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Have Hope Will Sparkle
1.7k Plays17 days ago
This is an episode worthy of going into the "rock" star hall of fame - get ready for an exciting hour about the Hope Diamond!
Host Ben Miller is joined by Melise Ozkardesler to discuss this curious object, its history and the world of collecting ancient gemstones.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Curious Objects' and the Hope Diamond
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to by the magazine Antiques. I'm Ben Miller. This is the podcast about art, decorative arts, and antiques, the stories behind them, and what they can reveal to us about ourselves and the people who came before us.
00:00:25
Speaker
Now, today's Curious Object is the most famous gemstone in the world. And what I'm talking about, of course, is the Hope Diamond.
Debunking Myths about the Hope Diamond
00:00:34
Speaker
Now, before we even start, i need you to forget what you think you know about the Hope Diamond, because my guest today is going to tear up misconceptions and just maybe do a WWE style takedown. So get ready for some controversy, because one question she's going to answer for us is why would someone take one of the most magnificent diamonds in the history of the world
00:01:02
Speaker
and essentially ruin it. My guest is Melisse Oskerdesler, who you might know on Instagram as Moon Honey Jewelry.
Jeweler's Perspective on Historical Pieces
00:01:12
Speaker
She is Brooklyn-based jeweler who makes beautiful original pieces in her studio here.
00:01:18
Speaker
And she's also a jewelry historian who unlocks fascinating stories and surprising facts, both in her Instagram videos and on her podcast, Ancient History Jewelry Stories.
00:01:29
Speaker
But the great thing about Melisse is that she approaches jewelry history from a jeweler's point of view. So when she tells you about something like, for example, the Hope Diamond, she actually knows technically why stones were cut or set in a particular way, which I think is very cool and quite unusual.
Challenges in Authenticating Ancient Jewelry
00:01:47
Speaker
Melisse, thanks for joining me. Hi, Ben. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. Are you ready for some rapid-fire questions? Absolutely. You talk a lot about ancient jewelry on your various platforms, so I would love to know what is the oldest piece of jewelry that you've actually handled?
00:02:04
Speaker
Well... Nothing quite as ancient as the pieces that I generally like to talk about. The oldest piece that I've handled is going to have to be a Renaissance-era pendant. Although, now that I say this to you, I feel like I have to give you the disclaimer that it is a bit unclear whether the pendant that I was allowed to look over and touch and imagine wearing was a true Renaissance piece or perhaps a Victorian-era pastiche. So parts of it were almost definitely Renaissance-era pastiche.
00:02:35
Speaker
But the entire piece itself may have been put together sometime in the 19th century. And personally, i love those Renaissance revival pieces, but sometimes it's a little tricky to tell the difference.
Critique of Overpriced Legacy Jewelry Brands
00:02:46
Speaker
What's the most absurd price that you've ever seen paid for something that you considered aesthetically questionable?
00:02:54
Speaker
Oh, I've been doing a series about this. and This has really, this has been, i think some of my most popular content in the last year and a half that I've been doing this. And it shocked me with the amount of attention it's gotten. i personally think that a lot of what we consider legacy brands are churning out mass produced nonsense at prices that I think are just Unbelievable. And I'm going to be talking about the Return to Tiffany collection next week and the solid gold version of the necklace with the heart tag retails for over $13,000. Right. For a piece that's mass produced with what, $1,000 worth gold weight. Maybe a little more considering the high price of gold right now, but you know, it's it's a curb chain with a pendant. It's not rocket science and it's not...
00:03:39
Speaker
indistinguishable from 1000 fakes. So I think right now that to me has sort of stolen the crown for most audacious pricing of what I consider to be a fairly milquetoast design.
Provenance of Ancient Jewelry
00:03:52
Speaker
Okay, what is a common misconception that people have about historic jewelry that drives you nuts?
00:03:59
Speaker
that everything is in some sense stolen. I get a lot of commentary from people that everything has to come from grave robbing. And that is that's true in a lot of cases. There are a lot of instances of, especially older finds, coming from what yeah, it's it's grave robbing. There are pieces that have no provenance and their historical record has been decimated because they were taken without any archeological concern. But there are also a lot of pieces that somehow have managed to find their way to modern times with a solid provenance, with ah people who have inherited them down the line, especially when we're talking out of the ancient range and more into sort of Byzantine and medieval. Some of these pieces did actually exist in families for centuries and have just made it to modern times in completely innocuous and explainable ways.
00:04:49
Speaker
So I think there is this idea that everything older or ancient has to have been gotten through sketchy means. And that isn't necessarily true. And we could probably do a whole episode about jewelry that maybe it wasn't stolen or that that is maybe less or should be less controversial
Inspiration from Historical Jewelry Designers
00:05:07
Speaker
than it is. But that's for another day.
00:05:09
Speaker
If you could spend a day in one artist or craftsperson's historic studio, who would it be? Oh, I mean, there's a handful of people I think I'd like to shadow for an entire day. But if I'm going to spend 24 hours with someone that I think I could gain knowledge and inspiration from, it would have to be the 19th century French george jeweler, Georges Fouquet.
00:05:32
Speaker
I think his designs are so otherworldly and innovative and took jewelry to completely new heights as an art form. I think he probably wouldn't have been as interesting or exciting to sit down and have a chat with as I'd imagined, but being in his workshop and seeing his people working on the pieces they produced probably would be very thrilling.
00:05:52
Speaker
What's the most unexpected place where you've come across a historical tidbit about jewelry?
Jewelry in Film: Historical Accuracy
00:05:58
Speaker
Maybe this isn't... necessarily completely in the spirit of the question you're asking, but I was remarkably impressed by the accuracy of the jewelry used in the movie Alexander. that's ah you know, people like to dissect historical costumes and jewels. And that was one where i was seeing styles that
00:06:24
Speaker
at the time I did not realize were completely accurate to the era they were portraying. And now in hindsight, I'm so impressed by, it's not a very good movie. You know, I'm not gonna tell everyone they need to go out and watch Alexander. It's not a great piece of cinema, but the jewelry is pretty much spot on for the the time, the place and the socioeconomic status of the people they are portraying.
Intrigue of the Missing Russian Diadem
00:06:50
Speaker
What's a historic jewelry mystery that you're dying to solve? What happened to the Russian diadem of ancient pearls? The Russian diadem of ancient pearls. What is that?
00:07:03
Speaker
It is a massive, they call it a diadem. It is a tiara. It's really tottering on the edge of being too large to be called a tiara. And it was confiscated by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution in the early 20th century. It is a massive tiara composed of diamonds and pearls that may have gone all the way back to Catherine the Great.
