A luxurious gemstone bathtub carved from healing stones was the first of its kind in the world and sold for $1.74 million this week. The 16th International Jewellery Week was hosted in Dubai, UAE, this week; a luxury setting for the sales of luxurious items. The sale of one item stood out for its uniqueness though, as it was the world's first gemstone bathtub carved from healing stone. The unidentified buyer paid AEDh 6.4 million ($1.74 million) for the Le Grand Queen bathtub.

According to Trade Arabia the sales and marketing director of the Caijou Group that sold the bathtub, issued a statement saying “The Caijou gemstone bathtub is a unique luxury object, crafted out of one of the strongest healing stones in the world. Ancient Chinese, Arab and Egyptian civilizations knew of this stone’s beauty and its healing ability, having stored over 100 million years of energy from the earth and universe.”

Al Watan Daily reported that while the sale of the bathtub stood out as a highlight of the International Jewellery Week, jewellery designers from across the world were also proud to showcase their designs. Designers from 25 countries competed for awards in jewellery design from the categories of Middle Eastern, Asian, and Western jewellery. The brochure for International Jewellery Week can be seen here. The exhibition closes on Sunday Nov. 13.

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When it comes to found money, it’s hard to beat what’s in the jewelry box.

Gold and silver pieces are bringing nearly twice as much as they did in 2008, but diamonds are finally living up to their rep for being a girl’s best friend.

“The wholesale price of diamonds has gone up 30 percent in the past year,” said Dan Wixon, owner of Wixon Jewelers in Bloomington, Minn. That’s good news for anyone looking to sell diamonds, which had several years of nearly flat prices.

It used to be you’d have to go to a pawnshop to sell a diamond, but that changed during the recession. Jewelry stores found that buying gold and silver castoffs was lucrative but turned away diamonds because they’re not as easy to resell. As prices rose, however, so did acceptance.

Wedding Day Diamonds in the Twin Cities area now buys any diamond of a half carat or more. Gene Gittelson, owner of Gittelson Jewelers in Minneapolis, recently started buying diamonds from customers for the first time in 26 years. “I had to hop on the diamond-buying bandwagon because all my competitors were,” he said. Be Iced Jewelers in Edina, Minn., which buys and sells pre-owned jewelry, saw a 20 percent increase in diamond buying from its customers last year, store manager Marjory Torgerson said.

Sellers are mining their diamond stash for one reason — cash, said Patrick Nelson, a buyer at JB Hudson in the Twin Cities. “Some are selling to continue a lifestyle, pay bills or clean out a drawer,” Nelson said, adding that most are selling after a death or divorce.

Jewelers buying diamonds find that it’s not as easy as buying gold or silver. Most of those broken gold necklaces and homely silver trays are sold to scrap dealers and melted down.

Diamonds, however, are forever. If jewelry store or pawnshop owners are already well-stocked in 3/4 carat-weight princess-cut diamonds when a customer brings one in, they’ll have to find a wholesale buyer for it or tell the customer no thanks. Sellers anxious to unload a diamond may have to be patient while a wholesaler or retailer tries to find a buyer. Still, many jewelers or pawnshops will be able to provide a check on the spot.

Most of those diamonds are then resold to wholesalers and possibly recut. Wixon, on the other hand, is more selective because it keeps all of its diamonds in-house. “I buy less than 50 percent of the diamonds brought in,” Wixon said.

Still, consumers looking to sell shouldn’t take the first offer they get. “Shop it around to three places,” said Jimmy Pessis, owner of Continental Diamond. “Prices from buyers can easily vary from $1,000 to $2,000 on the same diamond.”

How much can I get for it? Even if the price varies from store to store, most diamond sellers will probably be disappointed in the amount offered, especially if they’re hoping to get the appraised value. “Generally, they’re going to get 20 to 30 percent of the appraised value, depending on the demand for their type of stone,” Nelson said.

Some sellers estimate prices by what they see on BlueNile.com, a popular jewelry website, but most sellers of noncertified diamonds will be lucky to get half of the Blue Nile price, although larger diamonds of high quality hold their value, said John Sorich at Diamonds Direct in Minneapolis.

Unfortunately, people have been told for too long that a diamond is an investment. “It’s not,” said Torgerson of Be Iced. “It’s a commodity like a car. You use it, and if you tire of it, you sell it. It’s fine for couples to see diamonds as a symbol of an emotional investment, but don’t think of them as a financial one.”

