Star of India (gem)

The greyish-blue gem was mined in Sri Lanka[3] and is housed in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

The milky quality of the stone is caused by the traces of the mineral rutile, which is also responsible for the star effect, known as asterism.

[3] The thieves unlocked a bathroom window during museum open hours, climbed in that night, and found that the sapphire was the only gem in the collection protected by an alarm—and the battery for that was dead.

Within two days the culprits were arrested: Jack Roland Murphy (also known as "Murph the Surf"), Allan Kuhn and Roger Clark; however, the gems had already been handed off.

[3] In January 1965, in a bid for leniency, Kuhn led authorities to a bus locker in Miami where the uninsured Star of India and some of the other stolen stones were recovered.