Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you popular songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. Today, Marina Diamandis, aka Marina and the Diamonds, stays true to her name in the 2012 international hit, “Primadonna.”



In this song about a self-absorbed diva who “wants the world,” the sassy Welsh recording artist tries to coax a marriage proposal and a giant-size sparkler from her beau.

She sings, “Would you do anything for me? / Buy a big diamond ring for me? / Would you get down on your knees for me? / Pop the pretty question right now baby.”

Diamandis created her stage name by incorporating her first name with the translation of her surname, which means “diamonds” in Greek. She explained that “the Diamonds” part of “Marina and the Diamonds” does not refer to her backing band, but to her fans.

In an interview with Elle Girl, Diamandis described how her ex-boyfriend thought it was funny that she was a mega drama queen always talking "global love" this and "global love" that!

"He called me a prima donna… so I thought I'd channel this well-known, but kind of undesirable character type, into a pop song."

She told The Sun that the prima donna beauty queen in this song is a magnification of "certain parts of me and of every woman."

“Primadonna” was the lead single from the 39-year-old artist’s second studio album, Electra Heart. MTV Buzzworthy critic Sam Lansky described “Primadonna” as “a monster song,” and fans across the globe agreed. The release was an international sensation, charting in 13 countries. Within the first few hours of its release in March of 2012, the song became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter, now known as X.

Born in Brynmawr, Wales, Diamandis moved to London as a teenager to pursue a music career. In 2009, at the age of 24, she placed second in the BBC’s “Sound of 2010” competition. That success led to her debut studio album, The Family Jewels.

Diamandis has three high-profile events on her 2025 calendar. She will be appearing at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, CA, on April 11 and 18; The Governors Ball in Queens, NY, on June 7; and Bonnaroo in Manchester, TN, on June 13.

Please check out the video of Diamandis performing the acoustic version of "Primadonna." The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“Primadonna”
Written by Marina Diamandis, Julie Frost, Lukasz Gottwald and Henry Walter. Performed by Marina and the Diamonds.

Primadonna girl, yeah
All I ever wanted was the world
I can’t help that I need it all
The primadonna life, the rise and fall

You say that I’m kinda difficult
But it’s always someone else’s fault
Got you wrapped around my finger, babe
You can count on me to misbehave

Primadonna girl,
Would you do anything for me?
Buy a big diamond ring for me?
Would you get down on your knees for me?
Pop the pretty question right now baby

Beauty queen of the silver screen
Living life like I’m in a dream
I know I’ve got a big ego
I really don’t know why it’s such a big deal, though

I’m sad to the core, core, core
Everything is a chore, chore, chore
When you give I want more, more, more
I wanna be adored

Cause I’m a primadonna girl, yeah
All I ever wanted was the world
I can’t help that I need it all
The primadonna life, the rise and fall

You say that I’m kinda difficult
But it’s always someone else’s fault
Got you wrapped around my finger, babe
You can count on me to misbehave

Primadonna girl
Fill the void up with celluloid
Take a picture, I’m with the boys
Get what I want cause I asked for it
Not because I’m really that deserving of it

Living life like I’m in a play
In the limelight I want to stay
I know I’ve got a big ego
I really don’t know why it’s such a big deal, though

Going up, going down, down, down
Anything for the crown, crown, crown
When the lights go down, down, down
I spin around

Cause I’m a primadonna girl, yeah
All I ever wanted was the world
I can’t help that I need it all
The primadonna life, the rise and fall

You say that I’m kinda difficult
But it’s always someone else’s fault
Got you wrapped around my finger, babe
You can count on me to misbehave

Primadonna girl, yeah
All I ever wanted was the world
I can’t help that I need it all
The primadonna life, the rise and fall
You say that I’m kinda difficult
But it’s always someone else’s fault
Got you wrapped around my finger, babe
You can count on me to misbehave
Primadonna girl



Credit: Photo by Justin Higuchi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A white gold wedding band pulled from the ashes symbolizes hope for a California firefighter who lost his home and possessions in a blaze that wiped out his Altadena neighborhood.



Chien Yu and his family were forced to flee when the wind-whipped fires rapidly descended on their home last week. He noticed an orange glow through the trees in his backyard and he knew it was time to go.

As soon as his wife and two young sons were secured, Yu reported to the firehouse to start a 16-hour shift to protect the property of his Altadena neighbors.



CNN's Erin Burnett met up with Yu on his first day back on the job and accompanied him on a tour of his own property, which had been reduced to rubble. The charred remains looked like a scene from a war zone.