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Dubai - A luxurious gemstone bathtub carved from healing stones was the first of its kind in the world and sold for $1.74 million this week. The 16th International Jewellery Week was hosted in Dubai, UAE, this week; a luxury setting for the sales of luxurious items. The sale of one item stood out for its uniqueness though, as it was the world's first gemstone bathtub carved from healing stone. The unidentified buyer paid AEDh 6.4 million ($1.74 million) for the Le Grand Queen bathtub.

According to Trade Arabia the sales and marketing director of the Caijou Group that sold the bathtub, issued a statement saying “The Caijou gemstone bathtub is a unique luxury object, crafted out of one of the strongest healing stones in the world. Ancient Chinese, Arab and Egyptian civilizations knew of this stone’s beauty and its healing ability, having stored over 100 million years of energy from the earth and universe.”
Al Watan Daily reported that while the sale of the bathtub stood out as a highlight of the International Jewellery Week, jewellery designers from across the world were also proud to showcase their designs. Designers from 25 countries competed for awards in jewellery design from the categories of Middle Eastern, Asian, and Western jewellery. The brochure for International Jewellery Week can be seen here. The exhibition closes on Sunday Nov. 13.

Read the rest of this entry »

The first-ever Mines to Market conference for colored gemstones wrapped up last week in India’s gem-cutting city of Jaipur.  Rajiv Jain and Sanjay Kothari, chairman and vice chairman of the GJEPC, which organized the event, said the conference was only a first step in an initiative to “revive and grow the colored gemstone industry.”
 
According to them, the conference has clearly indicated that some collective action by the global industry is possible. Response to the conference has been so positive that the GJEPC is determined to make it a bi-annual event, with the next one taking place in 2013. With a view to engaging the global industry and bringing it together on one platform to tackle issues, the GJEPC is open to collaborating with the Thai or Chinese colored gemstone industries and hosting the next conference either in Bangkok or in a Chinese city.
 
Jain, a colored gemstone dealer himself, said the conference had already achieved a great deal in that it opened up the Jaipur gem dealers, who participated in considerable numbers, to issues and problems globally that they were otherwise not aware of. “Many have been dealing in gems for years, but have been so focused on the commercial aspect that for instance, even the actual extent of the problem thrown up by undisclosed treatments has not been fully appreciated. This conference has been an eye-opener.”
 
Speakers like the GIA’s Andrew Lucas outlined issues such as the threat to health posed by lead glass-filled rubies, the cancer hazard to factory workers involved in the beryllium diffusion process, and the fact that even though many heavily treated gemstones were sold at extremely low cost, the fact that the treatments were undisclosed could turn consumers off gemstones altogether. The volume of gemstones with undisclosed treatments was so high that many jewelry designers had switched to using synthetics and glass products like Swarovski’s.
 
The final day also featured a focus on the market end of the pipeline. Alberto Milani of Buccellati, a speaker on the first day, made another presentation on what value proposition the colored gemstone industry needed to convey to the consumer. “No games, no tricks, no lies,” he said, adding, “If you lose your customer’s trust, you lose everything.”

Hamilton South, founding partner of the HL Group, a strategic marketing and communications firm, observed that the gemstone industry should move from just selling products to telling a story about gemstones. According to him, globally, some 350 million people were in the economic bracket that made them potential gem and jewelry consumers. Branding was the route to greater value addition, he said, noting that typically at auctions, branded gems and jewelry fetched 106 percent over Sotheby’s asking prices, while the non-branded variety secured prices that were 76 percent over the asking prices.
 
Steve Bennett of Gems TV outlined how television had turned out to be the ideal medium to sell colored gemstones. “The more you tell, the more you sell,” he observed. He cautioned, however, that the industry needed more standards and that currently, consumers were getting a very confused message.
 
Candy Price, creative director of Vogue.com, observed that while she did not think paper was dead, the colored gemstone industry would do well to embrace the new digital media like social networking sites, which could act as rapid force multipliers.
 