00:07:26
Speaker
It was made for Empress Alexandra and... it could be taken apart and worn in at least seven different ways. One of those magical pieces that was so well thought out, probably made by the court jeweler Bolin, and could be disassembled into various parts that could then be reassembled to create much smaller diadems.
00:07:47
Speaker
And it hasn't been seen since 1922 when it was featured in a photograph of confiscated imperial jewels taken by the Bolsheviks. So... That is gone. And I'd like to imagine that there are six different people each holding a component of this, none the wiser, not knowing that they've got, you know, it put together becomes this Voltron an incredible 20 pound diamond and pearl tiara.
Learning Curve in Video Editing
00:08:13
Speaker
What's a skill that you're currently trying to master outside of your work? Video editing. Yeah.
00:08:22
Speaker
This is something I was not prepared to have to master. And i have so much respect for the people who put together these 30, 40, 60 minute YouTube videos that include sensational clean, crisp editing, engaging visuals. It is very difficult.
00:08:39
Speaker
I've gone from making these, well, first it was 90 seconds because of the Instagram Reels limit to three minute to videos. And now I'm doing full length 20 to 30 minute video podcasts. And it's both exhausting and the learning curve is very steep.
00:08:54
Speaker
What's an antique or historic piece that you regret not buying when you had the chance?
Regret Over Missed Jewelry Purchase
00:09:00
Speaker
There's a pair of earrings in Barcelona. They are from the late 1700s.
00:09:06
Speaker
They are carved coral fruits and leaves. set on gilded silver wires, and the price was very attainable. I must say they were priced well below $1,000, and they're this lovely little antique shop.
00:09:22
Speaker
And I didn't purchase them because i felt that I was being greedy, as I had already purchased a pair of early 19th century Iberian filigree earrings with seed pearls on them.
00:09:35
Speaker
In hindsight, I was being a little too hard on myself and I should have bought the earrings. At that price, I'm never going to find them again. I love how quickly you had that answer, very close to hand. Yeah, I mean, they were they were entirely justifiable from a price point perspective and I was just trying to be good, whatever that means. Hopefully you'll be less virtuous next time around. it's A little
Essential Tools for Jewelry Making
00:10:00
Speaker
greedier. What's the one tool in your jewelry kit that you couldn't live without?
00:10:05
Speaker
Oh, um this is so not an ancient tool, my flexible shaft rotary tool. It's good for everything. It's, um you know, you put all of your little bits and burrs in it and you use it for your polishing, your cutting, your shaping. I do use mostly ancient techniques when I work on my pieces, but this is one that I couldn't live without. And I do feel that if you showed this to the ancient Romans and the Greeks and they had the benefit of electricity, they would have been beside themselves. Yeah.
00:10:32
Speaker
You know, progress is a good thing. Yes, I have to, you know, and i do what I can, but I also acknowledge that we have the benefit of electricity. it really is. Yeah, I enjoy
Debate on Pronunciation of 'Jewelry'
00:10:45
Speaker
that very much. Pretty magical.
00:10:47
Speaker
So what is your honest opinion about saying jewelry versus jewelry? Well, I say jewelry and it gets me in hot water with quite a few people. I am, ah first off, English is not my first language.
00:11:02
Speaker
I didn't learn it until I got into elementary school. I also learned in Miami. So I i pronounced the L in Salmon as well. ah That never really comes up in my discussions, so it's not something anybody has ever taken me to task for. But I'm of the opinion that English is basically four languages in a trench coat pretending to be one. And it is a language that doesn't take itself seriously, so we really shouldn't bother taking it seriously either.
00:11:28
Speaker
And that colloquial pronunciations are valid and not quote-unquote incorrect. So I say jewelry, jewelry, I understand that a good portion of the English-speaking world says it that way as well because of the original British English spelling of Jewelry with an L-L-E-R-Y at the end.
00:11:49
Speaker
um At this point, if someone's going to be aggressive about it, they're not allowed to watch my content. Because if this is what you're taking from the content that I make, the research that I do, and the information that I present, you're not paying attention and you're focusing on the wrong things. So I do have this discussion with people far more often than I ever thought I would.
00:12:12
Speaker
And i will say, never in my life did I consider that I may not be saying it correctly until I started making videos last year.
Critique of Permanent Jewelry Trend
00:12:22
Speaker
It never came up before this. Social media will really bring people out of the woodwork, won't Absolutely. And I will also say it seems to be a certain age bracket that takes real issue with this. And this is not an ageist statement, but I do think that maybe there used to be far more emphasis put on what is considered the proper pronunciation of jewelry or jewelry and not jewelry, my uncouth and vulgar pronunciation. And younger people,
00:12:49
Speaker
Don't seem to notice or care or have never thought there might be a difference. I do think that there is a certain number of people who think that a preference about the Oxford comma is a personality trait. a weird hill to die on. um I think the English language is great, but... all right, you are just full of very reasonable hot takes today. So let me see if I can get one more from you. um Tell me what is a modern jewelry trend that you think is going to be ridiculed by jewelry historians in 100 Permanent jewelry.
00:13:26
Speaker
It's just coming from a safety standpoint, not smart. You know, it it isn't a great idea to have a chain solder to your wrist. If you end up in the yeah ER, they're going to have to saw it off of you. If you end up needing an MRI, you have to go back to a jeweler to take it off of you. I understand the appeal of it.
00:13:42
Speaker
I have a wrist full of bracelets that I don't take off unless I need to, but I can take them all off. I think any piece of jewelry that requires the help of a professional to remove it from your body is, well, first off, trend and fad driven. um It's not going to last long. I think people are realizing, you know, after they've had to have it cut off in the ER that it's not practical but it's not smart.
00:14:05
Speaker
People end up with all manner of weird injuries because they were wearing something when they shouldn't. I don't know. I think the cyborg historians of the future might disagree with you on that one.
00:14:16
Speaker
Potentially, because when you can take your whole bionic arm off, I guess it doesn't matter one way or the other. Exactly. All right. Well, you made it through the rapid fire questions.
Podcast Support and Engagement
00:14:27
Speaker
Congratulations.
00:14:27
Speaker
And we will be right back with Melisse Oscar Dessler.
00:14:34
Speaker
As always, I just want to take a minute to thank you all for listening and to say thank you for getting in touch with me and sharing your thoughts. All of you who take the time to to listen and learn with me about these curious objects are the reason we do this show.