Yu was emotional as he surveyed the devastation. He pointed to a concrete slab that used to be his front porch, and some tangled strings that were the only remains of the family's grand piano.

Yu told Burnett that his wife did manage to pack some stuff, but she and the kids are unrooted right now. The boys want to go back home and they want to go back to school, but both their home and school have been destroyed.

"I just wanted normalcy. So that's why I came back to work," Yu told Burnett. "But it's never going to be the same for the kids."

As a firefighter, Yu sees destruction everyday. But, Yu said this experience has been indescribable.

"I mean, you know, when we go to a house fire, you kind of detach, and you just sort of do what's best for the homeowner and you put their fire out and we kind of salvage what we can," he said. "We pull what we can... And hopefully some of their stuff makes it."

Then he took a breath and looked at his own property and said, "But this is just just gone."



A moment later, CNN cut to a shot of two other firefighters sifting through the ashes on Yu's property.

"What's that? What's that?" Burnett shouted as a firefighter pulled a small, round object from the rubble and handed it to Yu. "Oh, my God."



It was Yu's wedding ring.

"Chien, what's your wife going to say?" asked an excited Burnett.

"She didn't know [it was missing]," he said. "Now everybody knows where we found it."



CNN then cut to a scene of Yu's wife, Kim's, reaction upon seeing the dusty, but cherished, ring. She was overwhelmed with emotion as she hugged her husband.



CNN viewers sensed that the ring is now a symbol of the strength of their bond and commitment to rebuild. They hope to stay in Altadena, not far from where Yu grew up.

"Yeah, we want to be back," he said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the family's Go Fund Me page had accumulated $216,000 in donations from 2,700 individuals. That's 87% of the way to their target goal of $250,000.

You can visit their Go Fund Me page here…

See Burnett's five-minute report here…

Credits: Screen captures via cnn.com.

As Los Angeles residents try to salvage what remains of their ravaged homes after devastating wildfires swept through their communities this past week, you might be wondering about the condition of the diamond jewelry they may find in the ashes.



How a diamond ring survives a blazing inferno has a lot to do with the temperature of the fire and whether or not the jewelry was stored in a fire safe.

House fires typically reach 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, but can get as high as 2,000 degrees in extreme conditions, such as the ones generated by the ferocious wind-whipped wildfires seen in California.

An average fire safe can protect its jewelry contents up to a temperature of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit. And even without the safe, a gold and diamond ring may survive because the melting point of the precious metal is about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit and the ignition temperature of a diamond is about 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit.

While diamond sits alone atop the Mohs scale as the hardest naturally occurring material known to man, it is made of carbon. And like other carbon materials, such as graphite or coal, diamond can burn.

Under regular conditions, the ignition occurs at about 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit. In a lab setting, when surrounded by pure oxygen, diamonds will start combusting at 1320 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a 12-year-old YouTube video that has been viewed 719,000 times, British scientist and author Peter Wothers enlisted the help of Nobel prize-winning chemist Sir Harry Kroto to demonstrate what it takes to get a diamond to burn.

Wothers added a bit of drama and comic relief by using Kroto’s wife’s engagement diamond for the experiment. The viewer can see Kroto getting increasingly more uncomfortable as it becomes very clear that his wife’s diamond — under just the right conditions — has ignited.

In his preliminary experiment, Wothers easily set ablaze a bit of graphite using a torch in an environment of pure oxygen. Then he upped the ante by doing the exact same experiment using the Kroto engagement diamond.

Surprisingly, that lit up, too. The diamond burned as a golden ember without producing any flames. At that point, Kroto half-jokingly commented that he hoped Wothers could afford to pay for a replacement diamond.

As you might have figured out by now, Wothers had cleverly swapped the Krotos’ engagement diamond with a much lower quality specimen before the experiment began. (Kroto passed away in 2016 at the age of 76.)

On its website, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) confirmed that house fires and jewelers' torches can reach a temperature sufficient for a diamond to burn. It even provided an photo of what a scorched diamond looks like. Instead of being transparent, the diamond is marred by a white, cloudy surface (like frost on a window).

The GIA noted that a diamond with this type of blemish can be recut, reducing the diamond's size, but leaving no sign that it was ever damaged.

If you’re worried about how a diamond is protected when a ring setting needs to be retipped, for example, be assured that jewelers go to great lengths to make sure that the extreme heat of the torch does not affect the gemstone. Some jewelers use boric acid to protect the stone while others depend on the pinpoint accuracy of a laser welder to keep the diamond out of harm’s way.

