SOLD
gem7-52
Diamond (18.7 Carats)
Kimberly Mine, South Africa
Thumbnail, 1.6 x 1.5 x 1.5 cm (weight 18.7 carats)
Ex. Smithsonian Institution; Walt Lidstrom; William Pinch
SOLD
This is one of those few rare diamonds that today can be dated and located to the original KIMBERLY MINE itself, almost certainly dating to the early 1900s and perhaps further. It went to the Smithsonian in a collection prior to WWI, I am told, and then was traded out to dealer Walt Lidstrom in the 1960s. From there, it staye dwith his family in his personal collection of thumbnails and toenails which they kept long after he passed away, selling only a few years ago. Bill Pinch snagged this one immediately, realizing its scientific and historic importance as it had the valid label and documentation therefore to show it as a Kimberly Mine piece and not jsut a diamond from the Kimberly Mining Company's many later mines. I had to trade him a really important ugly black rock, to get this!