The Eureka Diamond was found near Hopetown on the Orange River by a 15-year-old boy named Erasmus Stephanus Jacobs in 1867.

Soon afterward, Schalk Van Niekerk entrusted the stone to John O'Reilly, who took it to Colesberg to inquire as to its nature and value.

"[3] The stone was then sent by mail in an ordinary paper envelope to Dr. William Guybon Atherstone, the colony's foremost mineralogist, in Grahamstown.

[4] The Eureka was put on display at the 1867 Paris Exhibition,[3] although some sources claim that this was a glass replica, and that the real diamond was sent on to Windsor for inspection by Queen Victoria.

[4] On its return to South Africa, the Eureka was bought for £500 by the Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir Philip Wodehouse.