The man who was probably the greatest diamond collector of modern time, Diamond Jim Brady . . . had a different set of monogrammed jewelry for each day in the monthdiamonds one day, emeralds the next. . . . It was believed he owned more than twenty thousand diamonds all told, that sometimes he wore as many as $250,000 worth on a single day, and that he purchased another several thousand for the actress Lillian Russell.

—Joan Dickinson, from The Book of Diamonds, 1965.