Please check out Wothers' demonstration below...



Credit: AI-generated image by The Jeweler Blog using ChatGPT and DALL-E 3.

A former Wheel of Fortune contestant who believed she was being invited back on the show as part of its 50th-anniversary celebration solved the "WILL YOU MARRY ME?" puzzle and was stunned when her now-fiancé emerged from backstage to pop the question.



Rhea Mathew had last appeared on the top-rated game show in October of 2023. Her appearance this past Thursday was actually the culmination of an elaborate ruse coordinated by Mathew's boyfriend, Robin Kuriakose, and the show's producers.

"From the moment I saw a future together with Rhea, I envisioned this proposal," Kuriakose told Good Morning America. "I saw the letters on the board, and knew this is how it had to happen. Truthfully, there were no plans B or C! It took about three months to plan it alongside the amazing producers of the show."

With only five letter revealed during a toss-up round, Mathew buzzed in and confidently shouted out the solution to the "WILL YOU MARRY ME?" puzzle. At the same time, Kuriakose, who had been waiting in the wings, stepped onto the set.



Clearly shocked by his appearance, Mathew slowly put two and two together and approached her boyfriend with her hands covering her mouth.

Kuriakose pulled an oval-cut diamond ring from a ring box, went down on one knee and proposed with the phrase, "Rhea Susan Mathew, will you marry me?"



Mathew nodded "yes" and the couple shared a kiss.

The studio audience let out a cheer and the hosts were clearly moved by the heartfelt moment.

In a shared post on instagram, the couple wrote, "@everyone !!! We have been nearly BURSTING with excitement to share the details of our proposal!! Tune in to @wheeloffortune TONIGHT on ABC to catch @rkuriakose put my jaw on the floor doing the sweetest, most elaborate thing anyone has ever done for me." She punctuated the caption with a Holding Back Tears emoji, Loudly Crying Face emoji, red heart emoji and diamond ring emoji.



"Like the rest of America, I saw the shock on her face — with her jaw on the floor and her eyes wide open," said Kuriakose in a post-show interview with Good Morning America. "All I wanted to do at that moment was embrace her to bring her back to reality, and show her the magic she deserves."

The couple is planning an October wedding in Long Island, NY.

Credits: Wheel of Fortune set images via YouTube / WheelofFortune. Selfie and engagement pics via Instagram / rheamathew_.

When fashion icon Zendaya walked the 2025 Golden Globes red carpet sporting a brand new engagement ring from boyfriend Tom Holland, style watchers were quick to point out the unique east-west orientation of her 5-carat elongated cushion-cut diamond.



It's a style that's been around for 100 years, but could also become the next big thing, thanks to the viral media attention the ring generated on celebrity websites and Zendaya's "It" girl status in Hollywood. (She also claims 180 million followers on Instagram.)

East-west settings became popular during the Art Deco period of the 1920s and 1930s, when jewelry designers stepped out of the box and started experimenting with bold, geometric designs that broke away from traditional jewelry styles.



Today, a diamond rotated 90 degrees from the common vertical orientation reflects an edgy, yet sophisticated, elegance.

Eagle-eyed jewelry pundits identified Zendaya's ring as a design by British jeweler Jessica McCormack, who has taken pride in revitalizing the styles and setting techniques of yesteryear.



The jeweler's Instagram page features a ring very similar to the one seen during Zendaya's walk on the red carpet. In a post from 24 weeks ago, the jeweler described the ring as having a "Georgian back button diamond setting."

During the Georgian period (1714-1837), jewelers developed a setting style where the back of the diamond was completely enclosed in precious metal, creating a button-like appearance.

The jeweler told theadventurine.com that the setting increases the refraction of the light, producing a magical depth to the stone.

"This style is very comfortable to wear," she told the website. "The diamond sits low to the finger and close to the skin, and the smooth gold finish enclosing the diamond keeps the stone as sparkly as possible."

Elongated diamond shapes, such as oval, emerald, marquise, radiant and some cushions, tend to elongate the appearance of the finger when set north to south. Brides with shorter fingers would tend to take advantage of this strategy. On the other hand, brides with longer fingers can easily wear a diamond in an east-west orientation.

What's more, according to Town & Country, an east-west diamond symbolizes "two equal partners moving forward on the same path."

With Zendaya leading the way, it's a sure bet that more brides-to-be will be taking a closer look at east-west engagements rings in 2025 and beyond.

