Copper, the unexpected link between antique diamonds and charity.

What you see here in the picture are diamond tools and a platinum ring with an old cushion cut or Peruzzi diamond dating back to the early 18th Century. The tools are diamond holders for polishing diamonds. The one in the foreground is how they were used in the 18th century, and the one in the background is from the 20th century.

The holder in the front has a leaded point on a brass half-sphere attached to a copper stem. Diamond polishers would heat the lead so it would become moldable to embed the diamond in. The copper stem was inserted into a wooden tool, allowing the polishers to easily hold the diamond against a polishing wheel. To create the many facets a diamond has, they had to bend the copper stem into the desired position.

Later, the brass and lead were replaced by an iron tool (the diamond holder you see in the back), which allowed the polishers to easily change the stone from its holder. However, the copper stem remained. When you bend a metal many times, it will eventually break, and such was the case with all these copper stems.

In 1905, the Dutch Diamond Workers Union agreed with the owners of the diamond polishing factories that from then on, the Union would receive all the broken copper stems. A special fund, the "Koperen Stelen Fonds" or KSF (Dutch for Copper Stem Fund), was founded, solely funded by the revenues from these broken copper stems, to provide financial support to diamond workers affected by tuberculosis.

Later, in 1919, a similar agreement between unions and factory owners was made for the recuperation of used diamond powder (needed to polish diamonds). With those revenues, the KSF purchased a farm, which was converted into a sanatorium.

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Click here to view this special old cut Peruzzi diamond.