The Curse of the Hope Diamond: Exploring it's Lethal Legacy

1666 was a pretty bad year. Not only does it contain the number of the beast, it was the year of the Great Fire of London, the bubonic plague had popped up again and over a thousand people were killed when a hurricane ploughed through a group of Caribbean islands. What better time, then, for a cursed diamond to hit the scene and start spreading bad luck, misery and death to all that came into contact with it?

The World’s Most Notorious Blue Diamond

You might have heard of this famous gemstone or maybe you haven’t, I won’t judge. I was aware of the name but didn’t know anything about it prior to researching this story. It’s nowhere near the biggest diamond ever found but it is the largest example of a blue diamond in the world. It has also been long associated with death, financial ruin, madness and other sorts of bad luck all the way from when it left its Indian birthplace to where it currently resides in Washington D.C. If you’ve seen Titanic, the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn by Kate Winslet’s character is based on the Hope Diamond and we all know what happened to the Titanic, don’t we?

It has a long and checkered past but we can trace its origins fairly reliably back to the Kollur mines of India in the 17th century. I guess if we can trace its location to the Kollur mines, we can also confidently say that it had been there for at least a billion years. Diamonds take a long time to form, yo.

I’m going to tell you the legend of the Hope Diamond now, complete with all the juicy curse bits, however — warning! Take some of it with a pinch of salt. We’ll decode some of the stories at the end but for now, here is the tale with all the good bits attached.

From Tavernier to the Sun King

The Hope Diamond is actually a piece of a much larger diamond that was bought by French gem merchant, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, in around 1666. I say “bought” but he also could have stolen it and in the most pulpy versions of the diamond’s origin, he pried it out of a Hindu statue’s eye socket. Side note: I learned the poem by J.

Milton Hayes about something similar but it was called “The Green Eye of the Yellow God”, not the blue eye so it was just a coincidence. The guy who popped out the gem in the poem didn’t fare too well, ending up stabbed to death in his bed. I remember my granny got me and my sister to learn the poem one day and paid us something like 25p for each verse we memorised.

We thought this was a great way of scamming money off an old lady at the time, but as I got older I realised it was a very canny way for our granny to exercise our brains and keep us out of her hair for an afternoon, all for the cost of a couple of quid. And yes, I still remember the whole thing today.

Anyway, Tavernier was entranced by the colour of the diamond he had which he described as “a beautiful violet”. I guess violet means blue in the diamond world because it’s always known as a blue diamond, not a purple or violet one. It gets the colouring from small amounts of boron and this blue diamond Tavernier got was actually astoundingly large as usually blue diamonds aren’t very big at all.

The original stone was over 112 carats, meaning it weighed about 22 grams or, according to one of my favourite websites, The Measure of Things, it was about one tenth as heavy as a hamster. It also glows red under ultraviolet light, perhaps adding to its spooky reputation, although it’s unlikely that most of its owners would have ever seen this happening. Originally, the stone was named “The Tavernier Blue”, for obvious reasons, and a couple of years later Tavernier sold it along with a few other diamonds, to King Louis the Fourteenth — the Louis who was also known as the Sun King. I say “a few other diamonds” but some sources say that the Tavernier Blue was one of about a thousand diamonds the King bought from Jean Baptiste Tavernier at the time — how the other half live, eh?

So, was Tavernier, the man who introduced the Hope Diamond to the world, struck down by its curse? If you believe one version of events, he died shortly after of a horrible fever and was then pulled apart by a pack of wild dogs. So yeah, not a fun way to go.

The French Royal Family and the Revolution

It’s now the year 1668 and the blue diamond is firmly ensconced in the bosom of the French royal family. Here it was fiddled about with by royal jewelers and cut into more than one piece, the largest of which was now called “The King’s Jewel” or “The French Blue” but this name was in French, obviously. Louis originally had it set on a golden stick and it had a series of shallow cuts made into the back so his trademark sun symbol could be seen when the light shone through it. Later, it was set in gold and hung on a ribbon so he could wear it for fancy occasions.

So how did the curse affect King Louis the 14th?

