IN SEARCH OF SIERRA LEONE DIAMOND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 88, 19 June 1946, Page 3

IN SEARCH OF SIERRA LEONE DIAMOND

GEM BIG AS HEN’S EGG WORTH £200,000

In London trying to buy the famous Sierra Leone diamond—which is large rthan a hen’s egg and valued at 200,000 —is Paul de Witt, 43-year-old New York diamond king. In his suite at Grosvenor House }ie told a Sunday Chronicle reporter last week that, so far, he had not been able to do a deal with the owners—the Sierra Leone Selection Trust.

“But I am going to have another try,” he added. “If I can get it I will cut it up—even in America people cannot afford £20,000 for one stone. “I have been travelling the world in search of jewels since I was 23, and on this trip I have been to the Congo, South Africa, and am now off to Amsterdam. “In this game you get plenty of excitement. In Chicago I have twice been held up by gunmen and once I was robbed of my jewels. “On one occasion in Belgium I was shown some fine green diamonds —one of the rarest kind. I paid several thousand for them.

“But when I had them analysed I found they had been treated with radium and were actually common yellow diamonds worth only a few hundred pounds.” The Sierra Leone stone, which was discovered recently, weighs 770 carats, a record for an alluvial diamond.