Sun of the Sea/Orloff
Said to have been 300 carats in size when discovered in India, the 194-carat cut gem was believed to have been set in the eye of a statue of the Hindu god Vishnu in a temple in Sriangam, before being stolen in the 1700s by a French deserter. He later sold the stone quickly to an English sea-captain for 2,000 pounds. The Russian Prince Grigori Orloff bought the diamond in 1773 to win back the favour of his lover, Catherine the Great. For this, he paid the fabulous sum of 400,000 roubles. The empress accepted his gift but did not succumb to the charms of her forsaken lover. The prince dies in an insane asylum, but could take heart from the fact that the diamond still carries his name and is reportedly kept in the Kremlin in the tsar’s imperial sceptre.
 
Koh-i-Noor
The Koh-i-Noor, or “Mountain of Light” currently can be seen in the Tower of London. According to legend, it was discovered on the forehead of a little boy in India. The boy, who was living in a royal court, was killed in an attempt on the throne. Later, the Koh-i-Noor fell into the possession of the great Moguls. In the 18th century it was captured by Persian conquerors, who are said to have committed terrible atrocities in its name. According to legend its original weight was 600 carats. By the time it arrived in England it weighed just 186 carats and after re-cutting just 108.93 carats remained.
 
Cullinan
At 3,106 carats, the Cullinan was the world’s largest rough diamond ever mined. It was discovered by Frederick Wells, a surface manager at the Premier Mine near Pretoria, South Africa, on January 26, 1905. It was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, who then owned the mine. The stone was bought by the government of the Transvaal and presented to Britain’s King Edward VII on his birthday. It was cut into three large parts by Asscher Brothers of Amsterdam, and eventually into 11 large gem-quality stones and a number of smaller fragments. The largest polished gem from the stone is 530.2 carats, and is named Cullinan I or the Great Star of Africa. It is today mounted in the head of the Sceptre with the Cross in the British Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. The second largest gem, at 317.4 carats, is called Cullinan II or the Lesser Star of Africa. It, too, can be found in the British Crown Jewels.
 
Le Régent
The Régent diamond, which is said today to be the most beautiful gem in the French crown jewels, was discovered as a 410-carat rough diamond by a slave in the Golkonda mine in India. Legend says he hid it inside a wound in his leg, but it was later stolen by an English sea captain who sold it to an Indian merchant. Thomas Pitt acquired it from the merchant in Madras in 1701 and had it cut as a 141-carat cushion brilliant. It was sold it to the French Prince, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans in 1717 for £135,000. In 1792, following the French Revolution, "Le Régent," was stolen along with other crown jewels of France, but was later recovered. It was permanently redeemed in 1801 by Napoleon Bonaparte, who used it to decorate his sword. Napoleon's second wife, Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, carried the Régent back to Austria upon his death, but her father returned it to the French Crown Jewels. It has been on display in the Louvre in Paris since 1887.
 
Hope
The Hope or the “Great Blue Diamond” is known as a cursed stone, but its reputation is largely undeserved. It was bought in India as a crudely cut triangular shaped diamond weighing 112 carats by the Flemish adventurer Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. He sold it to France’s King Louis XIV, who had the blue stone cut into a heart-shape weighing 68.8 carats. It was set in gold and suspended on a neck ribbon for the King to wear on ceremonial occasions. In September 1792, while Louis XVI and his family were confined in the Palais des Tuileries, thieves stole most of the Crown Jewels. In 1839, the diamond reappeared in a published catalogue of the gem collection of Henry Philip Hope. After changing hands many times, it was bought in 1949 by the New York diamond merchant Harry Winston. Winston donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958, famously sending it to the museum by mail in a plain brown paper bag. It can now be viewed in the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum as part of its celebrated coloured diamond collection.
 
Centenary
The Centenary celebrations of De Beers took place in 1988 in Kimberley, the then chairman of the diamond mining company, Julian Ogilvie Thompson, revealed that a top colour diamond of 599 carats had been recovered from the Premier mine. One of the most accomplished cutters in the world, Antwerp’s Gabi Tolkowsky, was chosen to produce a polished gem from the stone. Tolkowsky and two other cutters, Geoff Woollett and Jim Nash, worked with hand-picked engineers in a specially constructed room in the De Beers Diamond Research Laboratory in Johannesburg. Kerfing by hand, Tolkowsky took 154 days to remove 50 carats, revealing a rounded stone weighing approximately 520 carats. After nearly a year of work, the Centenary weighed 273.85 carats, with 164 facets on the stone and 83 on the girdle. Two flawless pear shapes were also cut.
 
Eureka
In 1866, children digging amongst the shrubbery of their father's farm in the northwest of South Africa discovered an attractive stone. Sometime later, a neighbour and amateur geologist, Schalk van Niekerk, offered to buy the stone. The farmwife refused to take money and simply gave it to him. While he thought the stone may be a rare mineral, van Niekerk did not realise it was diamond. There was little reason that he should. Diamonds were unknown in South Africa at the time. Its true identity was only was reported a year later by Dr. William Guybon Atherstone, who confirmed that the stone was a "veritable diamond weighing 24 carats worth £800." The diamond that was to set off the greatest diamond rush in human history was bought by De Beers in 1967, exactly 100 years after its discovery, as a gift to the people of South Africa. The Eureka was placed on permanent loan by the South African government at the Mine Museum in Kimberley.