Well, he had a lot of quite disgusting health issues later in his life, including dental abscesses, gout, boils, and an anal fistula before eventually dying from gangrene. Also, while he had had numerous illegitimate children throughout his life, only one of the six children he had with his first wife, Maria Theresa, survived into adulthood. It has also been posited by some historians that while Louis the 14th’s reign was fairly stable, his failure to reform institutions that could have kept the monarchy secure in the future, sowed the seeds for the revolution. Speaking of the French Revolution, where’s that pesky diamond at now?

The French Blue stayed in the royal family until 1791 when the government took possession of the royal jewels during the aforementioned revolution. It was now part of a larger pendant designed for the Catholic order of chivalry, the “Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece”. This meant that as well as having a large-ass blue diamond on the pendant, there were also loads of other smaller diamonds on it, including 112 diamonds that were painted yellow and arranged to look like the fleece of a sheep.

If that doesn’t sound gaudy enough, there was also a large red dragon made of a mineral called “spinel”, which I’d never heard of, breathing out red-painted diamonds flames above and around the French Blue. Who says money can’t buy taste?

Well, oddly enough, this piece didn’t get much wear but was now in the possession of Louis the 16th and his wife, Marie Antoinette. She was well known for her love of jewels but, as we all know, this particular owner of the French Blue came to a sticky and premature end, as did her husband, the last king of France, when they were both beheaded as the monarchy was overthrown.

Theft, Disappearance, and Reappearance

The French Blue diamond was being kept in a storehouse along with a lot of other valuable items left over from the royal family, but in 1792, the year following the executions, the storehouse was broken into and looted, with the French Blue disappearing for several years.

Thanks to modern day CAD technology, it has been confirmed that a blue diamond that popped up in London in 1812 was, indeed, part of the original Tavernier Blue, albeit having been recut yet again, this time down to the 45 carats it is today. For reference, this is about one twentieth the weight of a hamster, or one thirty fifth as heavy as a human heart but it’s still the biggest blue diamond around. It is presumed that the new style the diamond was sporting was to avoid it being recognised as it moved through some probably quite shady channels.

Also, 1812 is exactly 20 years after the diamond went missing from France, meaning that the statute of limitations over the theft had just run out. How fortuitous!

It was now in the possession of Daniel Eliason, a diamond merchant who probably sold it to King George the Fourth at some point, although there is no official paperwork about this that has been found. It seems that Eliason might have escaped the curse as I couldn’t find out much about him, apart from that he may or may not have killed himself so maybe he didn’t escape after all. In 1816, the diamond was valued at thirty thousand pounds, which is 2.3 million today or about 2.9 million dollars. A steal!

George IV and the Hope Family

George the Fourth was a lavish spender and, when he was still Prince Regent, had burned through what would now be tens of millions of pounds by the age of about 25. When he eventually became King, he only ruled for about 10 years, during which time he was probably in possession of the French Blue. He apparently liked to mix up his personal property with Royal jewels which must have been a nightmare for anyone in charge of looking after them, and might have bought the French Blue for his personal collection.

George the 4th was known for his huge appetites, both metaphorical and literal, and was also a great fan of laudanum, which is a highly addictive opiate. When I say “a great fan”, I mean he was addicted to it and consumed huge amounts daily. By the time of his death, his weight was around 280 pounds or 130 kg which is approximately 650 hamsters.

He had all kinds of health problems, although none of them as gross sounding as Louis the 14th’s. During his autopsy, it was found he had a huge tumour on his bladder and his heart was totally stodged up but what had actually killed him was a ruptured blood vessel in his stomach.

When George the Fourth died, he was also in bad shape financially and he left a heck of a lot of debt behind. It has been theorized that the blue diamond was discreetly sold on again to someone in the Hope family, either rich London banker, Thomas Hope, or more likely his brother, gem connoisseur, Henry Philip Hope. You might have noted that their last name was Hope. Yes, finally, this is where the Hope Diamond got its name.