Chuck Lein, the recently retired COO of Stuller Inc., outlined some interesting facts about the U.S. market. Of interest to Indian manufacturers wanting to penetrate the U.S. market was his observation that while specialty jewelers accounted for 41 percent of U.S. sales, non-traditional avenues accounted for 55 percent of jewelry sales. These included some 40,000 individual entities who had no employees — essentially one-person sales enterprises! Together, they accounted for an astonishing $1.6 billion in annual sales.
 
And while average retail transactions for all categories of jewelry sold in the U.S. was $146 per item, the bad news for the industry was that colored gemstone jewelry accounted for just 8 percent of all sales. However, this also meant that the potential for growth was enormous.

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Jewelry has always been a perennial style staple, since women first tried on their mother’s pearls. As women continue this love affair with jewelry, H.Stern continues to look to the past for inspiration, and imagine the future to create timeless yet contemporary pieces.

Colorful success story: Founded in 1945 by Hans Stern, the brand  started from a small gemstone trading business in Rio de Janeiro, and has flourished into a colorful success story offering fine jewelry and promoting the exotic beauty and value of gemstones such as tourmalines, topazes, amethysts and citrines—gems Stern had always loved.

Hans eventually passed on his legacy to his eldest son Roberto, president and chief designer, who sought new sources of creative inspiration through nature, architecture, history and culture, and strived to reinvent the brand’s image by putting more value on the jewelry’s design than the stones used, so each piece could reflect the customer’s lifestyle and desires. This season, H.Stern captures nature’s charm through their colored gemstones collections: Sunrise, Spring and Moonlight.

Sunrise features citrines in varying shades, from pale yellow to glowing orange, and in pastel tones featuring amethysts, rutilated and smoky quartzes set in 18K yellow or noble gold (a unique alloy of metals creating a neutral tone that’s neither white nor yellow gold), with diamond and sapphire accents.
Another feminine collection is Spring, in which stones are cut in organic shapes to keep the designs natural and fluid. For a more vintage and romantic appeal, H.Stern’s Moonlight collection seals the deal with antique-cut rock crystal gems in various sizes spruced up with the brand’s trademark 18K noble gold.

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GENEVA—A rare yellow pear-shaped diamond is expected to fetch between $11 million and 15 million at auction next week, and the buyer will have the chance to name it, Sotheby's said Wednesday. The so-called Sun-Drop Diamond is described as fancy vivid yellow -- the highest color grading -- by gemstone experts. It is the largest known diamond of its kind, at 110.3 carats.

"It looks the weight," said David Bennett, the head of Sotheby's jewelry division. "At the same time it's a very bright stone," he added, as a model showed off the diamond to photographers before the Nov. 15 sale at Geneva's Beau-Rivage hotel.

The jewel is being sold by Cora International, which discovered the diamond in South Africa only last year -- meaning it has no history of previous wearers. "Some people find it very attractive to own a stone that's been lying untouched in the earth for millions of years," Bennett told The Associated Press.

Other lots include a suite of jewels given by the Ottoman Empire's Sultan Abdul Hamid II to the wife of the Khedive of Egypt in the late 19th century. The set comprising a necklace, brooch and pair of earrings could fetch $10 million. Some of the gems may have been part of a peace offering given by Russian Czar Peter the Great's wife Catherine to Ottoman Sultan Ahmed II in 1711, Sotheby's said.

The jewel auction is preceded by a sale of historic watches Nov. 13. Items include timepieces worn by India's first president, Rajendra Prasad, and a Rolex belonging to German chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

The classic gold watch was presented to Adenauer by Rolex's German founder Hans Wilsdorf in 1955. A letter from Wilsdorf explains that Adenauer would be able to wear the watch during his daily bath without harming the mechanism. It is not known if Germany's first chancellor after World War II ever did so.

Despite global economic jitters the market for high-end luxury goods remains healthy, said Bennett. Last year, Sotheby's sold a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond for a record-breaking $46 million.

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The first-ever Mines to Market conference for colored gemstones wrapped up last week in India’s gem-cutting city of Jaipur.  Rajiv Jain and Sanjay Kothari, chairman and vice chairman of the GJEPC, which organized the event, said the conference was only a first step in an initiative to “revive and grow the colored gemstone industry.”
 
According to them, the conference has clearly indicated that some collective action by the global industry is possible. Response to the conference has been so positive that the GJEPC is determined to make it a bi-annual event, with the next one taking place in 2013. With a view to engaging the global industry and bringing it together on one platform to tackle issues, the GJEPC is open to collaborating with the Thai or Chinese colored gemstone industries and hosting the next conference either in Bangkok or in a Chinese city.
 
