Blue Diamonds on Display at the Smithsonian Institute

The Smithsonian Insitute is one of the most visited places in the United States, and so if you're nervous about driving into Washington DC to visit it, don't be. Get your Drivers Directions from Yahoo or Google or whichever one you use, then head for Washington. You'll find that the signs pointing the way to the Smithsonian are large and frequent.

Of course, you'll have to pay for parking, and there will be lots of drivers that you'll need to use defensive driving with (the highways into DC are five lanes in each direction, so make sure you print out directions that tell you if your'e going to be taking a left or right exist.)

Why should you visit the Smithsonian? Soon? Why, to see the two most famous blue diamonds in the world, the Hope Diamond and the 31.06 carat Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond, which has been on display there since January 28.

After decades of speculation, the truth can now be told: The famed Hope Diamond and its chief rival, the Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond, were not cut from the same stone, according to a group of scientists led by Jeffrey Post, curator of the National Gem Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, which tested the two storied blue diamonds extensively.

"There is an uncanny resemblance, but they are different," said Post, who announced his team's findings on Thursday at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. "They are not part of the same crystal or rough. Perhaps they are distant cousins, but not brothers and sisters."

The pair of diamonds were examined under a variety of microscopes and lights at the Smithsonian last week to try to settle some centuries-old mysteries. Could the two have originally been part of the same diamond? Are they twins? Why do they look so similar to the naked eye?

The opportunity to probe deeply into these questions came about because the Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond has been lent to the Smithsonian for a bit more than six months. Starting Friday (Jan 30, 2010), the slightly smaller diamond will be displayed in the same hall as the Hope.

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The Wittelsbach-Graff is 31.06 carats and, like the Hope, boasts a penetrating, though slightly less intense, blue color. (It is two-thirds the size of the Hope, and two-thirds as blue.) The diamond entered into jewelry lore in the 17th century, when it was given by Philip IV of Spain to his daughter, the Infanta Margarita Teresa, upon her engagement to Emperor Leopold I of Austria. The diamond ended up with the House of Wittelsbach, a ruling Bavarian family, in 1722.

After World War I, Bavaria became a republic and in 1931 the crown jewels of the Wittelsbach family were sold at auction. Out of sight for a while, the diamond was displayed at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. Laurence Graff, a London-based jeweler, bought the diamond in 2008 for $24.3 million and is lending it to the Smithsonian through Aug. 1.

It has the same dazzle as the Hope, with similar jets of icy blue sparkles radiating off the facets.

The Smithsonian has quite a collection of famous jewels, and jewelry. (Not to mention their air and space musuem, and about a hundred other musuems.)

Check it out before August if you can.