00:14:50
Speaker
If you haven't subscribed to Curious Objects on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, I highly recommend it. That way you won't miss future episode episodes when they come out. And thanks to all of you who have heard an episode and told a friend or your parents or your children about it or, I don't know, your college roommate because you think they might find it interesting.
00:15:10
Speaker
That word of mouth is really the best way for Curious Objects to grow. We don't advertise. It's all fully grassroots. We don't have a paywall for our episodes. So I'm really relying on you to help us reach new listeners.
00:15:24
Speaker
Another way you can help with that is by leaving a review in your podcast app. One recent Apple podcast reviewer said, curious objects has opened my eye to other areas of collecting.
00:15:35
Speaker
I've collected for years in very specific, relatively narrow areas. I love discovering that there are people collecting other beautiful things. And I love hearing that because I think, you know, most people come to decorative arts and art and collecting through some gateway drug, whether that's, you know, your your childhood rock collection or a designer you discovered in college or an artist you came across in an exhibition. But then once you're through that gateway, you can explore in really infinite directions. And hopefully curious objects can help you do that.
00:16:07
Speaker
So once again, thanks for all your support. And now let's get back to the Hope Diamond.
Hope Diamond's Infamous Curse
00:16:17
Speaker
So, Melise, we are of course going to get into the history of the stone, but let's start with this. Why, out of all of the extraordinary gemstones in the world, is the Hope Diamond so damn famous?
00:16:30
Speaker
I think it has had very good PR. I think the Hope Diamond comes with a legendary history that doesn't even go that far back. You know, most people are not familiar with the whereabouts of the stone prior to the early 20th century.
00:16:51
Speaker
And I think the number one thing people know about this stone is that it's rumored to be cursed. I, for one, don't believe in cursed stones, but I do know that they make for a fantastic story.
00:17:07
Speaker
Every stone that is said to be, quote unquote, cursed, is one that captures the imagination. It's the same with King Tutankhamun's tomb and the supposed curse. I think that went a long way towards keeping the mythos and enigma of the story alive. So I think the hope diamond is in the modern consciousness, mostly because...
00:17:31
Speaker
People know that it is supposed to be cursed and that everyone who has owned it has had some terrible fate befall them. Does this say something about the schadenfreude that people experience when the uber wealthy meet misfortune? Probably.
00:17:47
Speaker
I think there's a ah little chunk of that that can be attributed to people who could never own a stone like that, which is genuinely 99.9% of us thinking, oh, well, good. Something bad happened to this person who could own this marvelous and tremendously expensive thing that I will never even have a hope of seeing outside of within a glass display case.
00:18:09
Speaker
but I think that's really why the stone is so famous. It is a very rare and unusual diamond. It's a completely untreated blue diamond. It's a very deep blue color. Blue diamonds are exceptionally rare.
00:18:25
Speaker
they're generally not that large either. So it has that going for it. But I do think really, truly, most people just know about it because it's supposedly cursed.
00:18:37
Speaker
So you mentioned being able to see it in a display case.
Transport of the Hope Diamond to Smithsonian
00:18:40
Speaker
And it's true, you can go see the Hope Diamond today at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. But as you alluded to, until a few years ago, it was really a mystery where that stone actually came from, right? I mean, if we were having this conversation 20 years ago, what could you actually have told me about its history back then?
00:19:00
Speaker
I could tell you what people thought the origins of the stone were, but nothing was proven. 20 years ago, i think people would still be talking about the fact that it was...
00:19:14
Speaker
donated, i guess, technically to the Smithsonian by Harry Winston. And that initially when it was sent from New York to Washington, DC, it was done so in a standard USPS package.
00:19:26
Speaker
really They made a huge to do about putting it in a special rail car with high security and a safety lock box. And it was all obfuscation. while they put it in a USPS parcel and sent it through the mail. So I think that that is a big chunk of its history that maybe isn't so prominent in people's idea about the stone anymore. But when it happened in the nineteen sixty s it was a huge deal. It's like this...
00:19:52
Speaker
Great caper that the stone was being sent by the trusty United States Postal Service. Score one for the USPS. Absolutely. i mean, I have found them to be mostly reliable, too. I'm not sending hope diamonds, but, you know, I think prior to that, it was also known as something that was owned by a few very audacious public figures.
00:20:15
Speaker
You know, its um let's name dates back to the early 19th century, and I'm sure we'll get to that part, but there is no hope who owned the stone in recent memory.
00:20:26
Speaker
Its most recent famous owner was Evelyn Walsh McLean. And she was famous for wearing it in all sorts of places and situations where you do not wear an enormous blue diamond.
00:20:40
Speaker
She would fasten it to the collar of her Great Dane. She would wear it on roller coasters. She wore it on a boat to go lobster fishing. So she was very, very,
00:20:51
Speaker
very in love with this stone, but she wasn't scared to wear it. And I think that really captured the American population. This was at a time when we still had what were called dollar princesses, you know, the the socialites of American society whose wealth rivaled even the royal families of England. and Evelyn Walsh McLean, she bought the stone from Cartier in 1910. So this is the tail end of the Gilded Age. This is when women were becoming more liberated and the concept of the flapper was, you know, just Kind of still in gestation, but women like her were were becoming the blueprint for crazy, wild women who loved life and weren't scared to do things like wear their giant blue diamond on a roller coaster.
00:21:35
Speaker
So that I think 20 years ago, that's the history most people would be talking about. Yeah, so, okay, then let's rewind a ways because now we know more about its origins and the trajectory that it's followed through the decades, through the centuries.
History and Origins of the Hope Diamond
00:21:49
Speaker
So I think, you know, one of the really interesting things about this diamond is that it's had these multiple lives, which have been shrouded in in mystery. So take me back to the very beginning from when this stone was first pulled out of the earth.
00:22:05
Speaker
And based on what we know, start to fill me in on, ah well, on what this thing has been through. Well, its original incarnation, at least once it made its way to Europe, would be essentially unrecognizable to most people who have seen the Hope Diamond, or even those who haven't and just have ah an image of it in their mind.
00:22:24
Speaker
The first record we get of the Hope Diamond is... a fairly unusual cut of stone. It's what I would refer to as a table cut. It has very few facets and it is much, much larger than the diamond that we now know. The current Hope diamond is just over 45 carats, but when this stone first made its way to France, it was 112 carats. Three times the size.
00:22:50
Speaker
carrots three times the size three times the size. and It made its way to France in the 1660s, probably 1666, and it was brought by a man named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier.
00:23:04
Speaker
The stone was originally known as the Tavernier Blue. Tavernier was a gem dealer and adventurer who brought quite a few very large and significant gemstones to Europe, specifically France, and he was bringing them from India.
