The Jubilee Diamond, originally known as the Reitz Diamond is a colourless, flawless, clear white cushion-shaped diamond weighing almost 651 carats in rough form. It was found in the Jaegersfontein mine in South Africa in 1895. It was originally named after Francis William Reitz, the then president of the Orange Free State where the stone was discovered
A consortium of diamond merchants from London purchased it along with its even larger sister, the Excelsior, in 1896, and sent it to Amsterdam where it was polished by M.B. Barends. A 40 carat chunk was removed, which itself yielded a 13.34 pear-shaped gem eventually purchased by Dom Carlos I of Portugal.
Later on, it was faceted into a cushion brilliant of about 245 carats in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, from which it takes its name. “Excelsior diamond”, until the discovery of the Cullinan diamond in 1905, the world's largest-known uncut diamond. When found by a worker loading a truck in the De Beers mine at Jagersfontein, Orange Free State, on June 30, 1893, the blue-white stone weighed about 995 carats. After long study the Excelsior diamond was cut (1904) by I.J. Asscher and Company of Amsterdam into 21 stones ranging in weight from less than 1 carat to more than 70 carats.
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