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Jewellery and Coins

That diamond ring? It may have helped pay for Russia’s war – by Daniil Ukhorskiy (Kyiv Independent – October 12, 2023)

https://kyivindependent.com/

Editor’s note: This story uses sources who are speaking on condition of anonymity since revealing their identities would heavily damage their careers and expose them to legal and personal risks in the diamond industry. Their identities are known to the Kyiv Independent.

Soon after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, luxury brands like Tiffany and Cartier announced they had stopped buying Russian diamonds. An investigation by the Kyiv Independent has found evidence to the contrary. A year and a half into the all-out war, export data shows Russia keeps selling its diamonds to the West. Now, through intermediaries, primarily Dubai.

Thanks to weak American sanctions and the absence of any in the European Union, Alrosa, the leading Russian diamond producer partly owned by the state, keeps profiting from diamond sales. The company may be using some of its profit to fund the Russian military directly. Alrosa has not responded to a request for comment.

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HOLY COW! HISTORY: How Harry Sent the Hope Diamond – by J. Mark Powell (Inside Sources – September 6, 2022)

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Think quick! You’re a jeweler. You’ve got a gemstone. And an organization is waiting for it some 225 miles away. What do you do? A merchant once pondered that very question. But it wasn’t just any jeweler shipping any precious stone to any old group.

It involved America’s foremost jeweler at the time, the most famous gem in the world, and America’s most celebrated museum. And how he wound up sending it will amaze you.To fully appreciate this story, you must first understand the players involved.

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Blue diamond rakes in nearly $44m at Geneva auction (Gulf News – November 8, 2023)

https://gulfnews.com/

The Bleu Royal is largest internally flawless fancy vivid blue gem ever to appear for sale

Geneva: An exceptionally rare blue diamond went under the hammer in Geneva Tuesday, selling for more than $40 million, making it one of the most expensive diamonds ever sold at auction, Christie’s said. Weighing 17.61 carats, the Bleu Royal is the largest internally flawless fancy vivid blue gem ever to appear for sale in auction history.

It is the star lot in a series of luxury sales in Geneva this month, which also feature items from movie history including pearls worn by Audrey Hepburn and Marlon Brando’s self-engraved watch. The Bleu Royal had been expected to fetch between $35 million and $50 million in Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction.

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Jewelry for Rap Gods (and Mortals Alike) – by Christopher Barnard (New York Times – February 5, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

The jewelry designer Alex Moss specializes in creating custom pieces for clients like Drake and Jack Harlow. This month, he releases a collection available to the masses.

Nine floors above the storefronts of New York’s diamond district, in a corner suite of the World Diamond Tower, a lariat necklace with diamonds the size of molars sat inside a silver briefcase. The necklace was fresh from a cleaning — an ultrasonic water bath, followed by a steam — and visiting the office of the jewelry designer Alex Moss in late January en route to its owner: the rapper and singer Drake.

“Jewelry is like a car, it needs to be maintained,” Mr. Moss, 30, said. The piece, created by Mr. Moss, took 14 months to make. A video shared on Instagram by the designer said that its 42 diamonds represented the number of times that Drake had considered proposing marriage. When asked how much the necklace cost, Mr. Moss declined to answer, citing the security of its owner.

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The Story of the King of Diamonds – by Melanie Abrams (New York Times – September 7, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Harry Winston’s nickname is just one element in a new biography by one of his sons.

“Talk to me, Harry Winston. Tell me all about it,” Marilyn Monroe purred in “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” the song in the 1953 movie “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” that named one of New York’s pre-eminent jewelers.

Now his son Ronald is telling all about it, too, in a new book describing his father’s rise in the jewelry business and the lengthy legal battle over the company with his brother, Bruce, that followed his father’s death in 1978. (The company has been owned by the Swiss watch manufacturer Swatch Group since 2013.)

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Thailand Gets Ready to Sparkle – by David Belcher (New York Times – September 7, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

The country plans to use a trade show in Bangkok this week to remind the world of its expertise in processing and perfecting natural stones.

Thailand’s history is rich with gemstones, beginning in the 1400s when its mines first produced the sapphires and rubies that adorned the crowns, swords and even the footwear of the country’s royalty. And as recently as May, jewelry fans took note of the glittering sapphire and diamond necklace and earring set that Queen Suthida of Thailand wore at King Charles III’s coronation in London.

But since the 1970s, Thailand has mostly been known as a global hub for cutting, polishing, heating and trading stones, doing business with its gem-rich neighbors Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, along with countries far beyond.

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Lab-Grown Gems Are Crashing Prices for One Key Type of Diamond – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – September 3, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — One of the world’s most popular types of rough diamonds has plunged into a pricing free fall, as a growing number of Americans choose engagement rings made from lab-grown stones instead.

Diamond demand across the board has weakened after the pandemic, as consumers splash out again on travel and experiences, while economic headwinds eat into luxury spending. However, the kinds of stones that go into the cheaper one- or two-carat solitaire bridal rings popular in the US have experienced far sharper price drops than the rest of the market.

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Gold diggers in a cold sea – by Nancy MacDonald (Globe and Mail – August 26, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The wreck of S.S. Pacific was of B.C.’s worst maritime disasters, and while Canadians largely forgot it, these treasure hunters persisted for three decades till they hit paydirt. Now, their mission has just begun

When two childhood pals from Seattle began searching for the S.S. Pacific, which sank shortly after departing Victoria on the morning of Nov. 4, 1875, its exact co-ordinates had remained a mystery for more than a century.