There is a reference to it in a gem catalogue published just after Henry Philip Hope died in 1839, listing all the valuable jewels he owned but it didn’t say when he got the diamond, who he got it from or how much he paid for it. The diamond was now set into a medallion and commonly known as “The Hope Diamond” or “Hope’s Diamond” although Henry personally referred to it as “Diamond Number 1.” There also doesn’t seem to be much in the way of bad luck for Henry Philip Hope but he died without a direct heir so the diamond went to a nephew and by 1901 it was owned by Lord Francis Thomas Hope. He was also terrible with money, as were so many previous owners, and he had to get permission to sell the diamond because he was bankrupt and his wife had also left him.

Across the Atlantic: Frankel, Habib, and Cartier

The cursed diamond next exercised its powers on American jewelry firm, Joseph Frankel’s Sons & Co. Simon Frankel bought the Hope Diamond from a dealer and took it over the Atlantic to New York. It seems he massively overpaid, though, as he apparently bought it for $250,000 which is just over 9 million dollars today. According to some sources, Lord Francis Hope had sold it to the dealer for just $29,000 which would be the equivalent of just over a million dollars today.

Somebody did very well out of this supposed “bad luck” diamond, and his name was Adolph Weil, well done, sir.

When Frankel reached the States, the valuations he got of the Hope diamond were way below what he’d paid for it so it stayed in a vault until the markets improved. The markets didn’t really improve, though, with Frankel’s company almost biting the dust during the financial panic of 1907. Luckily for them, they managed to offload what they referred to as “the hoodoo diamond” onto a poor sap called Selim Habib in 1908.

He may or may not have bought it on behalf of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire but either way he also took a complete bath on it, having bought it for the equivalent of about $12 million and selling it the next year in Paris for barely a sixth of what he paid for it. As well as losing a lot of money thanks to the Hope Diamond, Selim Habib also lost his life when he went down in a shipwreck later that year in 1909.

After passing through another dealer, the Hope Diamond eventually lands with famous jeweler, Pierre Cartier who stumped up around $106,000 which is about $3.4 million today. He had an absolutely excellent client in mind on whom to palm off this cursed jewel — Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean.

The McLean Era: Excess and Tragedy

She came from a filthy rich family, her father having found a literal goldmine when she was 11 or 12. They weren’t from a wealthy background originally though, which might explain why they went a bit over the top with the dosh and bought a huge mansion already complete with all the fittings and furnishings they thought something like that should have, as opposed to what they actually liked themselves or wanted to put in it. Evalyn used to go to school in a coach pulled by matching horses and the family dined off golden plates.

They also threw incredible parties with royalty from all over the world turning up. According to the website WashingtonChronicles.com: “One of the Walshes’ dinner parties was said to have cost $200 a plate. The great room in which it was served had been converted into a flower garden, with flowers sent from Florida and fruit from California by special express.

An orchestra played operatic selections from behind a lattice of American Beauty roses. Hanging from the ceiling and suspended just over the dining room table was a great flower balloon, lit with electric lights. At the end of the dinner, the balloon swung open and a shower of songbirds greeted the guests with a rhapsody of melody.”

Blimey.

Evalyn Walsh married Edward Beale McLean, also known as “Ned” who was the heir to a newspaper publishing fortune. They were so rich that when their first child was born, he was referred to as the “hundred million dollar baby.” And that was over 100 years ago! As with several other previous owners of the Hope Diamond, the McLeans were really, really crap with money. They had more than anyone could conceivably need for many lifetimes yet they squandered it left, right and center.

Cartier tempted Evalyn into buying the Hope diamond from him but it took nearly two years and a change of setting that held the jewel before she finally agreed. The McLeans paid $154,000 in 1911, which is roughly $5 million today. I think Evalyn must have been a proponent of the phrase “If you’ve got it, flaunt it”, as the Hope Diamond was eventually reset again and put on a necklace which she wore — a lot.

Take a look at Google images and in the majority of photos of her, she’s got the Hope Diamond necklace on. Instead of keeping a valuable jewel somewhere safe, she would hide it all around the house during parties for people to try and find, she wore it in the pool and even let her Great Dane walk around with it attached to his collar. If this was a tv show, there is a 100% chance that the dog would have swallowed that diamond at some point but as far as I can see, there’s no evidence of this having happened in real life.

