Of blog posts past

Yes, I'm still here, just melted to the chair.  The cat is fine, busy poking more holes in the curtains. As my Dad would have said, "nice cat but dumb". There is a huge gap between two lengths of curtain but do you think he can ever find it, just easier to put his head into a new shredded hole.

Now I was going through some old files and realized I had never followed up on this post. 

And we have a winner although the Hope Diamond is now back in its original setting.  I picked this one as my favourite setting which was the second design by Maurice Galli and called "Embracing Hope".

While I was wandering through the Smithsonian looking for the Hope, I found this huge amethyst and diamond pendant.  I'm particularly fond of heart shaped gems and I wouldn't mind adding this to my jewell box.

For something I have such a passion for, I'm constantly amazed at how little I know about gems, precious and semi-precious.

Take this lovely rainbow piece. It's almost exclusive found in a place called the four corners region of the Colorado Plateau in the USA where the states of Arizona, new Mexico, Utah and Colorado touch. It's dinosaur bone, petrified, permineralized or replaced with agate-type compounds. The original bone material has been replaced so that the structural detail is preserved and the interior pores and cavities have been filled with silica or quartz cystals letting us see the unique cell structure of once living dinosaurs.

 

There is a wide variety of colours from dull brown which looks like dino poop to these gorgeous specimens which look anything but. It all depends on the impurities that were in the surrounding sediment, chlorite, chromium, iron-oxide and manganese being some. The pink piece is extremely rare. 

Of course non-gem grade fossilized dinosaur bones are found in many places around the world.



But only a small portion has everything needed for a fine piece to be made into jewellry like these from Mark Anderson.

These specimens have not been raided from official sites as it's illegal to collect dino bone on US state for Federal lands. Most of the bone available is in broken blocks and chunks which due to erosion, weathering, and method of deposition, the pieces are not associated with a complete dinosaur skeleton and are of little value to a paleontologist

But the colours of gem quality Dino Bone are worth looking at and it is Jurassic Age material dating from 136,000,000 to 145,000,000 years old.

 Lucky Rio Tinto, with all of W.A. to plough around in, it manages to find this 12.76 carat pink diamond. The largest of the rare and precious pink stones ever found in the resources-rich West.



Named the Argyle Pink Jubilee, the huge rough stone was found at Rio's pink diamond operations in the Kimberley region.


"This rare diamond is generating incredible excitement. A diamond of this calibre is unprecedented -- it has taken 26 years of Argyle production to unearth this stone and we may never see one like this again," said Josephine Johnson from Rio's Argyle Pink Diamonds division.


Rio produces more than 90 percent of the world's pink diamonds from the Argyle mine, and said large stones like the Jubilee typically went to museums, were gifted to royalty or end up at prestigious auction houses like Christie's.



Christie's had only auctioned 18 polished pink diamonds larger than 10 carats in its 244-year history, Rio said.


When the Jubilee diamond has been cut and polished it will be graded by international experts and showcased globally before being sold by invitation-only tender later this year.


It would be nice if Gina R picked up the tab and presented it to Her Majesty.
 
I'm hoping they make a documentary of the cutting and polishing and that it turns out to be absolutely flawless.

Still glassing

Fashion designer Donna Karan is giving luxury consumers a version of her Golden Delicious fragrance, at a price, a wow price.

The perfume which sells $42 can now be had in a million dollar wrapping – the most expensive perfume bottle created to date.

DKNY and designer Martin Katz worked together to create the million-dollar perfume bottle, which is carved from a combination of 14 karat yellow gold and white gold. The bottle is embellished with nearly 3,000 gemstones – including 15 pink diamonds, 4 rose cut diamonds, a 4.03-carat pear-shaped diamond; a 3.07-carat ruby and a 7.18-carat oval shaped cabochon sapphire from Sri Lanka. The precious stones are set in the gold apple-shaped flacon in the shape of the New York skyline.

All net proceeds from the seven-figure bottles of Golden Delicious will be donated to the Action Against Hunger charity. Before being sold, the million-dollar bottle of Golden Delicious will go on exhibit around the world.

I still don't like her fashion clothes.

Still voyaging with VC&A

Let's hope this removes that horrible post about blubber. From the top, a matching necklace to the Stromboli earrings. It looks exactly like a volcano ready to erupt.

And to match the penguins, a diamond encrusted polar bear sitting on aquamarines.