00:23:19
Speaker
Prior to the European colonization of the Americas, almost every single diamond came from India. Every single one. Historically, for thousands of years, every diamond made its way from one route or another from India.
00:23:34
Speaker
um This stone specifically most likely came from the Kolar Mine in Golconda, which is where a lot of the most beautiful and most famous Indian diamonds come from. And to people who are listening and saying, well, what about South Africa? Diamonds were not discovered in South Africa until the end of the 19th century, like truly the very end. So South Africa's history as a source of diamond mining, very new in its infancy compared to how long India has been producing beautiful diamonds.
00:23:59
Speaker
So Tavernier brought the stone in 1666. He writes about it. He describes it as a beautiful violet color. From what I understand, the word violet was often used to describe colors anywhere from our conception of purple to a deep navy blue.
00:24:16
Speaker
So it it wasn't a purple stone, but they would have described it as vi as violet. And it had, as I said, a fairly crude cut by modern standards.
00:24:27
Speaker
It was also described as having perfect clarity. That's remarkable for a stone of that size, especially a colored diamond. 120 carat blue diamond with perfect clarity. That's really astonishing. Yeah. And you could really tell because it was just this flat table cut. You could see right through it, no facets to bounce light back at you. It was just this almost looked like a...
00:24:52
Speaker
solid piece of Caribbean water. And would it have been cut in India or brought back to Europe first? I think it was initially cut in India. This is a style of cutting that is often associated with Indian stones. It would have made sense for Tavernier to either have had it cut in India or have bought the stone already roughly cut. I imagine that whoever initially sold this stone to him probably had whatever imperfections or surface roughs cut off of it in order to make it a more attractive sale. And Tavernier, you know, he knew his stuff. He he knew this was an exceptionally unique and valuable stone. I'm sure he would have bought it in its rough state as well.
00:25:36
Speaker
But just cutting some of the surface inclusions and such off the stone would have definitely made it that much more attractive. I'm curious about the color because, you know, with colored gems, often the larger the stone, the deeper the color, right? Because there's just more material ah in the gemstone to capture and refract the light.
00:25:58
Speaker
Do you suppose that the original 122 carat stone would have been even more vibrantly colored than the stone that we see today? I think in a sense, yes, because the stone that we see today is actually rather dark.
00:26:11
Speaker
And we'll get to my opinion of the modern cut later in this yeah podcast. But I think it's entirely likely that the original Tavernier Blue was brighter, but lighter. So less intensity of color, but much more vibrancy to it.
00:26:31
Speaker
Tonally lighter, but probably a much more arresting bright blue. Right. So then what happens to it in France?
Transformation from Tavernier Blue to French Blue
00:26:40
Speaker
So he sells it. He sells it to King Louis XIV. 1668, he sells it to Louis the fourteenth along with 14 other large diamonds. It's hard to say exactly which large diamonds he sold along with it, but it's reasonable to assume that some of the larger diamonds in the French crown jewels were probably part of this lot.
00:27:01
Speaker
and There are a few whose provenance go back much farther than this, so we can be sure it wasn't part of the sale, but I believe the Regent Diamond is suspected to have been part of this 14 diamond lot along with the Tavernier Blue.
00:27:17
Speaker
So he sells it to Louis XIV, somebody who had a penchant for glittery things. He was really into gems and wearing them. He was an ostentatious man. If you've ever seen paintings of him, it's pretty clear that this is the kind of guy who's going to buy 15 big diamonds from Tavernier.
00:27:38
Speaker
He sells them for what is considered to be a fairly low sum. I think the Tavernier Blue is cited as being sold for something like 50,000 francs, which doesn't equate to much, but...
00:27:51
Speaker
he probably was given a noble title as part of his payment, which would have been worth about 10 times more than whatever monetary compensation he got for the stone. so Wow.
00:28:02
Speaker
So you're saying an antique dealer like me could maybe work my way into the ranks of the nobility? If you meet the right French king, it's entirely possible. You're going to have to show up with a very large, perfectly clear blue diamond, though. Thanks. Okay. I'll take that. and So Louis XIV buys the stone, and he buys it in its crude cut. he recognizes its He recognizes its value, and he recognizes that it's a fairly beautiful stone. And in 1673, he has it recut by his court jeweler, piow
00:28:35
Speaker
This is when it gets a new shape and a new name. It gets cut down from the 112 carats to 67 and 1 eighth carats, which is still a fairly sizable diamond.
00:28:47
Speaker
And it takes on a really unique shape. It gets cut into what I would describe as a shield shape. And what makes it so unique is that the back of the stone, instead of having what's called a pointed culet, which modern diamonds have, they come to a point in the back. This is specifically so that all of those facets can reflect light back out of the stone. It is cut flat in the back with a seven ray sun pattern.
00:29:17
Speaker
Louis XIV was the Sun King. This was reflected in iconography throughout the palaces, his wardrobe, everything pointed back to him being the Sun King.
00:29:28
Speaker
And this seven-rayed sun on the back of the diamond was another allusion to his title. Because the cut in the back was essentially flat, it didn't reflect light back out, but acted almost as a perfect window to see through the stone.
00:29:44
Speaker
The rest of the stone was faceted, it sparkles, it glitters. Based on every reconstruction we have, you can tell that this was a a real sparkly rock. But this seven-rayed sun allowed them to back the diamond with gold and give the illusion of a golden sun in the back of the of the stone. Foilbacked?
00:30:05
Speaker
There is some debate as to whether it was foil backed or simply set into a gold backing initially on a pin, um because we have very few records of the beginning of the life of this stone once it was cut from the Tavernier Blue, which now it is called the French Blue. They're no longer referring to it as the Tavernier Blue, but the French Blue.
00:30:27
Speaker
it's It's possible that both things happen, that perhaps it was foiled and at some point was also just set into a gold backing. But whatever the case, the stone was cut specifically so that gold could show through and create this illusion of a sun for the sun king.
00:30:42
Speaker
And it really is. It's very pretty. and How we know this, we'll get into as well. But just a ah really gorgeous, unusual cut. It was also known as the blue diamond of the crown, but I think French blue is a little less wordy.
00:30:55
Speaker
So it was worn, I think this is very silly, initially worn suspended from a ribbon around the king's neck. Holy smokes. Yep. So he he wore this for special occasions. It wasn't a piece of everyday jewelry, of course. This is a very large, very large diamond. But it seems that he was really fond of this stone. So it's something he...
