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"  For his first day at Harry Winston, in January 2010, Fr\u00E9d\u00E9ric de Narp, the company&amp;#039;s contagiously enthusiastic president and CEO, had one request: He wanted to hold the Hope diamond. The 110-carat blue stone, first sold to Louis XIV in 1668, was stolen from the French court jewels during the looting of the Treasury, in 1792. In 1812 it mysteriously reappeared, in the hands of a London diamond merchant, and in 1946, Winston himself acquired it as part of the jewelry collection of Evalyn Walsh McLean, wife of the owner of the Washington Post. (The couple had bought it in 1911 for a reported $300,000.) Winston donated it to the Smithsonian Institution. About 5 million people a year now visit the Hope diamond, but the Smithsonian hesitated. &amp;quot;No one had ever asked to do this before,&amp;quot; the charismatic Frenchman says, &amp;quot;but I insisted. For me, holding the Hope was key.&amp;quot; And so, on Monday, January 4, before the opening of the museum, his wish was granted, and de Narp was escorted into the Smithsonian safe where the diamond is stored. (&amp;quot;It is in a separate space, away from the museum&amp;#039;s Harry Winston Gallery,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I cannot give any more details than that on its location.&amp;quot;) For a brief moment the Hope was placed in his hands. The stone is now 45 carats, less than a pound on a butcher&amp;#039;s scale, but de Narp could feel the weight of history. &amp;quot;This rock has passed through the hands of the great kings of India and Europe; it has been on crowns and pendants. It&amp;#039;s a symbol of power \u2014 everything a diamond should mean. And, do you know, when you turn a light on the Hope diamond, it turns a bright orange red \u2014 like it&amp;#039;s burning.&amp;quot;  De Narp is still not ready to let go; he has scheduled another field trip, this time during an upcoming meeting of Harry Winston executives in India, hoping to draw further inspiration from the legendary Golconda mines, which produced the original Hope. &amp;quot;We search for stones from Golconda,&amp;quot; says de Narp&amp;#039;s competitor Henri Barguirdjian, president and CEO of Graff, &amp;quot;the way art dealers look for unknown da Vincis or a missing van Gogh.&amp;quot;  Golconda, a 14th-century Indian sultanate about six miles west of present-day Hyderabad, was known for its elaborate fort and its diamond mines. During the Renaissance, Golkonda came to be synonymous with great wealth, and the name is still spoken with reverence by deep-pocketed diamond traders and collectors, the kind of purists who will buy only natural pearls, Iranian turquoise, Colombian emeralds, and natural Burmese spinel. These aficionados scour jewelry auction catalogs for the rare occasions when the word appears in boldface type. The Golconda designation at an auction suggests that a stone&amp;#039;s provenance can be traced all the way back to those historic mines, which the head of Christie&amp;#039;s jewelry department, Rahul Kadakia, calls &amp;quot;the beginning of diamonds.&amp;quot; For nearly 2,000 years the mines at Golconda were the only source of diamonds on earth (South Africa&amp;#039;s deposits were not discovered until the late 19th century), but exclusivity took its toll. By 1725 the insatiable appetites of Indian maharajas and European royals had exhausted the supply. Still, the ancient luster remains.  To this day a disproportionate number of the world&amp;#039;s most famous diamonds are Golcondas: the Koh I Noor diamond, at the center of the Queen Mother&amp;#039;s crown in the Tower of London; the Regent diamond, which once adorned the hilt of Napoleon&amp;#039;s sword; the Idol&amp;#039;s Eye, 70 carats, which served as the ransom paid by the sultan of Kashmir for the release of Princess Rashidah; the Agra, said to have been worn by the Mughal emperor Babur in the center of his turban, a gift from the royal family of Agra after he spared their lives during the conquest of 1526; the Wittelsbach, originally sold to King Philip IV of Spain for the dowry of his daughter, the Infanta Margarita Teresa, in 1664 (and most recently acquired by Graff Diamonds owner Laurence Graff at Christie&amp;#039;s in 2008 for $24.3 million, the highest price ever paid for a diamond at auction); the Great Moghul Diamond, a 242-carat specimen whose current location is one of the enduring mysteries among Golconda hunters. In December, at Sotheby&amp;#039;s New York, the Magnificent Jewels sale will include the 33-carat, cushion-shaped Star of Golconda. Last month Sotheby&amp;#039;s Hong Kong brought together an unprecedented collection of rarities, including a 9-carat emerald-cut stone known as the Golconda Pink that had an estimate of $13 million to $19 million, a pair of 6-carat round ear pendants ($2.2 million to $2.8 million), and a 30-carat pear-shaped ring that was expected to fetch $5 million to $6 million. The lots were described as having a cutting style and a level of quality that would, in Sotheby&amp;#039;s cautious wording, &amp;quot;certainly evoke references to the historic term Golconda.