Rahul Kadakia, head of jewelry at Christie’s New York, said :

“For three-and-a-half hours, between 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 at Christie’s, it was as if the recession never happened,” he said. “Virtually every lot exceeded its estimate, and the $7.7 million Annenberg Diamond astonished even the most seasoned diamond dealer. It was an auction to remember. And if this were not enough, the sale started again at 2:30 p.m. and continued until 7:00 p.m., giving collectors opportunity to acquire exceptional masterpieces from the superb collection of Rare Jewels and Objets d’Art.”

For jewelers this may be a sign that high quality jewelry is still a viable business option, and may be an indication that the recession is coming to a slow end.

Want to add a picture of your kids, then have more more kids? No problem, send it back and have more pictures added. This could turn in to a stunning family heirloom over the generations.

The Gemscribe isn’t limited to diamonds either, it will work on rubies, sapphires, pearls and more. And with the portable viewer that comes with your inscribed stone, you can actually show them off witout dragging out a microscope.

You can find out more over at the Gemory website.

While some people are saying that you could get several hundred dollars for as small of a purchase as $2,000, I just don’t see it. The math doesn’t work. I know a lot of stores aren’t even bothering to waste their time with the paperwork, and they buy a lot of diamonds.

In any case, if you would like to be a part of the class action lawsuit, you need to fill out a claim form before March 19, 2008. If you want a shot at getting a few dollars from DeBeers head over to the Settlement Website and fill out the form there.

“We were quite surprised at the upswing in demand for our larger canary yellow diamonds in December,” said BetterThanDiamond.com president Less Wright. “We’ve been cutting and distributing lab grown yellow diamonds since 2002, and this was the first time we completely sold out of larger yellow diamonds, and still had more customers on a waiting list for additional diamonds to become available. As a result, production for our yellow diamonds will be doubled for 2008.”

Wright said the increase in demand resulted from increased customer awareness of the value for money offered by lab-grown diamonds, being up to one-seventh the price of a natural diamond. He added that traffic to the company’s website also rose due to a stronger presence on Google searches for key terms such as ‘yellow diamonds’ and ‘cultured diamonds’.

Discovered by Travis Metcalf and his team at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Lucy is a crystallized white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon and is coated by a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.

I wonder how it would grade out at GIA? I bet it’s pretty near flawless.

Bruster’s waffle cone masterpiece was created by diamond manufacturer, Lazare Kaplan International Inc., and consists of nearly 20 troy ounces of 18k white and yellow gold, 548 round Lazare Diamonds, 87 Lazare square emerald cut diamonds, and one breathtaking 5.63 carat Fancy Intense Yellow radiant cut diamond. The 152.16 carat total weight one-of-a-kind piece has a retail value of $1 million and is for sale!

“At Bruster’s we’re dedicated to providing a superior ice cream product in a fun, social environment,” said Jim Sahene, CEO, Bruster’s Real Ice Cream. “Bruster’s creation of a $1 Million Cone symbolizes the outstanding quality of our ice cream, and its sale provides the platform to speak about the positive impact of one-on-one mentoring relationships like those cultivated by Big Brothers Big Sisters.”

Bruster’s, which recently announced a corporate sponsorship of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, will donate its proceeds from the sale of the $1 Million Ice Cream Cone to the mentoring organization.

“Our partnership with Bruster’s began just a few months ago, but in that time we have been so impressed with the company’s commitment and dedication,” said Judy Vredenburgh, President and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters. “Bruster’s $1 Million Ice Cream Cone will certainly draw a lot of attention and increase awareness about the importance of one-to-one mentoring in helping children achieve their potential.”

All I know is that I didn’t like ice cream very much before I saw this. I think I may have to change my position on that.

http://brusters.com/

This is the first time that the park has produced 1000 diamonds in a single year since 1994. The largest diamond found at the park was the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight, a white diamond found by a Texas visitor in 1975.

Crater of Diamond State Park.
(AP Photo/Crater of Diamonds State Park, Kim Garland)

The winning design, Flotz Brilliance in Air, is inspired by water droplets shimmering on a sunlit lotus leaf. The winning necklace incorporates two thousand five hundred and one diamonds set in white gold and is valued at $36,000.

Harshad Mehta, Chairman, Rosy Blue, said, “Diamond jewelry has the ability to capture the heart and the Flotz diamond collection that incorporates the elements of nature will remind the wearer of the importance of environmental awareness and protection”.

You don’t think that this thing using more than 2500 diamonds had anything to do with it winning DeBeers’ contest to promote diamonds do you?

Finished jewelry is not subject to the Kimberly Process and documentation. As it should be. Can you imagine having to carry your Kimberly paperwork everywhere you go when you travel just to prove that you aren’t a diamond smuggler? The problem is that more and more people are putting rough stones in finished jewelry. I love the look by the way.

So now you have the possibility of a small artisan miner finding a large stone, setting it in a simple wire wrapped necklace and smuggling it out of the country to be sold or cut elsewhere. Artisan mines are similar one or two guys working a very small claim like the gold rush days in the Alaska and California. How can you stop it? I certainly don’t know. But it does lead me to my original thoughts on Blood Diamonds and the Kimberly Process.

I’ve always thought that it was a token effort to make people “feel good” about themselves and what they were doing rather than actually trying to address the real problem of substandard living conditions and the rest of the world being willing to look the other way for the sake of money. There have been a few highly publicized arrests involving diamond smuggling, and there has been some good done in the mining towns in Africa. But I think that those things would have been, and were being, done without all the drama of the Di’Caprio movie and the drum beating that we have seen over the last few years.

So what’s next? Even more regulation, even more paperwork, and still no real lasting improvement for the mine workers is my guess.

French cosmetics house Guerlain – lipstick innovators since the 1920s – launches KissKiss Gold and Diamonds – a $62,000 lip color wrapped in a 110-gram, 18-karat gold tube encrusted with 199 conflict-free diamonds weighing 2.2 carats, rubies and emeralds. It can be custom-engraved and will be sold exclusively through private consultations at Bergdorf Goodman. And we all know how important it is to have conflict free lips.

Check out the video on the NYPost website.