A super sized piece of aquamarine coloured beryl. © Natural History Museum

Pink morganite beryl from Madagascar and an incredibly rare orange padparadscha sapphire from Sri Lanka are two of the wonderfully exotic, not to mention sparkly, exhibits in a new permanent gallery at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London.

The Vault, opening on November 28 2007, is full of the precious things of nature, revealing some of our rarest and most valuable treasures including gems, crystals and metals from around the world - and meteorites from beyond it.

“Gemstones, meteorites and metals have been treasured since the beginning of human history,” says Alan Hart, Curator of Minerals at the NHM. “The Vault is a showcase of the most rare, scientifically unique and culturally historical examples from our national collection, together with some private loans. All of them are here because they are exceptional and tell a unique story. Now people can unlock the secrets and discover the truth about these masterpieces of nature here at The Vault.”

Dare you touch the Heron-Allen amethyst? © Natural History Museum

Highlights of the dazzling collection include the Devonshire Emerald, the Star of South Africa, the Aurora Collection and Heron-Allen’s cursed amethyst.

The Devonshire Emerald is one of the world’s largest, originating in Colombia. Its name derives from the time when it was given as a gift to the sixth Duke of Devonshire by Pedro the First, Emperor of Brazil in 1831.

The Star of South Africa was cut from a 47.69-carat pear-shaped diamond discovered in South Africa in 1869. It began a craze for diamond digging in the Orange and Vaal Rivers.

The Aurora Collection consists of 296 naturally coloured diamonds, known as ‘fancy’ diamonds. They are very rare – only one in 10,000 gem-quality diamonds has a natural hue, from emerald green to lavender blue.

The Latrobe gold nugget. © Natural History Museum

The cursed amethyst, known as the purple sapphire, was looted during the Indian mutiny of 1855 and brought to England. The officer of the Bengal cavalry who brought it mysteriously lost his health and money, and his bad luck passed on to his son when he inherited it. He passed it on to a friend, but it promptly came back to him after the friend committed suicide!

Edward Heron-Allen, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in the early 20th century, received the stone in 1890, going on to – of course – suffer much misfortune. He threw it in the Regent’s Canal, hoping to never see it again, but a dredger recovered it and sold it to a dealer – who returned it to Heron-Allen.

He deposited it in a bank, wrapped up in seven boxes, with instructions that it shouldn’t be brought out until after his death. His daughter donated it to the NHM, along with her father’s letter warning people not to handle it.

Other beauties on show – without the grisly history – include the Latrobe nugget of crystalised gold, alexandrite which changes colour under different lights, and Martian nakhla.