The watch collection for the Voyages is just amazing. This is obviously Africa from Five Weeks in a Balloon.

From Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, the Medusa jelly fish brooch.

Back to Africa and diamond monkeys.

The whale pin in the last VC&A post has a hidden mechanism that when pressed makes the whale spout of water appear and disappear.

I lost myself for an hour just looking at the watches of the collection never mind the other goodies.

Wedding present.

Van Cleef & Arpels again and Princess Charlene of Monaco wearing the Ocean Necklace. It's made of diamonds and graduated coloured sapphires and I'd like it for Christmas.

Van Cleef & Arpels

Van Cleef & Arpels and the books of Jules Verne, come together in the Extraordinary Voyages collection.

From Twenty Thousand Leagues under the sea, penguins on glacial blue.
Another from undersea, the Raie Manta Clip.

From the Earth to the Moon.

The jewell surprises with the rocket and diamond belts

whirling around the blue clip.

It couldn't be anything but Five Weeks in a Balloon

sailing over Africa.

These earrings are called Stromboli from

Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Back to Twenty Thousand Leagues and a beautiful whale.

The American Gem Trade Association 2011

This year I only have four favourites out of all the categories and only one in first place.
The pendant/brooch could only rate an Honorable Mention in the Business/Day Wear section and I would like a gold chain with it.
Eva Cheng used 18k rose gold, a freeform rose Quartz set with a .70 carat round diamond and accented with 178 diamonds.

This necklace by Samuel Getz was placed first in the Classical Section. I like the colours, shape and 18th century look of it. It's made with Platinum and 18K yellow gold and features yellow Sapphires (68.77ctw), blue Sapphires (24.34ctw), red Spinels (24.20ctw) and Diamonds (22.38ctw).

This piece of whimsy straight from 'Alice in Wonderland' is titled "Who Are You" and won the Best Use of Pearls category. It was sculpted by Llyn L. Strelau and features two-tone gold and silver with freshwater baroque Pearls, Sough Sea keshi Pearls, akoya seed Pearls, demantoid Garnets (green), ruby and cognac Diamonds on a crystal Quartz base.

But this was my all time favourite of the bunch. It only managed 3rd place in the Objects of Art Section but I love its simplicity. "Dandelion" by Tigran Lementsyan features Quartz and Diamonds (.36ctw) with silver, 18K yellow gold and gold plated leaves.

Tiara time again, donate to my fund.

Anyone got a coin purse with a 1.5 million pounds in it?

This little sweetheart is up for auction next month.

The tiara has 13 saltwater pearls - six button shaped ones ringed with diamonds and seven pear-shaped pearls dangling from tear-drop diamond surmounts.

It was owned by Hannah Primrose, a socially and politically active heiress, born into the powerful Rothschild family. She reputedly became the country's richest woman when her father died in 1874, leaving her the sum of two million pounds, properties including a turreted mansion in Buckinghamshire plus a huge stash of jewels.

Four years later she married Archibald Philip and became Countess Rosebery and Christie's Auctioneers believe the owner of the tiara with matching brooch and bracelet. Her jewells apparently rivelled some of the crowned heads of Europe.

There were some very snotty remarks about Hannah's weight in the comments section of the Daily Mail (yes, my dirty secret, I read it) but I think she looks serene and lovely. Perhaps because I have a feeling that she looks a lot like me only well dressed and much better jewelled.

Now for Easter

SOTHEBY'S WILL SELL THE MOST VALUABLE EMERALD AND DIAMOND TIARA TO HAVE APPEARED AT AUCTION IN OVER 30 YEARS IN ITS SALE OF MAGNIFICENT AND NOBLE JEWELS IN GENEVA ON 17.MAY.

ESTIMATED TO SELL FOR A RECORD £3.1-6.2 MILLION, THE HIGHLY IMPORTANT AND EXTREMELY RARE EMERALD AND DIAMOND TIARA IS COMPOSED OF 11 EXCEPTIONALLY RARE COLOMBIAN EMERALD PEAR-SHAPED DROPS WHICH WEIGH OVER 500 CARATS IN TOTAL.

THE EMERALDS ARE ALSO BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN IN THE PERSONAL COLLECTION OF EMPRESS EUGENIE.

