Today I shall take you to a new trip in time we will follow the history  of another diamond.  A diamond that got lost in time.  So grab my hand prepare yourself and let’s get lost in history.

Our diamond is called Pigot Diamond or the Lottery diamond, this diamond had 47,38 carats, was without color, oval shaped cut brilliant, saw the light on Golkonda mine before 1763, to follow his history we shall go to India, to  Golkonda mine, than we will follow his history in England, where at that time it will be the largest diamond in Europe. Our diamond won’t stay long in Europe in 1820 he diamond will be found Egypt from where it will be lost.

Let’s follow his history closer. The diamond will be obtained by Sir George Pigot  when he was a guvernor in Madras. Probably he received it  as a gift from the Rajah, a gift that will bring trouble for Pigot as some will consider that he misused his powers to obtain it. Because of it Pigot will be imprisoned in 1776. Fortunately Parliament decided he wasn’t guilty and they passed two resolutions against his imprisoned. Even if Parliament decided in his favor he died in imprisoned next year. The Pigot diamond is passed to his family. As the value of diamond was quite big and they couldn’t obtain the right price they thought to sell the diamond in a new way.

They decided a lottery will be organized, at that time games of change were illegal in England, but they could obtain the Parliament  to agree with this lottery. There were 11428 tickets to be sold each  for two guineas. Diamond got in the end to Rundell and Parker. From this our diamond can be named Lottery diamond as you don’t sell diamonds in this way usually.

We will see as we follow his history that later Rundell and Parker will try to sell the diamond to France to the famous Napoleon Bonaparte, the only problem was that at time France and England were at war.  so the story goes that Napoleon started to think the diamond came from England so Rundell and Parker has to wait until Napoleon falls. It is bad to wait a fall of a man to get back what you own.

Rundell and Parker will file a lawsuit and recover their diamond.  The owners will be now Rundell and Bridge after Parker got out of the business, they will try to sell it , first they will be sending replicas of diamond all over the world to clients that can afford. It seems the diamond attracted many eyes the story goes in two different ways one says that the diamond attracted the interest of Pasha of Egypt who will buy it in 1822, the other story favors the an Albanian Prince who is supposed to buy it but they both had the same intention to give the stone to mighty Sultan. The first version of the story says that  when Pasha( he didn’t really obey the Sultan same as the Prince) was killed by Sultan men he told his best friend to smash the beautiful diamond. Ohers favors the rumors that the diamond is the Spoon diamond that lays in Topkapi Palace. But diamonds had different weights, the Spoon diamond being  bigger than the Pigot diamond.

Unfortunately we can’t follow more of this beauty history, we can only hope that the diamond wasn’t smashed and maybe is somewhere on a beautiful jewelry waiting to be admired by hungry eyes. I hope you enjoyed this trip in time and that you will again come with me to another trip.