Jain, a colored gemstone dealer himself, said the conference had already achieved a great deal in that it opened up the Jaipur gem dealers, who participated in considerable numbers, to issues and problems globally that they were otherwise not aware of. “Many have been dealing in gems for years, but have been so focused on the commercial aspect that for instance, even the actual extent of the problem thrown up by undisclosed treatments has not been fully appreciated. This conference has been an eye-opener.”
 
Speakers like the GIA’s Andrew Lucas outlined issues such as the threat to health posed by lead glass-filled rubies, the cancer hazard to factory workers involved in the beryllium diffusion process, and the fact that even though many heavily treated gemstones were sold at extremely low cost, the fact that the treatments were undisclosed could turn consumers off gemstones altogether. The volume of gemstones with undisclosed treatments was so high that many jewelry designers had switched to using synthetics and glass products like Swarovski’s.
 
The final day also featured a focus on the market end of the pipeline. Alberto Milani of Buccellati, a speaker on the first day, made another presentation on what value proposition the colored gemstone industry needed to convey to the consumer. “No games, no tricks, no lies,” he said, adding, “If you lose your customer’s trust, you lose everything.”
 
 
Hamilton South, founding partner of the HL Group, a strategic marketing and communications firm, observed that the gemstone industry should move from just selling products to telling a story about gemstones. According to him, globally, some 350 million people were in the economic bracket that made them potential gem and jewelry consumers. Branding was the route to greater value addition, he said, noting that typically at auctions, branded gems and jewelry fetched 106 percent over Sotheby’s asking prices, while the non-branded variety secured prices that were 76 percent over the asking prices.
 
Steve Bennett of Gems TV outlined how television had turned out to be the ideal medium to sell colored gemstones. “The more you tell, the more you sell,” he observed. He cautioned, however, that the industry needed more standards and that currently, consumers were getting a very confused message.
 
Candy Price, creative director of Vogue.com, observed that while she did not think paper was dead, the colored gemstone industry would do well to embrace the new digital media like social networking sites, which could act as rapid force multipliers.
 
Chuck Lein, the recently retired COO of Stuller Inc., outlined some interesting facts about the U.S. market. Of interest to Indian manufacturers wanting to penetrate the U.S. market was his observation that while specialty jewelers accounted for 41 percent of U.S. sales, non-traditional avenues accounted for 55 percent of jewelry sales. These included some 40,000 individual entities who had no employees — essentially one-person sales enterprises! Together, they accounted for an astonishing $1.6 billion in annual sales.
 
And while average retail transactions for all categories of jewelry sold in the U.S. was $146 per item, the bad news for the industry was that colored gemstone jewelry accounted for just 8 percent of all sales. However, this also meant that the potential for growth was enormous.

Read the rest of this entry »

While scientists speculate about diamond planets hurtling through the galaxy, at least one extraterrestrial gemstone is already among us.
 
Peridot, an olive-green gem also found here on Earth, has been recovered from meteorites on occasion, and even faceted into gemstones, though specimens are so rare that you’re unlikely to find them in a jeweler’s showcase. But researchers at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) assembled 26 extraterrestrial samples to discover the differences between them and their earthly counterparts. The findings are reported in GIA’s Gems & Gemology’s Fall 2011 issue.
 
Peridot is the gem version of a mineral called olivine, an iron and magnesium silicate -- (i.e. containing silicon). Olivine is part of the makeup of our solar system neighbors, including some metallic meteorites that occasionally fall on our home planet. While such peridot-bearing meteorites are rare enough, the intense heat from their journey to Earth and their explosive impact on contact with terra firma ensure that few specimens survive intact. That’s why peridot pieces from outer space are nearly always quite small.
 
Peridot from Earth’s own deposits was one of the first gemstones treasured by mankind. The ancient Egyptians called it “the gem of the sun” after discovering a deposit in what’s now known as St. John’s Island in the Red Sea. Today, sources include the United States (Arizona, Texas and Hawaii), China, Myanmar and Pakistan, which produces many of the largest, finest specimens. Peridot’s attractive color and relatively modest price have made it popular with jewelry designers around the world.
 
