I desperately wanted to go the National Museum of National History to see their famous gem collection which includes the Hope Diamond. The Hope Diamond is a famous deep-blue diamond, which is supposedly cursed. It has a long history with few gaps in which it changed hands numerous times on its way from India to France to England and to the United States, where is now resides at the Smithsonian. While we were there we took in the rest of the mineral and gem collection which includes:


The Logan Sapphire at 423 carats is the second largest known faceted blue sapphire.


A gold butterfly set with 333 fancy-colored Montana Sapphires.


A platinum flower brooch made of tanzanites surrounded by diamonds.


A natural sandstone formation from Fontainebleau, France.


The Portuguese Diamond, the largest cut diamond in the collection at the National Museum of Natural History.


A veritable rainbow of minerals.


A specimen from Bayard, New Mexico of Chalcopyrite. The large brassy crystals of chalcopyrite were covered with black sphalerite and white dolomite.


A gold nugget from the Maxwell Land Grant in Colfax County, NM.


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