Credits: Zendaya image by Toglenn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, © Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com. Ring images via Instagram / jessica_mccormack.

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you romantic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, The Isley Brothers sing about the symbolism of fine jewelry in the group’s 1992 release, “Brazilian Wedding Song (Setembro).”



Written by Brazilian composers Ivan Lins and Gilson Peranzzetta, “Brazilian Wedding Song (Setembro)” became a frequent request for wedding day playlists after a sweet rendition by The Isley Brothers appeared on their Tracks of Life album.

The song is essentially a groom’s wedding vow — using jewelry references to describe his solemn pledge of love and devotion.

Lead vocalist Ron Isley sings, “I pledge all my love to you always / Don’t you know this ring / This ring is a symbol of my love / Grant us blessings from above oh, oh / Who cherish all the magic of our days.”

In the next verse, gold chains symbolize the couple’s eternal bond… “Oh Lord, oh Lord, here I stand / Golden chains around our hearts / Vow to death we’ll never part.”

Often cited as the band that has enjoyed one of the “longest, most influential, and most diverse careers in the pantheon of popular music,” The Isley Brothers became the first group to score a Top 50 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 in six consecutive decades.

Originally from Cincinnati, the group was established in 1954 as a gospel trio featuring brothers O’Kelly, Rudolph and Ron Isley. Soon they landed a spot on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour, where they won the competition and took home the grand prize — a watch. With their new-found fame, they began touring all over the eastern US, performing in a variety of churches.

The brothers moved to the New York City area in the late 1950s. In 1959, the brothers celebrated their first big hit, “Shout,” a song that would become a cultural phenomenon nearly two decades later when it was performed by Otis Day and the Knights in the 1978 fraternity house romp, National Lampoon’s Animal House.

The Isley Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and in 2010, Ron Isley received a “Legend Award” at the Soul Train Music Awards. The Isley Brothers will be receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2025.

Ron Isley, 83, and his brother, Ernie, 72, are still performing as The Isley Brothers. Their 60th Anniversary Tour will take them to Las Vegas, Ledyard, CT; Englewood, NJ; North Charleston, SC; Southaven, MS; Los Angeles and Indianapolis over the next six months.

Please check out the audio track of The Isley Brothers performing “Brazilian Wedding Song (Setembro).” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“Brazilian Wedding Song (Setembro)”
Written by Ivan Guimaraes Lins and Gilson Peranzzetta. Performed by The Isley Brothers.

Today is the day to say I do
Yes, I promise to be true

I pledge all my love to you always
Don’t you know this ring
This ring is a symbol of my love
Grant us blessings from above oh, oh
Who cherish all the magic of our days

Oh Lord, oh Lord, here I stand
Golden chains around our hearts
Vow to death we’ll never part
From this day as one we’ll start our lives

Oh Lord, here I stand
With my heart out in my hand
Rich or poor, I am your man
I’m your lover and friend for life
Ooh

So much love, so much love, girl
So much love, girl, la, la, la, la
Today, today, today is the day to say I do
Yes, I promise to be true

I pledge all my love to you always
Don’t you know this ring
This ring is a symbol of my love
Grant us blessings from above oh, oh
Who cherish all the magic of our days

And I can hear them when they play
Our Brazilian wedding song



Credit: Photo by T-Neck Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

While gemstone inclusions are generally viewed in a negative light because they represent imperfections, in certain cases the presence of "telltale" inclusions will have the opposite effect. Sometimes they turn out to be "perfect imperfections" — the type John Legend sang about in his 2013 hit, "All of Me" — and significantly increase a stone's value.



This is the case with the vivid green demantoid garnet, the rarest and most valuable variety of January’s birthstone.

First discovered in Russia’s Ural Mountains in 1851, the green gem was a favorite of designer Carl Fabergé, who incorporated demantoid into the famous jeweled eggs and other fanciful jewelry he created for the Russian Imperial family.

Demantoid garnet is currently mined in Namibia, Iran, Pakistan, Italy, Madagascar and Canada, but the Russian demantoid garnet continues to set the standard by which all the others are judged.



The good news is that jewelry connoisseurs can easily tell if their demantoid garnet was sourced in Russia due to distinctive byssolite “horsetail” inclusions that seem to spray out from the center of the stone.

A beautiful, well-formed inclusion can increase the value of the gemstone considerably, noted the International Colored Gemstone Association.

The gem in the first image, above, was sourced in Namibia, while the included gem in the second image originated in Russia's Ural Mountains.

