Dresden Green Diamond

  The Dresden Green diamond is a 41 carat (8.2 g) natural green diamond that has a historical record dating to 1722, when a London news-sheet carried an article about it in its 25 October-27th edition.

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It is named after the capital of Saxony, Germany where it has been on display for most of the last two centuries. It did make some sojourns following World War II, to the Soviet Union until 1958, and to the Smithsonian in Washington DC, USA in 2000, where it was displayed in the same room as the Hope diamond.

The stone's unique green color is due to natural exposure to radioactive materials (see Diamond enhancement#Irradiation). The stone is being used to compare natural versus lab-produced green diamonds — it is hoped that it can be used to devise a test to differentiate between naturally green diamonds, which are quite rare, and lab-produced ones.

This diamond is located in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden "The New Green Vault" [1]