Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you fun, new songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, Disney heroine Luisa Madrigal — voiced by Jessica Darrow — is so tough she can flatten not only the world's hardest substance, but also its most durable precious metal in "Surface Pressure," […]
On the Fourth of July, the venerable New York Times dedicated more than 1,000 words to a unique rough diamond crystal that's making its mark as a fashion-forward favorite of the tony elite. A "macle" is a twinned diamond crystal that presents as a flat triangle instead of the more dimensional octahedron. The crystal looks […]
In Anderson Cooper's bestselling book, Vanderbilt, about the unfathomable rags-to-riches-to-rags saga of one of the most famous families of America's Gilded Age, the journalist describes the extraordinary opulence of The Breakers, the 70-room, 138,000-square-foot Italian Renaissance-style palazzo that served as the Newport, RI, cliffside summer home for Cornelius Vanderbilt II and his family. Cornelius is […]
Since biblical times, ruby has been one of the most revered and coveted gemstones on Earth. According to the Book of Exodus, July's official birthstone was one of the 12 gem varieties affixed to the Priestly Breastplate worn by Aaron (1396 BC - 1273 BC), elder brother of Moses. Each gem represented one of the […]
This 58.19-carat, honey-colored "Maharani Cat’s Eye" displays one of the world's finest examples of an optical phenomenon called "chatoyancy" — or the cat's eye effect. A chatoyant gem presents a single band of reflected light that seems to move just beneath the surface of the stone, and the effect looks very much like the vertical-slit […]
An impossibly rare 5.09-carat electric blue Paraiba tourmaline fetched $377,650 at Bonhams' Jewels and Jadeite auction in Hong Kong last night. The modified shield brilliant-cut gem was the most anticipated lot of the event because a stone of this color, size, quality and origin is a unicorn in the world of colored gemstones. Faceted specimens […]
Two miles above sea level in the rarefied air of the tiny, landlocked Kingdom of Lesotho, twin diamond mines are churning out some of the largest and highest-value diamonds in the world. Continuing a run of impressive discoveries, Gem Diamonds announced that it had recovered an exceptional 245-carat white Type II diamond from its Letšeng […]
Exactly a week after the Golden State Warriors put an exclamation point on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary season by defeating the Boston Celtics in the Finals, the basketball association's senior director of social media, Ashley Atwell, revealed the backstory of how a bedazzled basketball became the unofficial mascot for NBA 75. It all started with […]
Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, the legendary Neil Diamond sings about how “gold don’t rust” and “love don’t lie” in a country classic from his 1996 Tennessee Moon album. Diamond, who was a pre-med student at New York […]
An exceptional pair of Mozambican rubies — one weighing 32.5 carats and the other 29 carats — headlined Gemfields' most recent series of ruby auctions in Bangkok. Each ruby is expected to surpass 10 carats when cut and polished. Exhibiting a vivid red hue and remarkable crystalline luster, the featured rubies represent the finest production […]