Demantoid is derived from the Dutch word for diamond, “demant.” The stone owes its impressive diamond-like brilliance to two main factors: A high refractive index and a high dispersion (its ability to separate light into the spectrum of colors). Demantoid, in fact, boasts the highest dispersion rating of all gemstones, including diamond.

Fine-quality demantoid garnets are rarely found in sizes larger than 2 carats. The Namibian 3-carat gem, above, is part of the Smithsonian Gem and Mineral Collection and was purchased with funds from the Tiffany & Co. Foundation in 2014.

Ironically, George F. Kunz, who was Tiffany and Co.’s vice president of gemology from 1879 until his death in 1932, was a big fan of demantoid garnets and reportedly purchased all the rough material he could get his hands on.

African-origin demantoid tends to be yellowish-green, olive green or brownish, due to higher concentrations of iron. Russian demantoid, on the other hand, owes its color to chromium and tends to be vivid green.

Other garnet varieties used for jewelry include pyrope, almandine, andradite, grossularite, hessonite, rhodolite, tsavorite, spessartine and uvarovite.

Credits: Photo of Namibian demantoid garnet by Greg Polley/Smithsonian. Photo of Russian demantoid garnet with byssolite inclusions by Dr Anatoly, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

In early December, five-time Grammy-award-winning and multi-platinum artist Drake confirmed that his "The Anita Max Wynn Tour" would be coming to Australia and New Zealand in February 2025. And to commemorate the tour, the Toronto native commissioned Jason of Beverly Hills to create a massive pendant necklace fabricated from 3 kilos (6.6 lbs) of gold and more than 250 carats of colorful, flawless diamonds.



The pendant features the likeness of Drake's cartoon alter ego, Anita Max Wynn, an adorable girl sporting a blonde bob haircut, rosy cheeks and oversized black-rimmed spectacles. Anita's face dangles from a link chain bedazzled with white, blue, green and pink gemstones.

Anita Max Wynn is a clever pun on the gambling phrase "I need a max win" and was introduced into the Drake lexicon in December 2023 during a Kick live stream.

"Ladies with gentle hands," said Drake, who is famously a high-stakes gambler, "this is my alter ego, Anita Max Wynn."

This is not the first time Drake has collaborated with celebrity jewelry designer Jason Arasheben. Back in 2019, the artist commissioned an 18-karat white gold iPhone X case adorned from edge to edge with blue and white diamonds weighing a total of 80 carats. The $400,000 case was punctuated by a white gold, diamond-eyed symbol of Drake’s record label, the OVO owl.

Arasheben revealed the case on his Instagram page under the caption, “Because we can’t do basic!"

More recently, the jeweler was back on Instagram with a video showing the details of the Anita Max Wynn pendant. His caption stated, "Carrying the weight of greatness. Go big or go home! Thank you @champagnepapi for always putting your trust in us."



Arasheben also revealed the pendant's surprise feature: A hidden door in the back that opens to reveal miniature skyline of Toronto, Drake's home town. The door itself features a map of Australia and New Zealand, along with the names of the tour cities, venues and dates.

The 38-year-old's tour Down Under will begin on February 9 in Melbourne, Australia, and will end on March 1 in Auckland, New Zealand.

Credits: Screen captures via Instagram / jasonofbeverlyhills.

The Hope Diamond has been seen by more than 200 million visitors during the gemstone's 60-plus years at the Smithsonian, placing it just behind Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at the Louvre as the most visited museum object in the world.



This past Friday, a family member and I arrived at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, just as it was opening, and dashed two steps at a time to the second floor where we beat the crowds to the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals.

On many of our previous trips, attempts to get an unencumbered photo op with the most famous diamond in the world were thwarted by the sheer number of people in the exhibit hall, but on this day we were the first visitors to enter the Harry Winston Gallery and found ourselves in an uncommonly empty space — just us and the 45.52-carat deep-blue diamond.



The Hope Diamond is set in a Cartier-designed pendant surrounded by 16 white diamonds, both pear-shapes and cushion cuts. The complimentary necklace chain contains 45 white diamonds. The glass case is viewable from four sides and the column-shaped display on which the jewelry is affixed rotates every few seconds, one-quarter turn at a time.

The Hope Diamond was donated to the Smithsonian in 1958 by luxury jeweler Harry Winston. In yesterday’s column, we recounted how and why Winston decided to use the US Postal Service to ship the famous gem from New York to DC.

