Cullinan Discovered: World's Largest Diamond Found

A mine superintendent named Frederick Wells spotted a massive glint of light reflecting from the wall of the Premier Mine near Pretoria, South Africa, on January 26, 1905. He initially thought it was a large piece of glass someone had planted as a prank. When he pried it free with a pocketknife, he was holding a diamond of 3,106 carats—1.37 pounds—the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found. The stone was named the Cullinan after Sir Thomas Cullinan, the mine''s chairman. The diamond was extraordinary not only for its size but for its quality. It was a near-flawless white stone with exceptional clarity, suggesting it was a fragment of a much larger crystal that had broken apart deep in the Earth''s mantle. Geologists estimated the original stone may have exceeded 10,000 carats. Wells received a £3,500 bonus for his find—generous by the standards of 1905 but modest considering the stone''s eventual value. The Transvaal colonial government purchased the Cullinan for £150,000 and presented it to King Edward VII as a gesture of reconciliation following the Boer War, which had ended just three years earlier. The gift was both diplomatic and shrewd: it cemented relations between Britain and its newest colony while placing the world''s greatest diamond in the British Crown. The stone was sent to London aboard a steamship under heavy guard—or so the public believed. The actual diamond was mailed in a plain registered parcel while the guarded box contained a decoy. The Asscher Brothers firm in Amsterdam cut the Cullinan into nine major stones and 96 smaller brilliants in 1908. Joseph Asscher reportedly studied the diamond for months before attempting the first cleave. The two largest stones—Cullinan I (the Great Star of Africa, 530.2 carats) and Cullinan II (the Second Star of Africa, 317.4 carats)—were set into the British Crown Jewels, where they remain in the Sovereign''s Sceptre and the Imperial State Crown. Together, the Cullinan diamonds are considered priceless, though their estimated insurance value exceeds $2 billion.