Thursday, March 16, 2006

Nizam's jewels on show at Salar Jung

The Salar Jung Museum has loaned the Nizams jewels from the RBI for 2 months and put them on display.

The collection includes the dazzling Jacob Diamond, valued today at 400crore by the Indian Government & worth much more abroad. The Jacob was mined in South Africa weighing 457 carats, the second largest diamond in the world. It was subsequently cut in Amsterdam & currently weighs 184.5 carats.

Though only a tenth of the Nizams jewels have been procured by the Indian Government, (after 20 years of negotiations, the rest of the collection has been smuggled out of the country or melted or cut down) the present collectiopn in terms of gem weight is mind boggling. There are over 25000 diamonds weighing in excess of over 12000 carats, more than 2000 emeralds weighing over 10,000 carats & pearls exceeding over 40,000 chows And this is just a part of the collection......

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Okay, there is a story you must read :) - a spoof on the the Nizam's jewels that appeared on a Hyderabad website.

ShareThis