Cullinan Diamond
The Cullinan diamond was found below the surface at Premier Mine in Cullinan, Transvaal Colony, by Frederick Wells, surface manager at the mine, on 26 January 1905. It was approximately long, wide, deep, and weighed . Newspapers called it the "Cullinan Diamond", a reference to Sir Thomas Cullinan, who opened the mine in 1902. It was three times the size of the Excelsior Diamond, found in 1893 at Jagersfontein Mine, weighing . Four of its eight surfaces were smooth, indicating that it once had been part of a much larger stone broken up by natural forces. It had a blue-white hue and contained a small pocket of air, which at certain angles produced a rainbow, or Newton's rings.
Great Chrysanthemum Diamond
The Great Chrysanthemum Diamond was discovered in 1963 at the Kimberley Mines in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Weighing in at 198 carats, the rough diamond is one of about only 300 diamonds in the entire world which weigh in excess of a hundred carats. Julius Cohen, one-time protégé of Harry Winston and custodian of the Hope Diamond, purchased the rough stone from its original owners, saving it from the fate of being cut in two. It was Cohen who christened the stone the Great Chrysanthemum, after attending the Chrysanthemum Ball in San Antonio, Texas. When Cohen later learned through Ms. Craggett, his assistant, that the word Chrysanthemum meant "gold flower" in Greek, Cohen made it official.