Louis Kornitzer: The Jeweled Trail, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Klappentext

Louis Kornitzer has narrated many experiences of his career as a dealer in precious stones-tales from his Vienna boyhood; his long association with gems and gem merchants in Hatton Garden and rue Lafayette; his travels in the Far East and the United States. His vast experience, his knowledge of gems and gem lore, his capacious memory for striking incident, and his facility as a raconteur-these are the ingredients that make his books colorful and scintillating, like the packets of precious stones that he has bought and sold. In The Jeweled Trail he draws further on his inexhaustible store of experience and anecdote. He tells many more secrets of gem trading and of the ways of dealers both reputable and dubious. He tracks down superstitions about lucky and unlucky stones; reveals facts about smuggling, theft, and doctoring of gems; relates stories of refugees who transport remnants of wealth in the medium of precious stones. He tells his experience with an Italian poison ring, tells how astute was the late King Edward over the cutting of the Cullinan diamond, how jewels of the Dowager Empress were taken out of Russia and reappeared in the furniture of a New York apartment; and how the finest ruby he ever saw, once a royal gift from Peter the Great, turned up in the harness of a mule in China. The author displays not only his erudition in gems, but also his extraordinary observations of human behavior in relation to gems. It is a book of adventure and shrewdness, tales from the life of a philosophical gem trader. The Jeweled Trail was published in 1941.