But the curse of the Hope Diamond struck again with a vengeance.

Evalyn was aware of the history of the diamond and had even had it blessed to try and counteract the bad luck but seemed to see it both as a talisman of good and evil, depending on what was happening around her at the time. She never let her friends or children touch it, apparently, but I guess her dog was a different matter. Anyway, here is some of the bad stuff that happened during the McLeans’ tenure of the Hope Diamond:

• Evalyn’s mother-in-law who warned her against purchasing the cursed rock died within the year.
• Their first born son, the hundred million dollar baby, was killed in an accident after being hit by a car when he was only 9 years old.
• Evalyn became addicted to morphine.
• She filed for divorce in 1929 but due to her husband’s alcoholism, infidelities and increasingly erratic behaviour, she had him declared insane instead and he was hospitalized until his death in 1941.
• In 1932 Evalyn remortgaged a property and lost over $100,000 when she gave the money to a dirty ex-FBI agent as a ransom for the kidnapped Lindbergh baby. That’s nearly $2 million today.
• In 1946, Evalyn discovered her 24 year old daughter dead from an overdose of sleeping pills.

By this point, Evalyn hardly had any money left as she and Ned had burned through it during their marriage together and he bequeathed anything he had left to his new partner. She pawned the Hope Diamond more than once to get some cash but always managed to buy it back.

It’s pretty hilarious and baffling as an outsider looking in on the uber rich and their money issues. According to Evalyn’s friend, Alice Roosevelt, yes that would be the daughter of Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th President of the USA, Evalyn turned up to see her one day, distraught with trying to work out her new budget:

Alice, what will I do?” she cried, “I simply can’t get my budget below $250,000 a year. Flowers, $40,000; household, $100,000; travel, $35,000…”

Not wanting to seem unsupportive but obviously heavily laced with sarcasm, Alice replied: “You are quite right. You simply can’t shave it one cent.

Anyway, Evalyn still owned the Hope Diamond when she died in 1947. Even though there was a clause in her will stipulating that the diamond had to remain in the family for a certain period of time, her estate was in such bad shape that her heirs were allowed to sell it, which they swiftly did to the famous “King of Diamonds”, Harry Winston, who bought it in 1949 as part of Evalyn Walsh McLean’s entire jewelry collection.

Harry Winston and the Smithsonian

Winston displayed the Hope diamond in various exhibitions around North America and kept hold of it until 1958 when he donated it to become part of a United States gem collection at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History. How do you think he transported the diamond to its new home? A coach and matched horses à la teenaged Evalyn Walsh?

In a titanium briefcase handcuffed to a buff secret service agent? No, he did a very clever or possibly very foolish thing and sent it through the mail in a brown envelope. The Smithsonian Institute is so famous that he hardly even put any address on it — it just says “Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. — Attn: Dr.

Leonard Carmichael” — which I suppose is all you really need. It cost him $145 dollars to insure it for a million bucks and he also had to pay $2.44 in postage. The insurance would be the equivalent of over $1500 today, with the postage coming in at $25.37 which is about what I have to pay to send even the tiniest thing overseas these days.

Rounding out the story of the curse, the mail carrier who delivered the stone, James Todd, had his leg crushed in an accident soon after handing over the diamond. I also saw that he had a car accident later that left him with head injuries and then his house burned down so he really did poorly out of it. I guess the Hope Diamond used up the remainder of its bad luck on the poor old postie as it has sat happily in the Smithsonian ever since, only leaving a handful of times to be featured in various gem exhibitions and Harry Winston events.

You can see it today, as specimen number 217868. If you want to know the specifics, the official details are given as: “Cushion antique brilliant with a faceted girdle and extra facets on the pavilion”. Nice, love me some extra facets on the pavilion.

The colour is “Fancy dark grayish-blue”. So fancy.