Though not widely known, the wreck of the Pacific – a disaster that killed hundreds of people and sent millions of dollars of B.C. gold to the perpetual midnight of the ocean floor – remains the Northwest’s worst maritime disaster.

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Seeing is believing: what stone enhancements are acceptable? – by Christa Van Eerde (The Jewellery Editor – March 12, 2019)

https://www.thejewelleryeditor.com/

The aim of this article is to explain the most common enhancements or treatments for the ‘big three’, which are acceptable and within what parameters.

Most of the ‘big three’ gemstones – emeralds, rubies and sapphires – are in some way enhanced or treated. Only the very pure, perfectly coloured and flawless can escape any type of enhancement, and this is reflected in their record-breaking prices. Perfection comes at a cost; the most valuable untreated ruby, the 25.59-carat Sunrise Ruby (below) fetched $30.3 million, which is just over $1 million per carat at Sotheby’s in Geneva in May 2015, far outstripping any price paid for a colourless diamond.

The same is true for top quality emeralds and sapphires, the more naturally perfect, the more valuable. But as not every stone is perfect, I explore the range of treatments and within which parameters they are acceptable to make the right choice when buying an emerald, sapphire or ruby. As gem treatments vary considerably and though sellers are ethically obliged to disclose if a gemstone has been treated, here is my advice on red flags to look for when buying a gem.

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Thousand-year-old coins found buried in Poland (Notes From Poland – August 22, 2023)

Notes from Poland

Archaeologists excavating the site of a medieval fortress in the town of Wiślica in southern Poland have uncovered a collection of coins believed to be almost 1,000 years old.

When work finished two days ago, the team revealed that they have discovered 12 silver coins. Eleven are from the period of Bolesław the Bold – who was first duke and then king of Poland between 1058 and 1079 – and one likely to be from the time of Władysław Herman, who was duke of Poland in 1079-1102.

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An engagement ring or a home down payment? Why some young couples are proposing with lab diamonds. – by Erin McCarthy (Philadelphia Inquirer – August 22, 2023)

https://www.inquirer.com/

Even jewelers can’t tell the difference between lab and mined diamonds with the naked eye. More than a third of couples married last year went with lab-grown engagement rings.

Years before Jasmine Ma and her fiancé, Ricky Chen, stepped foot into a jewelry store — before they had even talked seriously about marriage — Ma made one thing clear: She didn’t want a mined-diamond engagement ring.

“If he was going to put his money toward this, I’d prefer he get something lab-grown,” she said. Not only would they be able to get a larger stone for less money, but she’d also feel better about the decision ethically, Ma said she told him, due to diamond mining’s history of human rights violations.

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Metal detectorists unearth 2,000-year-old gold coins in Wales – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – August 16, 2023)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Three British metal detectorists are celebrating the find of a lifetime after unearthing a hoard of 2,000-year-old coins in North-Western Wales, which could provide new clues about commercial activity in the region during the Iron Age.

The treasure hunters found a total of 15 ancient gold coins known as staters in a field on the Isle of Anglesey between July 2021 and March 2022. These are the first Iron Age gold coins to have been discovered in Wales, said the Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales in a press release.

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German police find melted-down gold after theft of Celtic coins, seek rest of treasure – by Geir Moulson (Associated Press/Toronto Star – July 23, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

BERLIN (AP) — Investigators looking into the theft of hundreds of ancient gold coins from a German museum have found lumps of gold that appear to have resulted from part of the treasure being melted down, but still hold out hope of finding the rest intact, officials said Thursday.

Four suspects were arrested on Tuesday over the Nov. 22 break-in at the Celtic and Roman Museum in the Bavarian town of Manching in which 483 Celtic coins discovered during an archaeological dig in 1999 were stolen. The coins date to around 100 B.C.

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Long-lost Ship Found in the Desert Laden with Gold – by Tasos Kokkinidis (Greek Reporter – July 12, 2023)

https://greekreporter.com/

The discovery of a ship that disappeared five hundred years ago and was found in a desert in southwest Africa with gold coins aboard has been one of the most exciting archaeological finds of recent years. The Bom Jesus (The Good Jesus) was a Portuguese vessel that set sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on Friday, March 7, 1533. Its fate was unknown until 2008 when its remains were discovered in the desert of Namibia during diamond mining operations near the coast of the African nation.

When it sank in a fierce storm, it was on its way to India laden with treasures like gold and copper ingots. Two-thousand pure gold coins and tens of thousands of pounds of copper ingots were discovered on the Bom Jesus, almost all intact.

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When It Comes to Rubies, Is Mozambique the New Star? – by Nazanin Lankarani (New York Times – July 2, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

The $34.8 million auction price for a gem discovered in the East African country has the jewelry industry buzzing.

Rubies are like caviar: Their origin is an important part of their market value. Until a month ago, anyone interested in buying a big ruby knew with certainty that Myanmar, formerly called Burma, produced the most valuable stones.

For eight centuries the gems in a deep red shade known as “pigeon’s blood” found in the legendary Mogok mines had reigned supreme, attracting prices far higher than rubies from Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam or East African countries such as Madagascar, Tanzania and Kenya.

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