00:31:18
Speaker
wore frequently enough for it to have been mentioned. Unfortunately, no portraits or paintings of him wearing the stone, but it was something he enjoyed wearing and seems to have enjoyed wearing maybe more than some of his other large diamonds.
00:31:32
Speaker
Do you think so? Okay, so we're not yet at the point in the story where the most egregious error is committed, right? But we've already seen this 122 carats cut down to 67. Yeah. Was that mistake?
00:31:45
Speaker
yeah was that a mistake I don't know that I would call it a mistake. And i was 112. I do love that you keep adding carrots to this because I'd like it to be as big as possible. 247 carrots. It was a 3000 carat blue diamond. and I don't think it was a mistake because based on what we know of the French blue, it was a very masterfully cut stone.
00:32:09
Speaker
And I think there is something to be said for the beauty of a well-cut gem and how that can sometimes create more value than sheer weight.
00:32:22
Speaker
We're going to get back to that concept. But I do think that the court jeweler, Patel, did a phenomenal job cutting this piece. probably to the maximum size that it could be cut into for the shape that they wanted it to be while amplifying the beauty of this diamond.
00:32:41
Speaker
Okay. So in this case, no. I think that was fine. That was not a mistake. All right. So Louis XIV escapes your judgment. We can judge him for many things, but not this one. So 1672, stone is cut into what's now called the French blue.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yes. Worn suspended from a ribbon like a cat. And then let's fast forward another 120 or so. I think we do have to take a quick detour to 1715.
00:33:07
Speaker
This is when Louis the fifteenth inherits it and he puts it into what is called an insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The Order of the Golden Fleece is a chivalric order. They still exist, which I think is wild. And they have a very unique insignia. It is ah a golden fleece, as the name suggests, which is always portrayed as a very limp-looking sheep. It is a fleece, but it has its head and it has its hooves and it has its little tail. And it's suspended from the center, usually by some kind of ribbon or band. And Louis XV worked together with his court jeweler to create this...
00:33:44
Speaker
very ostentatious insignia that he could wear for special events and for court assemblies and such. So he has it set into this large piece of jewelry and it's got something interesting going on. You mentioned foiled stones.
00:34:00
Speaker
The sheep in the fleece is studded with yellow diamonds but they are not actually yellow diamonds they are painted the backs of the diamonds were painted yellow in order to give the illusion of sort of you know a golden fleece so um this is something you don't yeah you never hear about this And it's set into this insignia along with another French crown jewel that I'm very, very fond of called the Cote de Britannia spinel, which is a large red spinel carved into the shape of a recumbent dragon. And it looks like a piece of gummy candy. It is one of the most delicious looking stones I have ever encountered. You want to taste it. It looks like maybe it tastes like raspberries. So this is the next transition in the stone's life when it gets put into this
00:34:51
Speaker
emblem of power, essentially. And this being an emblem of power is kind of instrumental in setting up what happens next, because it's you know quite quite distinctive. And it says something more than a stone suspended from a ribbon around the neck. It says that this is something more valuable than a piece of jewelry. This is now a symbol.
00:35:16
Speaker
um So yeah, now we will we will fast forward to where you were bringing us, which is, I'm assuming, the end of the 18th century. Specifically 1789, right? 1792. Okay. You're being precise about your history, and I'm jumping forward to the salacious parts of it.
00:35:34
Speaker
Well, don't let the history get in the way of the story. But the revolution hits, heads are rolling, and then in the middle of all of that, you know, there's there's chaos. So many of the possessions of the French king and the royal court are being cast to the four winds. They're being melted. They're being sold, stolen. You know, all manner of, you know, insundry stuff is going on with these possessions, right? And in the midst of all this chaos, the diamond...
00:36:01
Speaker
just kind of disappears, right? I mean, kind of like ah national treasure, right? But a lot more bloody. Yes. I mean, they could have benefited from Nick Cage.
00:36:16
Speaker
It's, yeah, as you said, 1789. So the start of the French Revolution, eventually Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are imprisoned.
Theft During the French Revolution
00:36:23
Speaker
We've got the Franco-Prussian War. We've got...
00:36:28
Speaker
people literally being beheaded in the streets, Paris is on fire, and in the midst of all this, all of the French crown jewels are confiscated. They are brought to the royal treasury, which gets robbed. It gets robbed over a series of multiple days in 1792, which is what I was jumping ahead to, the salacious part of the story, and 90% of what was in the French crown jewels gets stolen.
00:36:54
Speaker
ostensibly carted out by a group of thieves with their pockets. There are multiple different theories about what actually happened, why it happened, what the gems were being used to so to buy and pay for. I'm not a military historian. I don't even want to dip my toe into those waters because I think there are people who know far, far, far more than I do. All I know is that the diamonds went somewhere else. And yeah most of these stolen French crown jewels were actually found pretty quickly within a year or two.
00:37:25
Speaker
the The majority of these stones were recovered. So you have the Sansi diamond, the Regent diamond, the Hortensia, you have all of these massive diamonds. Some were found in the rafters of a Parisian attic. Some were found having been sold to other people with money who were taking advantage of the...
00:37:41
Speaker
French Revolution and everything basically going at a bargain basement sale price. But the French blue in its insignia of the order of the golden fleece, because it was stolen as one entire piece, is just gone.
00:37:56
Speaker
This is a stone that they cannot recover. They find delicious looking carved spinel dragon pretty quickly. So it's clear that somebody disassembled the order insignia.
00:38:09
Speaker
But they don't find the French blue. And they can't find the French blue. And eventually, it's no longer that noteworthy or that important for them to try to recover the French blue. At the time, the prevailing sentiment was that colored diamonds were not as valuable as perfectly clear white diamonds. So...
00:38:29
Speaker
They weren't really that bothered looking for the French blue. They found all of their other massive French crown jewels. And this one to them was kind of inconsequential. So we don't hear about it for, boy, well over a century.
00:38:46
Speaker
it's just It's just gone. And in the meantime, a new blue diamond
Reappearance and Recuts of the Diamond
00:38:51
Speaker
pops up. In 1812, we have a 45.52 carat stone, so I mean, much smaller than what we were talking about with the French blue, popping up in London.
00:39:04
Speaker
This is initially known as Eliasson's diamond, named after a gem dealer, Daniel Eliasson. And it shows up in his ledgers very conveniently two days after the 20-year statute of limitations ran out on crimes committed during the French Revolution. is Two days. Eliasson wasted no time. He checked his calendar and he said, huh.