THE SUPERB TIARA WAS COMMISSIONED, POSSIBLY FROM THE RENOWNED JEWELERS CHAUMET, BY GUIDO COUNT VON HENCKEL, FIRST PRINCE VON DONNERSMARCK FOR HIS SECOND WIFE PRINCESS KATHARINA. THE JEWELRY COLLECTION OF THE DONNERSCARCKS WAS KNOWN TO BE ON PAR WITH, OR EVEN TO HAVE EXCEEDED, THOSE OF MANY OF THE CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE.

Now since I'm off chocolate, this would make a very nice Easter present. I have two green velvet gowns and a four strand pearl necklace with an emerald and diamond clasp. I could just see me sitting in the drawing room wearing this, downing a bottle of Cristal Champagne and watching "The Wedding". My invitation must have been mislaid in the mail.

Jewells for No-one

Plique-a-jour dragonfly with a few diamonds, aquamarine and gold.
Another dragonfly but with rubies and gold.

And just one more, diamonds, platinum, rubies, gold and Peridots.

No fighting, it's not ladylike but when was this blog ladylike.

I'm trying to ignore the earthquake in the room

Somehow I'm often disappointed in how Argyle Pink diamonds are set but here I think they got it right. This is the Shalimar Ring which features 4.86 Carats of Argyle Pink diamonds with a 1.25 carat pink round diamond centrepiece. It was last valued at $2 million but as they say, if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. It's my favourite flower shape for a ring. I have a birthday in July, if you're interested.

I couldn't find the bloke.

But I did find a bit o' bling to go with the clutch. I'm a sucker for teardrop shape gems but the Rose of Dubai diamond is quite sweet. It's a Fancy Pink internally-flawless diamond of 25.05 carats. It was last sold at Christie's New York for US$6,008,00.00 in 2005 but how much is it worth 5 years later. Enough to hold its own with the bag I'd say, clutch I meant not this bag.

All I need is a party.

And the shoes to go with this but I can't think of one bloke that would come up to this standard.

The legendary house of Mouawad (remember that jewelled bra for Victoria's Secret) that is famous for its jewels and diamonds has yet again made news with its diamond studded handbag that has been claimed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive handbag.

Priced at $3.8 million this clutch has 4517 diamonds (105 yellow, 56 pink and 4356 and is crafted in 18k Gold. It's called the 1001 Nights Diamond purse and took artisans 1,100 hours and 4 months to create and weighs in with 381.92 carats on a base of 18 Karat gold.

Jayne, River, would you like to borrow it for the Sydney Bloggers Conference?

To be in London now!

A long visit to the Natural History Museum's Vault and a lot of drooling over this sweet dream.
It's large, just the right size to rest upon my ample breast. It's the Cora Sun-Drop diamond and 110 carats of vivid yellow. The unusual colour stems from the very small percentage of nitrogen within the carbon structure of the stone. Diamonds with such a strong saturated colour represent only a tiny percentage of all natural diamonds so 110 carats of such vivid luxury is priceless.
U.S. diamond manufacturer Cora International has lent the gem to the museum for a limited time in a display which includes the Devonshire Emerald.


The Vault is a permanent gallery at the Natural History Museum and shows some of the most rare, unique and valuable treasures from around the world.
The Devonshire Emerald has 1,383.93 carats and is one of the biggest and most famous uncut emeralds in the world. It originates from the mines of Muzo in Colombia. Emperor Dom Pedro the First of Brazil gave the emerald to the 6th Duke of Devonshire in 1831. You can see a small piece of the original limestone it grew on, at the base.



Now this is not to be messed around with. It's known as the purple sapphire, the Heron-Allen amethyst was looted during the Indian mutiny in 1855 and brought to Britain. Everyone who owned the amethyst since that time suffered disaster and misfortune.
According to Edward Heron-Allen, owner of the stone from 1890, it was 'cursed and stained with blood'.
After discovering its sinister history, he gave it to his bank with instructions for it not to be opened until three years after his death. The stone was donated to the museum by Heron-Allen's daughter, with a letter he wrote warning anyone against handling it.

I think I'll stick with the diamond this time around.

The secret life of pearls.

I've been enjoying a book called "Jewells, a secret history" by Victoria Finlay. I thought it might be a bit dry but it's full of wonderful snippets of history and information that is new to me.



Julius Ceasar and his invasion of Britain to gain control of the mineral resources and boatloads of flaxen haired slave girls was just a front. He had his eye on the country's pearls. He'd already decreed that only aristrocrats could wear pearls and only Caesar could wear a purple toga to match.