&amp;quot; From a gemologist&amp;#039;s perspective, diamonds from Golconda are distinguished by their complete lack of nitrogen \u2014 an absence necessary for a Type IIa designation in any gem, regardless of origin. Nitrogen gives a stone a yellowish tinge. Diamonds without it appear whiter than white or as clear as a drop of water. In the diamond grading system known as the four C&amp;#039;s \u2014 cut, color, clarity, and carat \u2014 color is graded by letters, with D being the highest level, indicating a colorless diamond. The term Type IIa is a separate assessment. &amp;quot;It describes a specific and rare chemical composition,&amp;quot; says de Narp, &amp;quot;though it is a phenomenon that occurs mostly in D or E diamonds, the top two tiers. It means that you are dealing with the brightest and purest of diamonds, a kind of super-D.&amp;quot; Only about 2 percent of the world&amp;#039;s diamonds are Type IIa. &amp;quot;But not just any Type IIa diamond is a Golconda,&amp;quot; Kadakia insists. &amp;quot;The mines ran along two rivers, which meant extremely fertile ground. It gives them a transparency and a softness that is unlike diamonds from anywhere else in the world.&amp;quot;  These are fine and expensive distinctions, and they lie at the heart of an ongoing controversy in the diamond trade. One camp has launched a campaign to describe any Type IIa \u2014 whether from India or Africa or Brazil \u2014 as &amp;quot;Golconda-like.&amp;quot; A rival camp contends that the designation is fuzzy or wishful, like calling a California sparkling wine &amp;quot;Champagne.&amp;quot; Purists like Kadakia insist on a sharp distinction between Golconda diamonds and all other Type IIa diamonds. &amp;quot;Golconda is a magical word,&amp;quot; says Barguirdjian. &amp;quot;People are calling stones Golcondas that simply are not. Type IIa diamonds can be found in mines all over the world. But a Golconda is a very special, rare old crystal, with an inner beauty and a charm that is difficult to describe.&amp;quot;  The fate of many historic Golcondas continues to be a mystery. Some, like the Great Mughal diamond, are thought to have been cut by thieves into much smaller stones to disguise their identity. Others, Kadakia thinks, are still in private hands. &amp;quot;There are Golcondas sitting out there just as they were sold, in parcels of paper, in bank vaults and private estates,&amp;quot; he says. To de Narp this mystery is part of the attraction. &amp;quot;There are huge gaps in the history of these stones,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;The Hope and the Idol&amp;#039;s Eye disappeared for 300 years. There could be others.&amp;quot; Auction houses, buyers might be happy to know, do not rely solely on hunches. Several years ago, as the market for Golcondas \u2014 and the debate over which stones could actually carry the term \u2014 began to heat up, the Swiss gem authority G\u00FCbelin instituted the only accepted grading system to directly address the Golconda conundrum. For a diamond to be listed as Golconda in an auction catalog, it must have two G\u00FCbelin certificates, one that describes its qualities as a Type IIa stone and another that states that it has certain traits that associate it with the historic Golconda profile. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not a perfect science,&amp;quot; says Lee Siegelson, a private jewelry dealer. &amp;quot;But Golcondas are not perfect stones. There is an irregularity to the way they were cut that is, in fact, part of their charm.&amp;quot; For Kadakia, the stones tell their own story. &amp;quot;You can look at a great diamond, even one with no documented history, and it screams out to you and tells you where it&amp;#039;s from. It&amp;#039;s like finding an unsigned Picasso.&amp;quot; But diamond sellers handle Golcondas for just a brief period. Only someone who lives with the rare diamonds can truly explain their allure. &amp;quot;I had heard about Golcondas from a friend who had a Bulgari ring with a 20-carat diamond that was just so special, and she explained that it was a Golconda,&amp;quot; a West Coast owner (who will remain anonymous on the advice of her insurance agent) says. &amp;quot;I put the word out that I wanted one \u2014 they are not easy to find. I got offered plenty of Type IIa&amp;#039;s. But I wanted the real thing. About six months later Sotheby&amp;#039;s found my ring. It&amp;#039;s about 50 carats. They called it the Queen of Golconda. I can&amp;#039;t tell you everyone who owned it, but I know it came from that mine.&amp;quot;  Unable to contain her excitement, she continues, &amp;quot;I have good diamonds, but when I put this stone up against them \u2014 even one famous-name diamond I own \u2014 the Golconda is different. It&amp;#039;s watery, like a silvery moon on water. Sometimes I take it out just to see if it&amp;#039;s as pretty as I remember. It is. A few years ago there was a call for Golcondas, and a foreign client wanted to buy my ring. &amp;#039;Everyone has a price,&amp;#039; they told me. But I won&amp;#039;t ever be able to get this again. I can buy a good diamond in about 10 minutes. It&amp;#039;s not that way with Golcondas. If you&amp;#039;re a diamond person \u2014 and I am \u2014 they are the pinnacle.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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