FIT FOR KINGS, QUEENS AND ELIZABETH TAYLOR
Liz Taylor not only has an impressive list of ex-husbands; she's also right up there with royalty when it comes to owning diamonds.

Back in 1968 she bought the 33.10ct. Krupp diamond for $305,000, but the big one came the following year, thanks to Richard Burton. It didn't come easily. When a magnificent 69.42ct. diamond came on the block at Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York two bidders quickly left the field behind: Robert Kenmore, chairman of the Kenton Corp. - which at the time owned Cartier operations in the U.S.-and a representative of Burton's. In the end Kenmore won out with a bid of $1,050,000. Not to be deterred, Burton then negotiated a private purchase of the stone for $1.1 million and Liz dazzled millions of her fans when she wore what became the Taylor-Burton diamond. She decided to sell the stone in 1978. After some on again, off again dealing, Liz made the sale for $2.8 million.

DIAMONDS IN ISRAEL
In 1940, a tiny nation, then known as Palestine, harassed by hostile nations and in a desperate struggle to survive, had the foresight and fortitude to establish an organized diamond industry. In its first operating year, it exported diamonds valued at $70,000. Today Israel is an international diamond center whose annual exports have topped $2.6 billion.

How it emerged as one of the world's four major cutting and trading centers and as a major exporter of polished diamonds is a story of hard work, skill and determination. The Israeli industry has had to deal with enough crises to make most business people throw in the towel but it has always bounced back-generally stronger than ever.

ERASMUS JACOBS' PRETTY PEBBLE
It all began in a casual haphazard way. In the summer of 1866, a water pipe leading out of a dam became stuck on the sunbaked Jacobs farm near the Orange river in South Africa, in a poor district with the bittersweet name of Hopetown. Farmer Daniel Jacobs fussed with the pipe a bit and then asked his young son Erasmus to search the world for a thin branch to poke through it. Erasmus wandered around until he found the branch he wanted, and then sat down in the shade of a tree to rest.

Some yards away, in the glare of the sun, he noticed that a stone appeared to be blinking at him and, curious, he walked over and picked it up. It was to him, in his language, a mooi klip, a "pretty pebble." Slipping it into the pocket of his corduroy suit, he took it home to his youngest sister. She was pleased to put it among the pebbles used in a game named "Five Stones."

The children were playing this game when the local welfare officer, Schlak van Niekirk, came in about a month later. He too noticed the stone, picked it up, took it to the window and tried to scratch the pane with it. Mrs. Jacobs told him that if he fancied it he could have it. So Van Niekirk put it in his pocket and a few days later sold it for a few pounds to an Irish peddler who toured the district when he was not out shooting lions.

There is some question whether Van Niekirk knew he was selling a diamond, but Jack O'Reilly was sure he had bought one. He wrote his name carefully on his own window with the stone and then took it to Grahamstown to geologist Dr. W. Guybon Atherstone for an expert opinion. Atherstone, who let a local bishop write his name on still another windowpane with it, told O'Reilly in due course that it was indeed a diamond and worth five hundred pounds, or about $2,500, and O'Reilly took it to the governor of the Cape colony, Sir Philip Wodehouse, and sold it to him for just that.

Clear, blue-white and about the size of a sparrow's egg, it weighed 21.50 carats and, as a very mooi klip indeed, attracted a lot of attention. In its home territory it had been known as the O'Reilly; when put on exhibition in Paris soon after it was called the Eureka-Greek for "I've found it."