So, pearls in Britain? River pearls, natural fresh water pearls from mussels. Rose pink from Scotland, black pearls from Ennerdale in Cumbria and white pearls from Ireland. They were harvested and exported all over Europe. (The only pearl discovered in Fleetwood is Our Brian).



Unfortunately river pearling was forbidden in 1998 due to men's greed and disregard of the delicate balance of the ecological systems and disruption of the wild mating habits of the mussels

Pearl mussels breed every summer in an orgy of shared sperm and group sex in which the male mussels spray semen over the females as they all stand in the water. Thanks to pollution and overfishing by amateurs there aren't enough mussels for a good swingers party and breeding doesn't take place.

Each Scottish river produced a slightly different pearl colour, the old pearl fishers also known as "Travellers" put it down to the amount of peat in the water.

Rivers that breed mussels also breed salmon and they have a symbiotic relationship. After the breeding orgy when one female mussel can produce about two hundred thousand spat (young'uns) they hitch a ride on a passing salmon, staying on the fish all winter then drop off in the spring. This means they settle in a different part of the river from where they started, Nature's way of stirring up the gene pool.

Now take notes, there'll be an exam.

We've all been told how pearls are formed. A wandering grain of sand slips into the mussel or oyster shell, irritates the hell out of it so it secretes nacre to cover and neutralize the nuisance.

Wrong!!!!

It's usually a small parasite wanting a snack and manages to slip between two deformed shells.

French natural scientist, Raphael Dubois asked if we would love a pearl as much if we knew it was the brilliant sarcophagus of a worm.

The pearl fishers of British and Scottish rivers looked for the 'uglies' hiding under rocks and these were the keepers of the treasure. After the legendary Abernathy Pearl was discovered in the 1960s, the hordes invaded and like all hordes took every shell except the 'uglies' so greed destroyed the river mussels.

From our wormy 'uglies' of the river to the giants of the oceans. Pearl farming waits for no worm or sand grit, the shells are opened slightly, the nuclei for the nacre is inserted.......into the 'nads'.

That certainly gets the soothing nacre moving fast. In the words of Victoria Finlay, "Few outside the trade are aware that almost every pearl on sale today was born of the planned sexual violation of a small creature and considerable suffering hangs on those necklace strings".

Oh gosh darn, hang a guilt trip on a pearl lover. Add to the list, no sexually violated pearls, no blood diamonds, no Burmese rubies controlled by megalomaniacal Generals, no Columbian emeralds funded by drug lords and no 'synthetic as real' gems from thieving eBay dealers.

The Diamond Man

Laurence Graff has done it again and bought this 24.78 carat "fancy intense pink" diamond which he named "The Graff Pink". It wasn't so long ago that he bought the the blue Wittelsbach diamond for $24.3 million. He renamed it the Wittelsbach-Graff and had it re-cut to bring out the fire inside. The Graf Pink has a slight flaw which is unnoticeable to the naked eye by after re-polishing could be graded as internally flawless.
According to Graff, this diamond is the most fabulous diamond he's seen in the history of his career and he has seen a lot of diamonds. It was almost routine for him to travel to see the Sultan of Brunei carrying a suitcase full of his diamond creations.
This is a classic emerald-cut stone of exceptional colour and purity. It is classified at type 11a which comprises less than 2 per cent of all the world's gem diamonds and is even more valuable than a white diamond of this type because of the scarcity of pink diamonds.
The "Graff Pink", which is roughly the size of a pinball, was last on the market about 60 years ago and was only expected to sell between $27 and $38 million.


But if that is a bit ostentatious for you why not pop over to New York for the Bonhams' fine jewelry sale on December 16 and put in a bid for this little number. A 10.17 carat oval shaped diamond of E colour and VVS1 clarity with two half moon diamond shoulders. It's price is estimated at $550,000-$650,000. Small change if you're Graff.

Also on the block is a rare Oscar Heyman & Brothers diamond, sapphire and enamel "Harlequin" brooch. This is only one of eight Harlequins that Oscar Heyman has created over the last 12 years. The masked figure is playing a lute and the body is pave-set diamonds, accented with marquise shaped sapphires. The mask, hat, and shoes are made of black enamel and the white enamel face is accented by hand-painted red lips. It comes with a signed box, a marker's mark and is estimated to sell for $15,000 to $20,000. It'll be snowing in New York, perhaps I'll just phone by bid in.

