Dales Jewelry Blog

Six custom-cut rubies and an equal number of custom-cut sapphires make up the swooping "DC" logo on the 2019 championship rings of the WNBA's Washington Mystics. In total, the innovative and symbolic 10-karat gold rings shimmer with 120 diamonds, 35 rubies and 23 sapphires for a combined gemstone weight of 9 carats. The rings, which […]

An exquisite 37.8-carat emerald once possessed by the royal rulers of Baroda is the next stop on our virtual tour of the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection. The Chalk Emerald is so special, in fact, that it is the singular occupant of a wall case titled "A Royal Legacy" on the second floor of the Janet […]

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you throwback tunes with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, 27-time Grammy winner Alison Krauss delivers her second-person rendition of "I'm Just a Country Boy," a song originally released by Harry Belafonte in 1954. In Krauss's 2007 version — “You're Just a Country […]

Fossils preserved within opals on the surface of Mars could prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. On July 20, NASA will send the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on a 72-million-mile journey to explore the surface of the Red Planet. In mid-February 2021, the rover will begin collecting samples at the Jezero crater, which contains fields […]

Gina Bopp was so certain that her diamond engagement ring had been swallowed up by the Atlantic Ocean that she immediately bought a faux version on Amazon. The Queens, NY, woman had been enjoying the surf at Rockaway Beach on Monday, June 29, when the young son of one of her friends got caught by […]

New smoking-gun evidence seems to confirm the theory that the world's most famous diamonds — such as the 45-carat Hope and the 3,106-carat Cullinan — have "super-deep" origins, according to Dr. Evan Smith of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), who presented his findings to geochemists at the recent Goldschmidt Conference. Smaller diamonds are known […]

New smoking-gun evidence seems to confirm the theory that the world's most famous diamonds — such as the 45-carat Hope and the 3,106-carat Cullinan — have "super-deep" origins, according to Dr. Evan Smith of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), who presented his findings to geochemists at the recent Goldschmidt Conference. Smaller diamonds are known […]

While working the search field at Crater of Diamonds State Park, Beatrice Watkins joked to her two young granddaughters that their future husbands would need to revisit the site to find diamonds for their wedding rings. What the 56-year-old Mena, Ark., resident didn't realize at the time is that she had already scored the park's […]

A pair of scientists from The University of Hong Kong have developed an autonomous "hunter drone" that can survey wide landscapes and identify valuable gemstone targets using a scanning laser. The drone flies at night and emits a powerful beam that causes fluorescent items on the surface of the ground to glow. The drone was originally […]

A little over five years ago, the 25.59-carat pigeon-blood-red “Sunrise Ruby” rocked the auction world when it obliterated two auction records at Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels sale in Geneva. The hammer price of $30.4 million exceeded Sotheby’s high estimate by more than $12 million and set a new auction mark for the largest […]