Jacob Diamond: Tragic story of the man who sold it to Nizam Mahboob Ali Khan

A diamond known as the Jacob Diamond, reportedly bigger than the Kohinoor in its uncut stage, was found lying forgotten in one of the shoes of the Sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Mahboob Ali Khan at the Chowmohalla palace. After it was handed over to the Seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, the latter used it as a paperweight and this diamond, valued at Rs 1000 crores at that time, lay on his table for many years.
Mir Mahboob Ali Khan It was a large colourless diamond that was mined in South Africa. After cutting and polishing it was ranked as the fifth-largest diamond in the world. It was cut with 58 facets and weighed 184.75 carats. In 1995 it was bought by the Government of India for an estimated $ 3 million in 1995 and is now kept safely within the vaults of the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai.
But like many famous diamonds, this one too has a story behind it. The diamond is named after its first individual owner who was a man named Alexander Malcolm Jacob. He was an art dealer who had connections in high places and was a close confidant of British Viceroys and Indian princes. Among his wide circle of acquaintances was also the Sixth Nizam Mir Mahboob Ali Khan, the ruler of Hyderabad between 1869 and 1911.
Jacob was born in Turkey as a Jacobite Christian, and his father was a soap manufacturer. At age ten, Jacob was sold as a slave to a Pasha, who educated him. Later Jacob moved to Bombay (Mumbai), where he worked as a clerk based on his knowledge of Arabic. In the 1870s Jacob arrived in Shimla and founded a business trading in precious gemstones. The success of the business allowed him to build a luxurious house, known as Belvedere in Shimla.
Alexander Malcolm Jacob Some reports said that Jacob was also a spy working for undisclosed foreign powers. Jacob never denied nor confirmed any allegation. Some researchers claimed that Rudyard Kipling in his novel, Kim, had created the character of Lurgan Sahib of the British Secret Service after Jacob. American author F. Marion Crawford is said to have written the novel Mr Isaacs about him in 1882.
In 1891 Jacob purchased the diamond from a diamond syndicate in Amsterdam and decided to sell the gem and live happily ever after on the profit he would make. He approached several buyers before finalising a deal with the Sixth Nizam of Hyderabad. But that is when things began to go wrong.