00:39:30
Speaker
looks like it's time. I think Eliasson and perhaps whoever brought the stone to him knew exactly where this diamond came from. um And for those of you who are still wondering why we're talking about two completely different diamonds, the French blue and the hope diamond, they are one in the same. and it was suspected all the way in the early 19th century that this might be the case, but there was no proof. So even all the way back in 1812, clearly,
00:39:58
Speaker
people understood that there was a really big chance that this was part of the French blue. Eliasson waited two days until he could no longer legally get in trouble for having this stone. And here it is. It's on the market.
00:40:10
Speaker
It's something that may have been in the possession of King George IV for a little while. He sold it to pay his debts.
00:40:21
Speaker
That's how it ended up with Eliasson. We don't actually have concrete proof of that. That's more theorizing than anything. But even all the way back to 1812, people are suspecting that this is cut from the French blue. Because this is only, what, 20 years after? Yeah, 20 years and two days after it was stolen. So it's...
00:40:41
Speaker
Maybe not necessarily super fresh in people's memories, but they do remember. The French Revolution was not that far behind them that people forget that a whole bunch of jewels went missing. yeah So this stone is suspected to be part of the French blue, but nobody can prove it.
00:40:57
Speaker
It was recut into its current shape as an attempt at obfuscation. It was not recut the way that the tavernier blue was recut into the French blue in an attempt to beautify. It was a hack job.
00:41:09
Speaker
You can ask any lapidary artist, any gem dealer, anybody who has an interest or knowledge of gemstone cuts, and they will tell you that this is not a particularly well-cut stone.
00:41:26
Speaker
It dulls the color. it It's not an even cut either. If you look at the Hope Diamond in its current shape, it's it's kind of wonky. It's an uneven oval.
00:41:38
Speaker
And as good of a job as Harry Winston did putting it into its... original setting and now current setting, you can still tell that it's a wonky stone. And at this point, the ability to cut and at least visually symmetrical stone existed because the French blue looked very symmetrical.
00:41:56
Speaker
We know now that it wasn't because we have evidence to show that it wasn't. But all of the replicas that have been made, it looks like a symmetrically cut stone. And the hope is not. It's It's lost a bit of its luster. The color is duller than it should be for a stone of this clarity. And it's clear that whoever had it in the intervening 20 years just sort of lopped pieces off of it in order to make it less recognizable. Because again, that French blue had a very distinctive cut and it had that seven ray
00:42:27
Speaker
sun pattern on the back and that's where the stone suffered the most. A large chunk of the weight that was taken off was taking away that sun pattern in the back. So this is like, I mean, this is really kind of amazing to think about one of the most extraordinary diamonds in the history of planet Earth. would just be sliced and diced in order to make it a little harder to figure out that it had been stolen.
00:42:52
Speaker
I'm curious, as a jeweler, when you see what they did, and you know, i mean, we now have an idea of what the French blue looked like, and obviously know what it looks like now.
00:43:05
Speaker
i mean, looking at that, hu how does that make you feel? Well... It's maddening in the same way that people selling antiquities without provenance because they've destroyed the archaeological record is maddening. We've lost this historically beautiful stone in a cut that I think was really unique, not just by a modern standards, but unique for its time as well. It was masterfully cut.
00:43:35
Speaker
It was cut in a way that was... completely unusual and unlike anything else from its time. and it's something that we will never see the original of. And because the Hope Diamond has such historic value, that's never going to be recut.
00:43:52
Speaker
Do I think it should be recut? I mean, i don't think it needs to be beautified. I think it has enough of a story with it. But it's upsetting to know that this beautiful stone, and it's not the only one. So many stones have been recut and modernized over time. This incredibly unique, distinctive, and beautiful stone has been reduced to what it is, which is still...
00:44:14
Speaker
I don't want to detract too much from the Hope Diamond. It's still stunning. It just isn't as stunning as it could be yeah we're We're never going to be able to see this, although we can get an idea of what it looked like.
00:44:28
Speaker
And we can only do this because very recently, and I mean very recently, 2000... two thousand hi I think it was, they found a lead model of the French blue in the storage of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
00:44:47
Speaker
Just this little lead cast, clearly somebody had taken the original French blue, maybe made a sand mold or a clay mold out of it and poured lead into it. And it's this perfect one-to-one facsimile of the French blue diamond. It was originally mislabeled as being one of the yeah ah a cast of one of the stones in the collection of the Portuguese crown jewels. And then someone found it and said,
00:45:11
Speaker
wait a minute, this looks familiar. And it led to this whole new way of approaching the history of the Hope Diamond. This little lead cast is what made it possible for the Smithsonian to not only create a replica of the French blue, but for researchers to determine that the Hope Diamond is almost certainly the recut French blue. Before this, we had conjecture, we had guesswork, we had...
00:45:40
Speaker
people bouncing ideas off of each other and nobody could give you a yes or no answer. We have great sketches of the Tavernier Blue before it was recut. We have great gouache sketches of the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece with the French Blue in it, but there was no scale model until they found this lead cast sitting dusty in a storage closet.
00:46:04
Speaker
So this was something that really opened the door to being able to pick away at the little loose threads of the Hope Diamond's history and give it back the remainder of its story.
00:46:19
Speaker
I love that at the end of the day, it's something as humble as lead. It's such a base material that opens up the key to understanding one of the most valuable objects in the world.
00:46:30
Speaker
I feel like alchemists would love this, you know, like the the lead obsession sort in classical alchemy. um It's, yeah, it's it's not a very impressive looking thing either. I saw it. I went to the Museum of Natural History in Paris specifically on a mission to go see this little lead cast. And they have a fantastic collection because they have Any of the French crown jewels that are not on display at the Louvre that the French government didn't sell off at the end of the 19th century, and that's a whole other story, are at the Museum of Natural History. So they have a few pieces there, and I specifically went on a pilgrimage to go see them.
00:47:06
Speaker
And it's a very unassuming little thing. If you didn't know what you were looking at, you wouldn't think it was anything special. It doesn't glitter. It doesn't shine. It's a dull little piece of lead. You can see the facets. You can see the shape on the back of it. You can see that pointed seven rays sun pattern, but it it doesn't look like much. It certainly doesn't look like one of history's most notable diamonds. Yeah.
00:47:29
Speaker
But it's the thing that allowed us to piece together what happened, where this other large blue diamond came from, and it has allowed the Smithsonian to create perfect cubic zirconia replicas of the Tavernier Blue, the French Blue, and the Hope, so you can see the transition from one cut to another.