According to the Smithsonian, Winston envisioned the institution assembling a gem collection to rival the royal treasuries of Europe — “Crown Jewels” that would belong to the American public.

“Other countries have their Crown Jewels,” Winston reportedly said. “We don’t have a Queen and King, but we should have our Crown Jewels, and what better place than here in the nation’s capital at the Smithsonian Institution.”

The Hope Diamond immediately became the museum's premier attraction and has been on continuous display, except for five instances…

In 1962, it was exhibited for a month at the Louvre in Paris as part of an exhibit titled "Ten Centuries of French Jewelry."

In 1965, the Hope Diamond traveled to South Africa, where it was exhibited at the Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg.

In 1984, Harry Winston Inc. exhibited the stone at its New York headquarters as part of the firm's 50th anniversary celebration.

In 1996, the Hope Diamond returned to Harry Winston Inc. for a cleaning and some minor restoration work.

In March of 2020, the Smithsonian was forced to close the Hope Diamond exhibit due to COVID-19 restrictions. It was finally reopened 461 days later on June 18, 2021, to great fanfare.

Today, the Hope Diamond is estimated to be worth $325 million, making it the single most valuable item at the Smithsonian.

Researchers believe the Hope Diamond was originally mined in India in 1642. It was crudely finished and weighed 115 carats when it was purchased in 1666 by French merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier, at which time it became known as the Tavernier Diamond.

French King Louis XIV bought the Tavernier Diamond in February 1669 and ordered it to be recut. The result was a 69-carat heart-shaped stone that would be known as the French Blue.

In 1792, the French Blue was stolen from the royal treasury in Paris. Its whereabouts remained unknown until a very similar large blue diamond appeared in 1839 in the collection of Henry Philip Hope, a London banker and gem collector. Gem historians believe the French Blue had been, once again, recut. The 45.52-carat gem became known as the Hope Diamond.

After going through numerous owners, it was sold in 1911 by French jeweler Pierre Cartier to Washington socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean. In 1949, McLean’s heirs sold the stone to Winston, who exhibited it throughout the US for a number of years. In 1958, he famously gifted it to the Smithsonian.

Credits: Hope Diamond and display photos by The Jeweler Blog.

While the Hope Diamond is the most popular exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History, tucked away at the National Postal Museum just a mile away is the post-stamped plain brown mailing wrapper that represents an aspect of the gem's history that's been largely untold and that few people have ever seen.



New York-based luxury jeweler Harry Winston owned the Hope Diamond from 1948 to 1957, and over that time, the gem traveled throughout America as part of Winston's Court of Jewels exhibition. In 1958, Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian and used his surefire way to get it there.



It may seem surprising, but Winston delivered the priceless gem — not by armored vehicle — but by the US Postal Service.

“It’s the safest way to mail gems,” Winston told The Evening Star (Washington, DC) at the time. “I’ve sent gems all over the world that way.”



The registered First-Class postage cost him just $2.44, but he also paid $142.85 for $1 million worth of insurance. The total payment of $145.29 is equivalent to $1,582 today.

This past Friday, we got a chance to see the actual postal wrapper, up close and personal, at the National Postal Museum, which is located across the street from Union Station, just north of the Capitol building.

If you're planning to visit this off-the-path Smithsonian (the Postal Museum attracts just 200,000 visitors a year vs. 4.4 million for the National Museum of Natural History), be sure to ask a Smithsonian staffer to point out where the Harry Winston wrapper is located.



Just inside the gallery, you will see a seven-foot-high case that looks like a travel steamer trunk standing on its end. Built into the side of the trunk are six numbered drawers. If you slide out drawer number 3, you will be a glass pane away from a mailing wrapper plastered with 16 $9.00 postage stamps, one $1.29 stamp, and a "Fragile" marking.



The face of the wrapper includes a Harry Winston Inc. shipping label, and a simple typewritten address (Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.) Hand-written, as if it were an afterthought, is the addressee, Dr. Leonard Carmichael.



In Washington, on November 10, 1958, the package was delivered to the Natural History Museum by local letter carrier James G. Todd. Reporters were on hand to witness Todd plucking the valuable package from his mail satchel and presenting it to Smithsonian's Secretary Carmichael and Smithsonian Curator George Switzer.

In a piece that aired in December 2020, Dan Piazza, Curator of the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, told Harry Smith of NBC's Today show, “The National History Museum can have the diamond. I want the box it came in. I kind of think we got the better end of the deal.”

Credits: Hope Diamond mail wrapper and display shots by Bruce Carter/The Jeweler Blog.