The Hope Diamond: A Curse Deconstructed
It doesn't take very much research to discover that the supposed "curse" of the Hope Diamond — one of the most famous and valuable jewels in the world — can't be reconciled with reality; its owners have generally all prospered. Nevertheless, almost every published mention of the famed gem is in the context of its notorious curse. Today we're going to turn back our calendars about 100 years to see if we can find the answer to this conundrum, and find out why smart people believe something so easily falsified.
The Hope Diamond is roughly squarish round, about 2.5cm (1 inch) across, and half as deep. It is a dark, greyish blue, but as you look at it, every facet flashes with a slightly different hue. But it is at its most stunning when you charge it with ultraviolet and then turn out the lights: the diamond is no longer blue, but a deep, angry red, shining in the dark like a fire coal. This phosphorescence is caused by boron, as much as eight parts per million, which also lends it its steely blue under normal lighting. It weights in at 45.5 carats, and its estimated value is up to a quarter of a billion dollars, a number which will probably never be realized, as it is owned by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
We often associate heirloom jewelry with hauntings or other creepy elements, so it's not surprising that a diamond such as this would have a ghost story or a curse or something like that attached to it. To understand the genesis of the curse, let's start with the actual history of the diamond.
The earliest known record of the Hope Diamond comes from 1812, when it was offered for sale by a London diamond merchant named Daniel Eliason, and described, measured, and drawn by many jewelers and naturalists. It may have been owned or borrowed by Britain's King George IV after that, but we don't really know for sure, as there are simply gaps in the documentary record. We do know that it was in the possession of British banker William Philip Hope in 1839, because he published it in a catalog of his holdings, but no record survives of where or when he acquired it. When he died, his three sons fought over his estate, and one — Henry Thomas Hope — got this diamond plus seven others. It then passed to his grandson, Francis Hope, who blew everything on an extravagant lifestyle. It passed into the hands of brokers and finally to diamond merchant Simon Frankel who brought it to New York just as the diamond market tanked in 1907. Men such as Charles Schwab and J.P. Morgan considered it, but nobody bought. It then changed hands to other diamond merchants: first to Sergeant Habib on behalf of the Sultan of Turkey, then to Simon Rosenau, and finally to the day's rock stars of jewelry, the Cartier brothers. No private customer seemed to want it, but the Cartiers thought that if anyone could sell it, they could.
And they did. It took a while, but the stone was finally purchased in 1912 by the millionaire McLeans, Edward ("Ned") of the Washington Post fortune and Evalyn, daughter of Thomas Walsh, a gold miner who had struck it very, very rich in 1869 and built the most expensive mansion in Washington, DC. When she died in 1947, it passed through a trustee sale to jeweler Harry Winston, who finally donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958, where it has remained ever since. Winston's donation is best remembered for having been simply shipped through the US Mail from New York.
But what about prior to 1812? A stone like the Hope didn't just appear by magic, and it's no coincidence that about the time it did appear, another huge blue diamond just happened to disappear. It was called the French Blue. This was a 67-carat blue diamond owned by King Louis XIV, which he created in 1678 by having it cut from an even larger stone. That one was a whopping 112- or 115-carat (accounts vary) diamond that had been brought from India by the French diamond merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, during one of several trips to India he made in the mid 1600s. Exactly how he acquired a diamond that would ha