india's alarm because the alarm system was out of batteries it only took two days for the thieves to be apprehended but even once they were caught the gem was still nowhere to be found and although investigators searched for it for months its location was only revealed once the thief alan kuhn admitted that he had hidden it in a bus station lock box in miami today the jewel still resides at the american museum of natural history albeit with a better alarm system protecting it however the gem that you could probably boast to have the best of both worlds is the kohinoor diamond as it is not just cursed but also infamous for never staying in one place for long originally around 186 carats the diamond was likely mined from the column mines in southern india although some reports claim that it is a staggering five thousand years old the first written reports of the diamond came from india's kakatiya dynasty sometime in the 13th century originally serving as the eye of the goddess devi in a hindu temple it was stolen by mughal emperor babur around the year 1500 from there it passed hands constantly through a series of bloody battles causing many to say it cursed male owners of the gem with war and instability however this violent changing of hands finally seized when it was given to queen victoria after the second anglo-sikh war in april of 1849 as of now it is displayed in the tower of london and the british monarchy has been careful to only allow female nobility to touch it as the curse reportedly does not apply to them based on the gems track record we just hope they're right now the so-called black prince's ruby is distinguished in its own right because it is neither black nor a ruby the stone is an uncut 170 carat piece of red spinel and looks very similar to a ruby but is exceptionally rarer now the jewel is thought to have been mined in modern-day tajikistan but its first recorded owner was prince abu saeed of the moorish kingdom of granada owning the jewel throughout the early to mid 14th century prince saeed lost it during this time frame after an encounter with don pedro the cruel who was the ruler of castile don pedro obtained the diamond after tricking the prince to meet with him for peace negotiations during a war and once prince saeed arrived pedro took him out and then took the jewel this supposedly led to the gem cursing don pedro as soon after conquering granada his half-brother henry of trastamara declared war against him however don pedro eventually won the civil war with the help of prince edward iii better known as the black prince of england however in return prince edward iii demanded the jewel from don pedro and don pedro unwillingly obliged today the black prince's ruby has remained with the royal family and is currently one of the british monarchy crown jewels a gem that has a much more destructive curse is the black orla which is also known as the eye of brahma which is a 67.5 carat black diamond that came from a much larger uncut 195 carat diamond its roots can be traced back to the 19th century india and like many other cursed diamonds in this video it once was housed in a hindu temple and is one of the eyes in a statue of the god brahma however it was reportedly stolen by a traveling jesuit and by 1932 had made its way to the united states it was in the states that the gem was acquired by diamond dealer j.w paris being the first of the diamond's victims and soon after acquiring it he decided to jump from a new york skyscraper after a mysterious interlude it was then acquired by princess leonila viktorovna bariantinsky of russia who reportedly also jumped from a tall building then it passed off to princess nadia vision orlov who in december of 1947 also jumped off a tall building at this point it was clear that the gem had some sort of nasty curse and its next owner charles f wilson had it cut in three to destroy the curse although this attempt may seem a little pathetic on the surface it supposedly worked and it is now attached to a necklace that has passed between multiple different owners without harming any of them yet there exists a diamond commonly known as the incomparable that has a much brighter history believe it or not it was first found by a congolese girl playing in a pile of mine shaft rubble outside her uncle's house in the 1980s the rubble had reportedly not been worth scanning for diamonds due to its bulkiness and so this find was truly improbable changing hands several times it eventually came into the hands of louis glick a prominent diamond expert when it was finally weighed it came in at an astounding 890 carats and there was speculation that it would be cut so that it would be larger than the current largest cut diamond in the world the cullinan the first however it was ultimately shaved down to a beautiful 407.48 carat piece making it the third largest in the world now the next diamond we will be mentioning may not be a record breaker but it certainly had some serious international implications the gem which was known as the blue diamond was by all accounts of valuable peace initially owned by prince faisal binfod of saudi arabia it was reportedly stolen along with several other jewels by thai servant kryon kraytekamong in 1989 and shipped back to tekkemong's hometown unsurprisingly the prince was furious and demanded that the thai government track down and return the stolen jewelry and while the thai government did eventually sentence tekkemong and send back some of the gems the prince found that not only were half of the return stones fakes but that his coveted blue diamond was missing sparking what became known as the blue diamond affair this caused the saudis to send diplomats to thailand to try to investigate for themselves however this resulted in five of the diplomats being assassinated while in thailand as a consequence relations between the two countries quickly soured and the number of thai laborers allowed to work in saudi arabia dropped from around 200 000 in 1989 to just 10 000 by 2008 yet despite all the publicity the blue diamond's location remains a mystery to this day if you find it let us know [Music] but the aforementioned cursed gems do not stand alone as the saucy diamond is undoubtedly cursed as well hailing from india it is a pale yellow diamond that comes in at 55.23 carats although its origins are not entirely known what is clear is that it reached europe by the 14th century and it was by many accounts a feature in the crowns of several british and french monarchs however what many of these monarchs which include burgundy's charles the bold england's charles the first and francis louis xvi had in common was they experienced gruesome ends soon after coming into contact with the diamond what's more after king louis xvi's passing the satsi was stolen by revolutionaries and not recovered until prince pavel de midov of russia purchased the gem in 1828 luckily for dimidov he was the last owner of the gem to escape a brutal demise and the gem changed hands several times before ending up in the hands of the louvre where it is displayed to this day our next gem the delhi purple sapphire has a misleading name after all the gem is not even a sapphire but rather a much less valuable amethyst that was stolen from an indian temple in 1855 yet despite this misnomer it still is incredibly cursed its first european owner colonel w ferris had his family experience a near complete financial collapse upon him bringing the jewel home to england this shouldn't come as a surprise as it was stolen from an indian hindu temple eventually he decided to loan it out to a family friend who almost immediately took his own life upon receiving it distraught he held on to the diamond until his son's friend edward herron allen who was a respected scholar at the time took possession of it it once again began to cause misfortune and in a bid to neutralize it karen allen had it bound with a silver ring fashioned as a double-headed snake and then attached two amethyst scarab beetles to the ring and inscribed it with symbols of the zodiac although it worked for a time it eventually began to act up again even reportedly causing the spirit of a hindu yogi to appear to haran allen multiple times each time apparently looking for the gem after continued turmoil aaron ellen eventually had it locked up in a bank and eventually it was transferred over to the british natural history museum rediscovered in 1972 in one of the museum's gemstone cabinets it remains on display at the museum to this day [Music] however out of all of the gems in this video it is the regent diamond that is easily the most fascinating its story begins in 1698 when a slave found the 410 carat rough diamond in the cooler mine of southern india from there he attempted to hide it in a bandage and sailed to the city of madras to sell it in 1701 however the gem was discovered by the ship's captain and he promptly stole the diamond and threw the slave overboard from there the captain sold it to a merchant who then under pressure sold it to thomas pitt the local governor after being cut it was sold to the french duke of orleans and except for a brief stint during the revolution remained in the french government's hands until 1887 when it was permanently put on display in the louvre nowadays it is widely regarded by many gem experts to be one of the most beautiful most pure and most valuable diamonds in the world that's all we have for now folks but before we go we want to know would you dare own one of these if you like the video then make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications and you'll be the first to know when a new video comes out thanks for watching [Music] i'm

Channel: Interesting Facts

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Keywords: most expensive gems, gem, gems, top 10, top 5, best, list, brilliant, diamond, luxury, rich, rich people, big diamond, big jewels, jewelry, interesting, facts, interesting facts, luxurious gems, expensive brilliants, expensive diamonds, giant diamond, gold, black diamond

Id: pF4eNILpT8M

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020