From Wikipedia about the
Bahia Emerald
The Bahia Emerald is one of the largest emeralds and contains the largest single shard ever found. The stone, weighing approximately 752 lb (341 kg) (approximately 1,700,000 carats) originated from Bahia, Brazil and is emerald crystals embedded in host rock. It narrowly escaped flooding during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 during a period of storage in a warehouse in New Orleans. It was subsequently reported stolen in September 2008 from a secured vault in South El Monte in Los Angeles County, California. The stone has been valued at some $400 million, but the true value is unclear.
Say, what, now?
What is the true value?
What being, magician or band of magicians needs this much power?
What kind of rituals does emerald help?
Also, love the wording in a linked Wired article on Wikipedia:
"
Fourteen individuals or entities, plus the nation of Brazil, have claimed the Bahia emerald is theirs."
Heh. Entities.
Edit: It just gets better!
A house burned down. Three people filed for bankruptcy. One man alleges having been kidnapped and held hostage. Many of the men involved say that the emerald is hellspawn but they also can’t let it go. As Brian Brazeal, an anthropologist at California State University Chico, wrote in a paper entitled*The Fetish and the Stone: A Moral Economy of Charlatans and Thieves, “Emeralds can take over the lives of well-meaning devotees and lead them down the road to perdition.”
Ahahahah!
Then, according to some (apocryphal) tellings of the emerald’s history, the mule team dragging it through the rain forest was attacked by panthers—or some other animal—and the miners themselves had to carry the 752-pound emerald the rest of the way to civilization.