00:47:51
Speaker
And these replicas are how I can tell you fairly confidently that the stone suffered when it was recut, the color suffered when it was recut, The beauty of the thing overall was diminished because we know now exactly what the French glue looked like. And by the way, listeners, you can see some pictures of those replicas at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast. If you're curious, I recommend it. It's a lot of fun to try to piece together, you know, how the the first turns into the second turns into the third. But so, okay, I have one more question about the history of the stone, and then i I want to back up and talk a little more broadly about diamonds. But the one question that you haven't answered for me yet is, why is it called the Hope Diamond?
Acquisition by Henry Philip Hope
00:48:36
Speaker
Oh, it's not even that, it's not an exciting story. yeah The name comes from a gem collector and banker named Henry Philip Hope. The stone, after it resurfaced in 1812, it kind of goes away for a little while longer, and then it shows up in Henry Philip Hope's collection in 1839.
00:48:54
Speaker
From here, we have a very clear chain of possession. The only reason the name stuck, I think, was because there was some controversy about who inherited the stone when Henry Hope died. So, um you know, his widow Anne gets it, then she gives it to her grandson, Lord Francis Hope.
00:49:12
Speaker
She didn't give it to her own children because she was worried that her son would sell it to finance his lavish lifestyle. It turns out that's exactly what her grandson ended up doing. Then it goes to a diamond merchant in New York City. That's how it gets all the way over here. by the way, wasn't it one of the hopes who founded the Bank of England? Yes.
00:49:33
Speaker
You're absolutely right. I have here, in in in the order of importance in my notes, gem collector and banker, but truly it was banker and gem collector. Yes, so that's how he had the means to purchase the stone, because I'm sure it wasn't cheap, even if it was no longer as pretty as it could have been. Considering the previous owners were kings. Right.
00:49:51
Speaker
That's the last time that it would be owned by royalty. So Henry Philip Hope... his wife, his grandson, a diamond dealer. Then it comes to New York. Then it ends up with a Turkish diamond collector.
00:50:05
Speaker
Then it ends up with another diamond dealer. Then it ends up with Cartier. That's who sells it to Evelyn Walsh McLean. She eventually hands it over. Perhaps I can't remember if it was after or before her death, but after Evelyn Walsh McLean, it ends up with Harry Winston. That's the last quote unquote private entity that owned the stone before it went over to the Smithsonian. and So we have a very clear chain of possession from Henry Philip Hope to now.
00:50:32
Speaker
And the name stuck. um I don't know why the name Eliasson didn't stick with the diamond. I can tell you why. It's a lot harder to say.
00:50:44
Speaker
You're right. And there probably is some romance in it having belonged to a banker at a time when that would have made you far more famous and significant than it does now. Also, just, I mean, people who have never heard of anybody named Hope hear the Hope Diamond and it's alluring, inspiring. You know, it's ah it's a poetic, evocative name.
00:51:04
Speaker
It is very poetic. Yeah. OK, so let's talk about diamonds for a second, because, you know, i want to know why we're obsessed with these things.
Historical Allure of Diamonds
00:51:14
Speaker
sparkly rocks. I mean, you know, we all know, I think, about the De Beers marketing machine, A Diamond is Forever, Artificial Scarcity.
00:51:23
Speaker
These are pretty well-known stories. In fact, there's actually a Curious Objects episode all about engagement rings and specifically using non-diamond stones for engagement rings, which is increasingly popular these days. But You know, we still participate in that tradition of buying these lumps of effectively, you know, see-through charcoal.
00:51:45
Speaker
Why? They are very pretty. i have a lot of gems that I love more than diamonds. And my favorite diamonds are old, wonky,
00:51:57
Speaker
mine cuts that are completely uneven. i love a table cut and a rose cut. What would essentially be considered naive cuts for diamonds. I don't favor a hyper sparkly modern brilliant.
00:52:12
Speaker
To me, one is indistinguishable from the next and that isn't what I value in a gem. And as you've already mentioned, artificially inflated value, the De Beers cartel, most of us know this story.
00:52:25
Speaker
But as I mentioned earlier, up until European colonization of the Americas, every single diamond came from India. And they came from India, usually by way of the Middle East.
00:52:42
Speaker
So you have this... movement that requires diamonds leaving their place of origin where they were very highly revered. mean, if you think about it, the diamonds are being found in India and this goes back at least 3000 years. That's what we have record of.
00:52:57
Speaker
The diamonds are being found in India. The best diamonds are not leaving India. They're staying in India. They're staying behind. They're being used to create temple adornments. They're being dedicated to gods within the Hindu pantheon. They are very highly prized.
00:53:15
Speaker
And the best ones don't go anywhere. The second best, and everything below that level of quality, they make their way out of India usually by way of Arab traders. They bring these further out. I mean, diamonds were popular both in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome. Some of the earliest examples of diamond jewelry that we have are ancient Greeks. So I think they were second century BCE, but nobody knows how to cut them yet.
00:53:43
Speaker
So when we're talking about diamonds this far back, They are mostly just the crystals split in half. Diamonds form octahedral crystals. They have eight sides, two points. They can form slightly different shapes, but this is a desirable diamond crystal. And if you cleave them right in the middle, you end up with two basically pyramid-shaped stones. You don't have to do much to make this look good.
00:54:09
Speaker
One thing humans discovered about diamonds very early on is that they are freakishly hard. They're brittle and you can cleave them, you can chip them, but they are harder than any other stone that people have used up until this point.
00:54:26
Speaker
We have writings from ancient Rome where they describe that stones can be cut with a diamond, but diamonds cannot be cut with other stones. And at some point, gem cutters realized that they can polish the faces of these crystals using the lesser quality diamonds.
00:54:44
Speaker
They can essentially make diamond powder or they already have diamond powder, which is something that occurs naturally. And they can take these crystals with their four sides after they've cut ah an octahedral crystal in half and they can polish them.
00:54:57
Speaker
So you have the fascination of this material being so much harder than anything else. and a good crystal having this perfect clarity, you combine that with the fact that they're coming from fairly far away and they have to travel a distance to get there. There's trade involved. I'm sure there's mythology and legend involved as well.
00:55:23
Speaker
And they become this very, very rare commodity that is so much harder to acquire than even gold or other precious gems.
00:55:35
Speaker
I mentioned that the best diamonds aren't leaving India. Well, the second best diamonds aren't leaving the Arab traders' collections either. So by the time these stones are making their way towards what we now know as Europe and the classical civilizations that we're often talking about when we talk about ancient jewelry,
00:55:51
Speaker
They're getting the dregs and they're still obsessed. So there is this historical fascination with diamonds because they were rare. They had these incredibly unusual properties and they had to travel a very long way to get to where they've ended up.