GIA researchers Dr. Andy Shen, John Koivula and Dr. James Shigley assembled specimens from several terrestrial locales and compared them with 26 samples taken from the Esquel meteorite, the most notable peridot-bearing extraterrestrial object.
 
Discovered in Argentina about 50 years ago, this massive meteorite contained numerous peridot crystals. An American collector purchased most of the Esquel in 1992 and divided it into a number of sections for sale. Three of the Esquel samples examined by GIA were faceted gemstones, while the others were part of polished slabs.
 
Using a laser beam and sophisticated mass spectrometry that can detect tiny amounts of elements within gemstones, the GIA team discovered significant differences between earthly and extraterrestrial peridot. Their tests found different levels of lithium, vanadium, nickel, manganese, cobalt and zinc between the two, allowing researchers and ultimately gem buyers to confidently distinguish between peridot of different worlds.

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Moissanite makers Charles & Colvard, Ltd. reported declining earnings in the third quarter. Sales of $2.9 million declined 4 percent year-over-year leading to a net income of $110,000 compared with $512,000 netted last year.
 
Loose moissanite gemstone sales decreased 22 percent to approximately $2.2 million, compared with approximately $2.8 million in the corresponding period of the previous year, the company reported.  However, finished jewelry sales increased 303 percent to approximately $682,000, compared with approximately $169,000 in the corresponding period of the previous year.
 
"These fluctuations in quarter over quarter sales by product mix are primarily the result of the timing of restocking orders received from the Company's customer base and the Company's continued focus on expansion into the finished jewelry business through the creation of new sales channels," the firm said.
 
The company expects these fluctuations in product mix to continue as it executes its strategy of developing new wholesale and direct-to-consumer sales channels and expanding its finished jewelry business.
 
As an example, the Company's fourth quarter 2011 sales through October 26 approximate $1.7 million, comprising approximately $1 million in sales of loose gemstones and $713,000 in sales of finished jewelry. This compared with loose gemstone sales of $1.9 million and finished jewelry sales of $1.6 million for the entire fourth quarter of 2010.
 
"While our goal was that the year-to-date execution of our strategies would have resulted in stronger revenue in the third quarter, we are very encouraged by the apparent rebound in sales that we are seeing in the fourth quarter," stated CEO Randy N. McCullough. "This year's October net sales through October 26 are up approximately 290 percent over the full month of October 2010, and we expect total fourth quarter revenues to further benefit from our investments in new sales and marketing initiatives."

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With the prices of diamonds consistently high, many jewelry lovers turn to colored gemstone rings as a way to indulge in a little bling without breaking the bank. While colored gemstone engagement rings have long been popular in Europe, the United States still pines for the colorless diamond. But with higher quality stones, more fashion-forward designs, and affordable prices, colored gemstones are getting a second look—both for wedding and fashion jewelry.

Apples of Gold has responded to the trend with an extensive line of new colored gemstone rings for fall and winter 2011. Prominent among the new pieces is the London blue topaz. The deep blue stone, resembling a slightly subtler sapphire, is a popular stone and available in a range of options, cuts and styles. Black diamonds appeal to the tastes of brides looking for something bold and edgy in their wedding jewelry.

While traditional colored gemstones like ruby, sapphire, and emerald will always hold their place among the company’s best sellers, Apples of Gold is excited about the rising popularity of non-traditional, less common gemstones like the chocolate-y smoky quartz, the icy green amethyst, the bright citrine and the muted rose kunzite. New additions to the line reflect a customer demand for unique gemstones.

Apples of Gold’s fall and winter jewelry will also include a variety of colored gemstones set in sterling silver. The white metal pairs well with the colored stones and helps women afford the indulgence of a fine piece of quality jewelry at a price far less than white gold or platinum.

Despite being beautiful and trendy in their own right, colored gemstones are especially appealing to couples who desire extraordinary wedding jewelry without the extraordinary price tag. The 2011 fall and winter line of colored gemstones reflects Apples of Gold’s commitment to offering stunning jewelry at affordable prices. Founded in 1999, the company set out to develop a jewelry company that would not only do well, but would do good. Ethical, value-based pricing practices were the foundation. The Apples of Gold commitment to quality in their products and the highest standards for customer service and consumer satisfaction come naturally. In the fine jewelry industry, Apples of Gold is a diamond (or colored gemstone) in the rough.

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