Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-10-03
HARD TO SELL STOLEN GEMS
THIEVES OF BIG STONES MUST
TURN TO THE FAR EAST.

tives Buy and Store Away Their
Valuable Purchases.
Disposing of stolen jewels is a diff
cult undertaking, particularly if the
| jewels are of great value. 1t is al
most impossible to get rid of large
stones in this country and harder
still to dispose of them in England
and France if they are stolen. The
only way to do it with safety is to
cut the stone up, and when a large
stone is cut it decreases greatly in
value.
Large diamonds are not so numer-
GUS that they cannot be kept track of.
When a large diamond is found it
sooner or later finds its way to the
greatest diamond market in the
world, which is London Persons
through whose hands a large stone
passes are careful to note it., good
points as well as its defects, if it has
any.
Every diamond over ten carats is
| considered a large one and worthy of
particular note. Every dealer who
handles such stone can give a mi
mute description of it. The purer the
stone the more attention it attracts
from the persons who handle it. That
is why it is hard to dispose of stolen
diamonds Of any account, for when
one is stolen every dealer throughout
the world hears of it and has such a
good description of the missing stone
that he can hardly fail to identify it.
The ordinary stolen jewels find their
way to pawnshops and fences. There
are jewelers. in this town who have
the reputation of beng rences, but
none of them does business direct
with thief y~..~,7,; / *,
When large stone is stolen here
or in England or France the first
! place the searchers look for it to turn
up is in Amsterdam, which is the CEN
ter of the diamond cutting industry
If it doesn't appear there within rea-
sonable time its owners can bid good
by to it, for it will probably be dis
posed of without trouble in the ORR
ent. India, Persia and Turkey are
the three countries where large dia-
monds can be sold without cutting
them up.
Once they are taken into one of
these countries they are hidden just
as if they were put back into the
ground. Diamond dealers say that
the greater number of important jew
els that have been stolen have found
their way to these countries. The In
dian princes will buy and ask no
Questions
The high class native of India is a
remarkable Judge of all kinds of
precious stones, and many of them
count most of their wealth in this
form.
Diamond dealers and police all over
the civilized world have long realized
that as soon as precious stone finds
its way to the Orient it is lost until
its buyer dies and his is properly di-
vided among his wives or his rela-
tives.
S6uGIdl-
ly find their way into the crowns of
royalty The Orloff, which weighs |
194A carats, is in the Russian crown |
jewels. That stone formed one of the
eyes of an idol in the Brahman tenn
pie on the island of Srirangam in the |
Kaveri River, near Trichinopoli. The
story has it that it was stolen from
there early in the eighteenth century
by French soldier. From him it
found it's way into the hands of an
English ship captain and so got into
Europe.
1t turned up in Amsterdam in 1871 |
and for a time it was called the Am |
sterdam diamonds 1t got it's name |
of Orloff when Prince Orloff bought |
it for 100000 Dutch forms and pre-
sented it to the Empress Catherine II. |
of Russia. This jewel forms the head !
of the imperial scepter.
Three other famous jewels in the !
possession of the Russian crown are |
the Shar, the Moon of Mountains, |
and the Polar Star-the first of SO |
carats, the second of 120 and the
third of 40 carats. The Shah is an
engraved diamond, one of the very
few large engraved diamonds in ex-
istence. All are perfect blue white
stones Catherine H. bought the
Moon of Mountains for 100000 rubles,
an annuity of 1000 rubles and let
tiers of royalty.
These are not by any means the
largest known stones in existence, but
they are among the most valuable,
because of their purity. Some of the
largest diamonds on record are Bra
lillian stones, but doubt always has
been cast on their genuineness. The
Braganza is a Brazilian stone as big
as a hens egg and weighing 1850
carats. It is preserved in the Por-
tuguese crown jewels, but there has
always been doubt as to its genuine
ness. If it is genuine, diamond ex-
perts say, it is worth 224,0OO,00O
Another large stone on which there
has been a good deal of speculation
as to its genuineness is owned by the
Rajah of Mattang, Borneo. 1t
weighs 367 carats.
OF the large diamonds that have
been found in recent years, the Elk
celsior is the largest. 1t was un-
earthed in the Jagersfontein mine, in
the Orange River Colony. South At
RIGA. 1t measured 21a inches in
length, inches in breath and l inch
in thickness. b
The Excelsior was found in June,
1898 There was flaw in it, how
ever, and it had to be cut The larg-
er section of it found its way to Tiff
fanny & Co, where it still remains
waiting a purchaser. When the Tiff
fanny robbery first became known it
was thought that it was the Excel
sior had been stolen.-New York Sun.
De Trop.
When he entered the Art Gallery