It’s still on a chain as per Evalyn McLean’s ownership, which is made of 45 white diamonds and the stone itself is surrounded by a further 16 white diamonds. According to the Gem Agency website among others, the Hope Diamond is estimated to be worth around $250 million today or that’s what it’s rumored to be insured for. Rather than being a curse on the Smithsonian, the acquisition of the Hope Diamond meant that other rich people with too much stuff on their hands donated precious stones to the gem collection too, including another, smaller, blue diamond ring called “The Blue Heart Diamond” and what are known as “The Hooker Diamonds”, being a necklace, earrings and ring which were donated in 1994.

Hooker is the surname of the person who donated them, by the way. The necklace has 50 yellow diamonds in it. I mean, it’s all very nice but if you’ve got enough money to just give away all this jewelry, like a Cartier designed gold necklace with 50 fricking diamonds in it, maybe you should put it to better use?

I don’t know, just a suggestion.

Decoding the Curse

While the chain of ownership we’ve outlined is generally agreed to be accurate, there are many, many more names I could have thrown in that have been reported to have owned or even merely worn the Hope Diamond and suffered greatly because of it. Why didn’t I put them in? Well, for one, the list goes on forever and it would just be too boring.

A roll call on PBS.org lists 29 names. That’s too many for me. Second, these are mostly rumours and throwaway connections that can’t be proven.

And third, some are just plain rubbish. For instance, I was going to add Nicholas Fouquet into the original list of cursees — he was an influential nobleman and Superintendent of Finances to our friend, Louis the 14th. Alleged to have worn the French Blue as it was then for a social occasion, he was shortly after arrested by none other than d’Artagnan, and imprisoned for the rest of his life, mainly because the King was worried he was getting too influential and powerful.

In this case, though, the diamond had nothing to do with Fouquet’s downfall as he was arrested in 1661, with Louis not receiving the French Blue until around 1669. It’s unlikely that he would have let Fouquet borrow it for the jail’s Christmas party so I think we can safely say that this example is 100% false. Let’s have a quick recap of the verified owners, then, and see if any of the legends were true after all.

Going all the way back to the man who brought it out of India, did Jean-Baptiste Tavernier start the curse by stealing the large blue diamond from the eye of a Hindu goddess? I mean, it’s possible but unlikely. Tavernier was a seasoned and frequent long-distance traveler and trader in luxury goods, including diamonds.

He knew what was talking about so probably had his pick of stuff at the Indian diamond markets for decent prices, rather than gallivanting about defacing religious statues in a foreign country. He was extremely wealthy and respected in his time so didn’t suffer any ill effects from having transported the diamond to France.

Louis the 14th gave him a lot of gold for the diamond, plus made him a nobleman into the bargain so he seems to have done pretty well out of it. But wait, wasn’t he torn apart by wild dogs? I saw this on so many websites, although sometimes it was wolves. Sometimes he was killed by them, sometimes he died of a fever and was torn apart after he was dead.

In real life, he lived until the age of 84 and was in Moscow as part of yet another journey when he died. As he was ludicrously wealthy and hobnobbed and traded with all the rich and powerful, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario when he would have been in the proximity of a lot of wild dogs. If he really had been murdered by them or his body had been torn apart, I think there would have been a lot more evidence in the historic record of his life, rather than the same one line repeated across the internet.

Louis the 14th sure had his share of bad luck, what with all his ailments and children dying etc. but in reality, this is just part and parcel of life in the 17th century. In fact, he had a pretty successful and long life, dying at the age of 76. He was only 4 years old when his father died so his technical reign of 72 years, 110 days makes him the longest-reigning monarch of all time whose dates can be verified. Not too shabby.

The next couple cursed by the diamond were Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette. We know they were executed as the monarchy was overthrown and we know Marie Antoinette liked the finer things in life so surely she must have got the diamond out from time to time? Well no, it was in that horrible dragon fleece medal thing, given for orders of chivalry so it’s not something she would have been able to wear, even if she wanted to. Obviously their lives ended horribly but a monarchy-toppling revolution doesn’t just happen overnight so I think more factors were at play than just having a cursed diamond rolling around in a velvety drawer somewhere.