And now for some education

That sweet pendant is mine, all mine. Only tiny but a lovely ammonite fossil with a mother of pearl flower. Ammonite fossils are all over the place. The cephalopods, named for the Egyptian ram horn God called Ammon, appeared in the seas 415 million years ago. They were survivors.
10% survived an extinction event during the Permian, flourished during the Triassic period then died, leaving only one species. They began to thrive again from the Jurassic period until the end of the Cretaceous period when all species died.
They lived in shallow waters, moving by jet propulsion and proper little predators they were. Mollusks, fish and other cephalopods would be stalked and chomped after the tentacles grabbed the prey drawing it to the jaws located at the base of the tentacles between the eyes. But there's always something bigger and hungrier, mosasaurs and other marine reptiles sank teeth into the shells and extracted the squid like bodies. The empty shells then sank to the sea floor to be buried in mineral rich sediment.


While ammonites are found every where, only in one place can the beautiful iridescent form of the fossil be found. Southern Alberta, Canada in the Bearpaw Formation which is a large marine formation of mostly shale approximately 70 to 75 million years old. The photo above gives some idea of the size of the ammolite fossils.

Ammolite is grouped into two general categories. Fractured ammolite as in the photo above is named for its stained glass appearance from the fossil being crushed in the sediment.

Sheet ammolite, on the other hand has little or no crushing so the colour is a solid mass of intense iridescence and is made into beautiful jewellery that constantly changes as the angle of light changes. The best stones can rotate 360 degrees giving a full display of colour. As with opals, the thicker the layer (3 to 10 mm) and the size of the piece reflects the price.

Just another eBil lesson

A synthetic stone is not a fake. Synthetic describes a gem made in a laboratory which has the same basic chemical composition and similar chemical, optical and physical properties to its natural counterpart.

Imitation is glass or plastic.

Synthetic diamonds were first produced in the early 1950’s for industrial use. Synthetic rubies were produced in the 19^th century for the watch making industry in Switzerland.

Synthetic diamonds have essentially the same composition as natural diamonds but usually without the flaws like included minerals that come with the way diamonds are formed. Manufacturers are now deliberately putting flaws in their stones to fool the eye or a jeweller’s loupe.

There are now instruments that detect the synthetics. When placed against a natural diamond, they emit a sound but not with synthetics.

A cubic zirconia is not a synthetic diamond, it’s an imitation with a different chemical composition. It also weighs more than a diamond which is why it’s always sold by size not carat weight.

So now to eBil.

1. Buy from a reputable buyer (Ha!) in Australia so you can hunt them down and kneecap them.

2. If you do get lab diamonds, you have to make sure that they’re hand cut and polished not machine cut in a factory in China.

3. Have them appraised by someone who knows the difference between Czs and lab diamonds or a jeweller who has a beep machine because they don’t beep.

4. Don’t buy them on eBil if you’re smart.

The large stone at the top is 207 carats and from Thailand, in other words, take your chances.

The square modified Asscher cut ones are mine. I paid .01 cent for them because nobody loves a square diamond that doesn't sparkle larkle larkle like 207 carats of bling. They're machine cut because I can still see the tooling marks on the back of one of them and they don't have as many facets as shown here but I didn't expect much for one cent. Tomorrow I'll find out if they're lab diamonds, CZs or glass.

eBil lesson No. 4

The lovely Amethyst of all shades, shapes and sizes. This one is 32 carats, cut in the Portuguese style and synthetic. The deeper shading in the middle made it look a winner for a while but no, another on the list of mistakes.

Now for above and below. A cushion shape and an oval both showing that lovely deep pink flash when moved around. The one above is synthetic and the oval, well, the jury is still out on that one. The gem has a very deep pavillion and there are some marks that look like natural inclusions so only more testing will tell for certain if it's another dud. The richness of the two colours means that I'll be happy to look at them. I emailed the seller who confirmed that both stones came from the same dealer, overseas dealer I suspect.

But in all this, I have a winner. This lovely light shade of lilac which some sellers refer to as "Rose de France", a clever pr thought that one up to sell this particular light stone which is not as valuable as a deep purple gem. It is delicate and would look lovely in a ring and didn't cost as much as the synthetics.

Now to this lovely deep deep purple cushion cut gem from Africa via a laboratory. Just goes to show that even the crooks can't always get it right. It happens to be a synthetic sapphire.

I have to say even for a synthetic, it's a beautiful shade.