I think it's correct. They were lost to the general public and were considered missing. When a smaller yellow diamond surfaced there was speculation that it's the Florentine diamond that was cut.
I'm not in the jewellery business but I would be very surprised if the diamond industry didn't have a pretty good idea where things lay. That kind of multi-caret stone has a premium. You need to know provenance. The risk it's a blood diamond or stolen is very high.
Lost to wider society? Yea, I can buy that but it's a stretch.
It's not "lost" the way a medieval triptych hanging in an alms house for centuries and found to be worth millions is a "lost masterpiece" or works coming out of safe deposit boxes where some GI has hoarded loot after ww2. The titular holders decided to put a time lock on their deposit box but had clear title to the assets.
Does anyone look at all these jewels and feel a bit dismissive? I get the idea for why they used to be valuable but they look incredibly gaudy and seem very much like trading beads to the Native Americans or whatever.
I get the historical significance but they don’t look good to me. Like Sue the T Rex looks cool from a distance but up close she’s got all these holes in her skull from parasites. Awful! I appreciate the beast’s skeleton for its significance but her skull is a horrid thing close up aesthetically.
Already addressed: "While the family spells its last name with a B, the New York Times stylebook spells Hapsburg with a P, which brought no shortage of scolding emails upon publication."
These idiosyncrasies are amusing but they do have a habit of dominating the conversation. E.g. the New Yorker (I think) uses diaeresis to represent distinct syllables resulting in words like “Cooperate” being decorated.
Or that chap here who insists on using 5 digit years.
But some go missed. My personal favourite is that I prefer to fully close clauses within quotations.
> The President said, “I will never bomb the moon!”.
https://archive.ph/dCcMq
The initial reportage couldn't resist the "lost jewellery" tag when they were never lost, just not openly discussed.
I think it's correct. They were lost to the general public and were considered missing. When a smaller yellow diamond surfaced there was speculation that it's the Florentine diamond that was cut.
I'm not in the jewellery business but I would be very surprised if the diamond industry didn't have a pretty good idea where things lay. That kind of multi-caret stone has a premium. You need to know provenance. The risk it's a blood diamond or stolen is very high.
Lost to wider society? Yea, I can buy that but it's a stretch.
It's not "lost" the way a medieval triptych hanging in an alms house for centuries and found to be worth millions is a "lost masterpiece" or works coming out of safe deposit boxes where some GI has hoarded loot after ww2. The titular holders decided to put a time lock on their deposit box but had clear title to the assets.
More details here (playable video of the "pale-yellow" Florentine diamond)
https://highjewellerydream.com/the-unveiling-of-the-habsburg...
I didn’t understand the angle of this article until I realized it was “Times Insider”, a sort of behind the scenes. The actual story is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/arts/design/florentine-di...
https://archive.ph/V2Ehj
Does anyone look at all these jewels and feel a bit dismissive? I get the idea for why they used to be valuable but they look incredibly gaudy and seem very much like trading beads to the Native Americans or whatever.
I get the historical significance but they don’t look good to me. Like Sue the T Rex looks cool from a distance but up close she’s got all these holes in her skull from parasites. Awful! I appreciate the beast’s skeleton for its significance but her skull is a horrid thing close up aesthetically.
How can a paper like the New York Times not even get the name of dynasty right and this across multiple articles?
It's the House of Habsburg, not Hapsburg.
German usage
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Hapsburg%2CHab...
Vs
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Hapsburg%2CHab...
US
(In my head NYT is an anachronism from the 60s but I've a feeling the editors would be more than fine with that characterization)
That’s interesting, but since the Habsburg is an actual castle (burg) here in German speaking Switzerland, there is only one right way of spelling it.
Already addressed: "While the family spells its last name with a B, the New York Times stylebook spells Hapsburg with a P, which brought no shortage of scolding emails upon publication."
How can the New Iork Tymes just choose how they spell things? That's messed up.
These idiosyncrasies are amusing but they do have a habit of dominating the conversation. E.g. the New Yorker (I think) uses diaeresis to represent distinct syllables resulting in words like “Cooperate” being decorated.
Or that chap here who insists on using 5 digit years.
But some go missed. My personal favourite is that I prefer to fully close clauses within quotations.
> The President said, “I will never bomb the moon!”.
Addressed, but not fixed.