2005

Millennium Diamond to Go On Display In London Museum

June 2005

The De Beers Millennium Star, a 230-carat white, pear-shaped, flawless diamond, will be the centerpiece of the world's biggest diamond exhibition, being held at the Natural History Museum in London.

It will be joined by other unusual diamonds, including the Steinmetz Pink, the world’s largest fancy vivid pink; the 407.48 carat yellow Incomparable, which was cut from an 890-carat rough diamond; the Ocean Dream, the world’s largest natural fancy deep blue-green diamond weighing 5.51 carats; the 30.82-carat fancy vivid blue Heart of Eternity, the largest heart-shaped blue diamond in the world; the Allnatt, a 101.29 carats vivid yellow cushion-shaped diamond; and the 616: a 616 carat rough diamond.

The exhibit will run from July 8 to February 26, 2006.

The displaying of the Millennium Star is noteworthy since it is appearing in public five years after it was nearly stolen.

In November 2000, thieves tried to snatch the jewel from the Millennium Dome, in what would have been the world's biggest armed robbery, but they were later caught. It turned out that the diamonds had been replaced with crystal replicas shortly before the raid.

The stone was discovered in the Republic of Congo in the early 1990s. It took more than three years for De Beers’ cutting exports to shape the original 777-carat stone.