It was a hot August day and I was trolling the antique stores on Charles Street in Boston for a deal. The state of Massachusetts had declared a sales tax free weekend and I was looking to take advantage of it by investing some excess cash in antique jewelry or loose diamonds. I had one antique store in particular that I favored for this sort of expedition. I won’t name the shop, but it was a hole in the wall that had a good selection of antique jewelry and loose diamonds at reasonable prices. After entering, I asked the proprietor behind the counter to show me everything he had. After searching through his vintage jewelry with no luck I quickly moved onto his stock of loose diamonds.
I don’t know what his sources were, but he did brisk sales in loose stones. Business was traditionally slow in August though, when a lot of dealers and customers went on vacation. I think that is how I got lucky, finding a stone that I not only liked, but adored. It was an off-color, old mine cut diamond of around 1.71 carats with good clarity. It was a very fine stone in spite of its brown color, with superb fire and a great deal of warmth and charisma. The diamond was undoubtedly at least a century old and possessed an ethereal charm that was difficult to put into words.
The price was almost too high for me to consider though, even without sales tax – about $2,000. I asked the proprietor if his store would be open the next day and he answered affirmatively. I then told him I might return tomorrow to buy the stone. He peered at me suspiciously over his glasses and commented skeptically, “Sure, if you come back.”
Later, after I returned home, I told my wife I had found something absolutely amazing during my antiquing expedition. Our exchange went something like this:
“What did you find?” asked my wife curiously.
I fumbled desperately in my mind as to how to reply before I resigned myself to reluctantly telling her the unpleasant truth. “It’s a brown diamond,” I said sheepishly.
“A brown diamond?” echoed my wife incredulously. “Why in the world would we want a brown diamond?”
“Well, brown isn’t quite the right word for it,” I protested weakly. “You really have to see it to truly appreciate it,” I continued undeterred. “Why don’t you come with me to the antique store tomorrow and we’ll look at it together. If you aren’t impressed with the diamond, then we won’t buy it,” I offered timidly.
To my great relief at the time, my wife agreed to my proposal. The next day I withdrew some money from the ATM and off we went to the antique store. As we set foot inside the venerable establishment I realized just what a terrible bargain I had made with my wife. The interior of the shop was not exactly conducive to selling…well…anything.
Pieces of dusty antique furniture were haphazardly stacked on top each other to form narrow aisles that forced customers to carefully navigate the store in single file. The lighting was absolutely awful. The cathedral ceilings were set with distant, tube-style florescent lights that cast a dim, clinical and solemn pallor over everything in the store. The only natural light shown faintly from some extremely dirty plate glass windows on the far side of the store, partially obscured by mountains of old furniture and jumbles of miscellaneous antiques. There wasn’t even a small table lamp to use as a makeshift spotlight on the store’s counter. I immediately broke out into a cold sweat. No gemstone, regardless of how amazing it might be, could possibly look good in this charnel lighting.
After quick introductions with the shopkeeper, he pulled out the paper parcel containing the stone and handed it over to me for examination. I carefully unwrapped the color-challenged gem with much trepidation. My spousal reputation was on the line here, not to mention the possibility of acquiring the coveted stone. And then the diamond tumbled out in front of us, sparkling, sublime and supremely confident in its own immutable beauty.
My initial thought upon seeing the stone again was “Koh-i-noor,” referencing the famous Indian diamond now residing in the British Crown Jewels whose name translates from Persian as “Mountain of Light”. The diamond in front of us was one of the most gorgeous stones I had ever laid eyes on. It possessed an intense fire that is almost never seen in modern-cut stones. Even in those drab surroundings, with the worst lighting imaginable, its facets sparkled seductively with delicate flashes of peach, pink, and salmon. The diamond’s questionable brown hue was really closer to a light golden color than I had remembered as well. Under normal circumstances, any tinge of color decreases the value of a white diamond, but this stone was intense enough that it could potentially be graded “light fancy” according to the GIA color scale – a very desirable trait.
Words truly did not do the gem justice, especially the word “brown.” To my great relief, my very sensible wife was equally impressed. After 15 minutes of negotiations we walked out of the antique store as proud owners of a fine, 1.71 carat, old mine cut, brown diamond. It was one of the best antique purchases I ever made. The stone is today undoubtedly worth substantially more than I paid for it, but I have no plans to sell anytime soon. I think the lesson of the brown diamond is clear. Sometime you just have to see an antique in person before you make a definitive judgment on it. Sometimes brown isn’t as ugly as it sounds.