The diamond was then stolen from a storehouse and eventually turned up in London a couple of decades later, having also been re-cut. There was a likelihood that George the 4th then owned it, dying horribly and in great debt. Well, again, we can’t blame the diamond on his poor lifestyle choices as they existed well before he became the owner of the stone. And really, what does money matter if you’re king? Yes, he would get into great personal debt, but parliament would just give him money to pay it off and then he died with no direct legitimate heirs so really what did he care? His reign was not particularly popular with a piece in The Times saying on his death: “There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow-creatures than this deceased king.” Ouch. So anyway, poor diet, too much alcohol, addicted to laudanum — yes. Died because he owned the French Blue? probably not.

The Hope family got away fairly lightly in the bad luck department, with only vague things like “a string of misfortunes” to be found but no real info as to what these misfortunes were. Let’s hope it was just inconsequential stuff like Henry Philip Hope lost his keys, stubbed his toe on something, then dropped his pipe in the toilet rather than horrible illnesses or financial difficulties. The last member of the Hopes who owned it, Lord Francis Hope, had to sell it in the end to help pay off all his debts but again, this was due to a lifetime of bad decisions, not corresponding particularly with his ownership of the world’s largest blue diamond.

The next notable owner was Selim Habib who lost a lot of money on it and then died when a ship he was on sank. Only, he didn’t. Yes, he lost a lot of money selling the diamond but it was a different Selim Habib who died on the wrecked French steamer, not this one. And this happened months after he sold the diamond anyway, so I don’t even know if it counts as a curse had it been him on the ship in the first place.

The McLeans: Curse or Simply Chaos?

Ahh, now on to the crazy McLeans, my favourite characters in this saga. I think it’s worth saying here that we know that there is no such thing as a cursed diamond, or if there is, it ain’t this one. However, we also know that objects with a good history behind them sell for more money. So it kind of makes sense that a canny jeweler looking to offload an expensive diamond to someone with huge amounts of money and an interest in bad luck tales might invent a backstory to increase the allure of said diamond. So are we saying that Monsieur Pierre Cartier made up or at least hugely exaggerated the history of the fates of the diamond’s previous owners in order to sell it to Evalyn Walsh McLean? Let’s read an extract from her memoir, Father Struck It Rich, after Cartier had relayed the lurid details of the diamond to her:

Bad luck objects,” I said to Cartier, “for me are lucky.”

“Ah yes”, he said, “Madame told me that before, and I remembered.

Oh did you, Pierre, did you indeed you crafty old fox? He also kept the diamond covered up while spinning his yarns, practically making the McLeans beg to see it. It did take about 2 years for them to finally agree to buy it, however. We covered the true series of sad and bad events that the McLeans went through but they lived an absolutely insane life of wealth and were friends with presidents and other heads of state and threw money all up in the air like they just didn’t care.

Here’s a quick anecdote as to how well connected they were. An FBI agent had to take a woman to the hospital after she’d been hit in the head by a bottle during a raunchy party in “The Love Nest”. She later died from her injury. The Love Nest was a building owned by Ned McLean and rented out to Attorney General Harry Daugherty at the time.

The party that night was filled with women supplied by Ned. Who did the agent happen to see casually leaning against a fireplace as he carried the woman out? That would be President Warren G. Harding who, yes, was actually the sitting President at the time.

He was possibly avoiding eye contact and whistling tunelessly into the air with his hands in his pockets.

Ned would also take trained bears into brothels, not always with fun, injury-free results. The couple were so well known, they even managed a namecheck in the song “Anything Goes” by Cole Porter. The verse goes:

When Mrs. Ned McLean (God bless her) Can get Russian reds to “yes” her, Then I suppose Anything goes.

This is in relation to the McLeans going to Russia right after the October Revolution and trying to get Ned’s uncle reinstated as Russian ambassador to the United States. This did not work and could have ended horribly for all concerned but luckily, it didn’t. If a miniseries was ever made about this couple, it would be an entertaining watch although it would be hard to believe any of it was real.