00:56:10
Speaker
You take that across almost 2000 years of history, diamonds maintain this mystique. Once Europeans, specifically the Spanish and Portuguese, make their way to the Americas and start plundering the resources that they found there, they discover diamonds in Brazil.
00:56:29
Speaker
good diamonds too, suddenly diamonds become more accessible and in the 16th and 17th centuries, you start seeing a massive, massive influx of diamonds in European jewelry. Something happens in between before the Europeans made it to the Americas when trade with the Middle East opens up again in Europe by way of Venice.
00:56:57
Speaker
This is when Europeans learn how to cut diamonds and we get the earliest forms of faceted diamonds. You have Arab traders coming and teaching gem cutters in Venice how to cut a diamond because until then they were really just polishing the natural facets of this crystal.
00:57:14
Speaker
So you start seeing cut diamonds, but there's still, you know you're not getting that many of them. Once we have diamonds coming in from Brazil, people have learned how to cut them. You have this massive influx of diamonds coming in from the new world and people went, i mean, apeshit for lack of a better term.
00:57:31
Speaker
They were just still incredibly rare, still incredibly expensive, but if you had the means to buy a diamond, it said so much about you. Just like naturally occurring pearls and the amount of human suffering that went into acquiring them, it said, look at me.
00:57:47
Speaker
I can have this thing that has traveled half of the world to get to me and I can spend my money on it and not worry that it's going to bankrupt me or I'm going to starve.
00:58:00
Speaker
I think that fascination is so hardwired into us that people know intellectually that diamonds have an inflated value now, but we still have the same reaction to them.
00:58:15
Speaker
We know that they're not worth what you pay. It's like driving a car off the lot. The moment you buy a diamond, the value has depreciated so much. Try to resell the diamond that you just purchased. You will find out that you're not going to get anywhere near your money back. Certainly not if you're buying from Tiffany.
00:58:32
Speaker
Absolutely. but people are still just wild about diamonds. I think we like to believe in the romance of the diamond, specifically the romance that has been sold to us by great advertising campaigns, but also just this idea that This must be such a rarity for the earth to create such perfection.
00:58:54
Speaker
Of course, now we've learned how to treat diamonds so that we can coax this perfection out of them. Lab-created diamonds are becoming more and more common, and that's a whole whole different can of worms. But we just, I think, are still clinging to this idea that to own a diamond is to own something rare and unique, even if we know in our heart of hearts that's not true. And maybe we can talk just briefly about lab diamonds, because I'm curious about, you know, you've described these different sort of phases in the cultural perception of the diamond.
Lab-Grown vs. Natural Diamonds
00:59:26
Speaker
And lab-grown diamonds are perhaps creating a whole new chapter in that cultural perception in that, you know, already today and and presumably increasingly in the coming years, lab diamonds are completely ruining the notion that a diamond is the the the chemical composition of a diamond is really a rarity.
00:59:49
Speaker
you know Some of that rarity historically has been artificial, but they are rare stones. But if we can create them in the lab now, they may not look identical, especially under magnification. They may actually be more perfect than naturally occurring diamonds. But by and large, and certainly to the human eye or to most human eyes under most circumstances, there's nothing about lab-grown diamond that's really distinguishable from a naturally occurring diamond.
01:00:18
Speaker
So for a diamond like the Hope Diamond, talking again about these, ah you know, cyborg historians in 100 years, when they look at the Hope Diamond, is it still going to have lure for its material attributes? Or is this just going to be a sort of historical relic with an interesting story?
01:00:38
Speaker
A little of column A, a little of column B. I think a naturally occurring colored diamond is something incredibly special. I think that something like this created by the Earth completely spontaneously with no human intervention is rare enough to be celebrated.
01:00:56
Speaker
Colorless diamonds we're finding, okay, they are still rare. When people talk about diamonds not being at all rare, that's a bit of a misconception. A gem quality diamond is still kind of hard to come by.
01:01:09
Speaker
and Industrial grade diamonds, yeah, very, very easy to get. They are abundant. It is, after all, just carbon. As you said, it's a see-through piece of charcoal. And... Most diamonds, I wouldn't even necessarily call colorless. They have like a slight yellow tinge and that's not considered very desirable unless it becomes intense yellow when it's a fancy yellow diamond. So I think...
01:01:30
Speaker
The cyborg historians of a century from now, they may marvel at the fact that the earth created this blue diamond, that all of the circumstances that led to the creation of this stone produced this color and this clarity. The historical part of it adds to the story.
01:01:52
Speaker
Would we be talking about the Hope Diamond if it didn't have this history attached? I'd be willing to bet good money, it'd be in a private collection somewhere and we wouldn't even know to talk about it, so probably not.
01:02:04
Speaker
Is the history a huge part of its appeal? Absolutely. Will it lose all of its value because lab-grown diamonds are becoming easier to acquire and cheaper to produce? I don't think so.
01:02:17
Speaker
The lab-grown diamond market is essentially creating two completely different kinds of consumers. Those who want the look of a diamond without the high price tag or the perceived human suffering, not that there isn't human suffering, but I think we have some outdated ideas about how diamonds are mined.
01:02:33
Speaker
They want this diamond without all of the baggage that goes along with it, and they want a bigger stone at a lower price point. And then there are people who do not care for a lab-created stone.
01:02:44
Speaker
They are only interested if this spent thousands or hundreds of thousands of years in the Earth's core being created by heat and pressure and all of the stars aligned perfectly to create this thing that up until recently we did not know how to manufacture as humans.
01:03:02
Speaker
I think that's as good a note as any to wrap up on. Melise, Oscar Dessler, thank you so much for talking with me. This has been great fun. Thank you, Ben. I had a blast.
Where to Find Melisse Online
01:03:12
Speaker
What's the best way for listeners to find you?
01:03:15
Speaker
You can find me on, well, most of the social medias. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube under moonhoney.jewelry. You can find me on Facebook at just moonhoneyjewelry. And you can find my own work, which I make using mostly ancient techniques and, of course, my electricity-powered flexible shaft rotary tool shopmoonhoney.com.
01:03:40
Speaker
And my podcast, of course. You can find that Facebook. I think, pretty much all podcast listening platforms, and that's going to be ancient history jewelry stories.
01:03:50
Speaker
Today's episode was edited by Julian Minerva. Support from the Magazine Antiques editorial team includes senior editor Sarah Stafford-Turner, managing editor Christine Hildebrand, and produced by Ravishi Lele.