Our multi-part virtual tour of the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection continues today with a closeup look at the 422.99-carat “Logan Sapphire." It's not only the heaviest mounted gem in the storied collection, but also boasts a provenance that links one of America’s most prominent families with Indian royalty. Set in a silver-and-gold brooch and framed […]
Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you romantic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, country singer Chris Lane shares his real-life proposal to reality TV star Lauren Bushnell in 2019's "Big, Big Plans." In a music video viewed on YouTube more than 10.5 million times, Lane's fans […]
Gemfields has just released "Emeralds," the second of four short films that offer a glimpse into the miner's world of colored gemstones. While the first installment from two weeks ago emphasized the miner's commitment to responsible sourcing, the newest video shines the spotlight on the most valuable member of the beryl family and the official […]
Lucky moms will be showered with jewelry gifts at an unprecedented level this Sunday, Mother's Day. Despite uncertain times, spending on jewelry items is expected to reach $5.27 billion, making it the highest-volume gift-giving category by far, according to an annual Mother's Day survey released by the National Retail Federation (NRF). Jewelry spending is up […]
A team of Spanish and Egyptian archaeologists recently discovered the mummy of a bejeweled teenage girl in a 3,500-year-old tomb near Luxor, Egypt. The fashionable young lady was found wearing two earrings in one ear, two rings and four necklaces tied together with a glazed ceramic, or "faience," clip. According to the Egyptian Ministry of […]
Resembling a wheel with six spokes, “trapiche” emeralds may be the most unique variety of May’s birthstone. Found primarily in the black shales of Colombia’s western “emerald zone,” these gemological curiosities display alternating rays of vivid emerald green and deep black. Trapiche emeralds were first described by Émile Bertrand in 1879 in a meeting at […]
Welcome to Music Friday when we often bring you nostalgic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. In the catchy theme song from the groundbreaking 1966 TV series That Girl, writers Earle Hagen and Sam Denoff paint a picture of the title character, who embodies “everything that every girl should […]
A Canadian woman who lost her engagement ring while swimming in Howe Sound off Bowyer Island, British Columbia, is thanking a baby octopus for leading divers to the irreplaceable heirloom that had been in her fiancé's family since the 1940s. As the world's smartest invertebrates, octopuses have great memories, can carry out complex tasks and […]
The diamond ring that San Diego musician Scott Szikla used to propose to his neuroscientist girlfriend, Elena Blanco-Suarez, has seen two global pandemics — both COVID-19 and the Spanish flu that swept across the globe in 1918 and 1919. Szikla had planned to purchase an engagement ring at a local jeweler, but was stymied because […]
Occupying one of the most highly trafficked locations in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals in Washington, DC, is an obelisk-shaped aquamarine that is widely recognized as the masterwork of Bernd Munsteiner, an Idar-Oberstein-based gem cutter, who has been called “The Picasso of Gems” and “The Father of the Fantasy Cut.” […]