Again, as with everyone else, Evalyn and her husband’s mad amount of spending was in evidence years before the Hope Diamond was wafted under their noses. Sometimes Evalyn blamed her bad luck on having it and sometimes she admitted it was just a superstition she would dip in and out of:

Do I believe a lot of silly superstitions, legends of the diamond? I must confess I know better and yet, knowing better, I believe. By that I mean I never let my friends or children touch it. Call it a foolish woman’s fetish if you like; after you have said so without contradiction, let me say that I have come to feel not think that I have developed a sort of immunity to its evil.

What tragedies have befallen me might have occurred had I never seen or touched the diamond. I have sense enough to know that fortunetellers gain fame as prophets by habitually predicting probabilities. My observations have persuaded me that tragedies, for anyone who lives, are not escapable.

The Final Victim?

And now we come to the end of the line, the poor unfortunate mail carrier being the last victim as Harry Winston also seemed to do quite well out of exhibiting the Hope Diamond before bestowing it upon the Smithsonian. I saw numerous references to James Todd having his leg crushed in an accident shortly after delivering the diamond but that’s about all the detail there is. He had already handed it over, anyway, so could his bad luck really be due to the curse?

If he had crashed while transporting it there’d be a better case but he didn’t, so there isn’t and I don’t even know if he was a real person or not. According to Ripleys.com: “After the delivery, he claimed his wife died, his leg got crushed, his dog was strangled, and his house burned to the ground.” Wowsers.

This is Ripley’s of “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” fame, so it’s probably not the world’s most reliable source. Also, if all this happened in the space of a week, that’s some bad luck right there. If it was over a decade or two, I guess that’s just the way life goes.

For my money, it was actually Pierre Cartier who really raised the stakes on the whole “curse” thing because he wanted it to appeal to Evalyn Walsh McLean. Well, it worked and the story has stuck. Anyway, the Hope Diamond is still sitting pretty in the National Museum of Natural History which is administered by the Smithsonian Institute. Maybe its powers have been dulled by the many times it’s been recut and reset but we haven’t heard a peep out of it for the last 65 years and let’s hope it stays that way.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the origin of the Hope Diamond?

The Hope Diamond originated from the Kollur mines of India in the 17th century. It was a piece of a much larger diamond bought by French gem merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier around 1666.

How did the Hope Diamond get its name?

The Hope Diamond got its name from the Hope family, specifically either Thomas Hope or Henry Philip Hope, who likely acquired it from King George IV.

What are some of the alleged curses associated with the Hope Diamond?

The Hope Diamond has been associated with various curses, including death, financial ruin, and madness. Some of the alleged victims include King Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, and Evalyn Walsh McLean.

Who was the first known owner of the Hope Diamond?

The first known owner of the Hope Diamond was Jean Baptiste Tavernier, a French gem merchant who acquired it around 1666.

What happened to the Hope Diamond during the French Revolution?

During the French Revolution, the Hope Diamond, then known as the French Blue, was part of a larger pendant and was in the possession of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. It was later stolen from a storehouse in 1792.

How did the Hope Diamond end up in the Smithsonian Institution?

The Hope Diamond was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by Harry Winston in 1958. Winston had previously exhibited the diamond in various exhibitions around North America.

What is the current value of the Hope Diamond?

The Hope Diamond is estimated to be worth around $250 million today, according to various sources including the Gem Agency website.

What are some of the health issues faced by King Louis XIV?

King Louis XIV faced several health issues, including dental abscesses, gout, boils, and an anal fistula. He eventually died from gangrene.

How did Evalyn Walsh McLean acquire the Hope Diamond?

Evalyn Walsh McLean acquired the Hope Diamond from Pierre Cartier in 1911. Cartier had tempted her into buying the diamond, and it took nearly two years and a change of setting before she agreed.

What happened to the mail carrier who delivered the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian?

The mail carrier, James Todd, reportedly had his leg crushed in an accident shortly after delivering the Hope Diamond. There are also claims of other misfortunes befalling him, but the details are sparse and the reliability of the source is questionable.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: The Curse of the Hope Diamond: Exploring it’s Lethal Legacy
• Hero image source by G. Edward Johnson / openverse, by.