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When I called the Royal Ontario Museum to find out if their new exhibit, The Nature of Diamonds (Oct. 25, 2008 to March 22, 2009), would be worth the price of the plane fare to Toronto, ON, the curator’s enthusiasm seduced me.

This show isn’t just about the big jewelry Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe wore on her fingers (though you’ll see a ring inspired by the one Joe DiMaggio gave Marilyn after their 1954 wedding), it’s a crash course in diamond lore, history and science—from how diamonds come from violent eruptions deep in the earth, to the lives of Canadian prospectors like “Captain Chaos,” subject of Fire into Ice: Charles Fipke and the Great Diamond Hunt.

When you enter, you’re greeted with a famous film clip—Superman squeezing coal into a diamond—and further on in the exhibit, another video, “Crystal Clear: Diamonds from Canada’s North.”One of the pieces I was drawn to is designer Niki Kavakonis’ Tip of the Iceberg ring, an uncut stone from the Ekati Mine, Canada’s first diamond mine in the Northwest Territories.

In “Jewels of the Famous and Fabulous,” you’ll find the biggest and best bling, including a shoulder brooch made by Cartier in 1928 that Sir Elton John once owned. In another section, this scoop: 40 diamonds confiscated by the RCMP when they were brought into the country illegally.

www.rom.on.ca/exhibitions/special/diamonds.php