Glittering Stones News,Diamonds news,Gems and jewelry news

Blue Nile, the online jewelry seller, has created an application for Apple’s iPad, iPhone, and iPod that will allow customers to search for diamonds and view the company’s diamond jewelry pieces. The application will offer users with a database of 70,000 diamonds that can be searched by a number of parameters, together with size, price, and cut. The application allows direct purchase, or customers can contact Blue Nile.

Blue Nile Chief Executive Diane Irvine said the Blue Nile App would be a “game changer” and a “disrupting force” in the development of the diamond industry. she said, “We have listened to our customers”. The Blue Nile application can be downloaded from Apple iTunes.

Another Blue Nile application, Dream Box, focuses on Blue Nile’s collection of custom-made jewelry. While the appliance uses social networking to showcase jewelry design, it does not offer a purchase function.

Russia’s funds of diamonds could go under the hammer for $25,000 in the US. No need to fear! Not the reserve itself of course, but a huge vintage book with a list of the sought-after, precious royal stones.
Published in English in the Soviet Union back in 1925, it is assumed to be the only complete record of the Romanov Dynasty’s treasures before their dispersal through private sale and a subsequent auction several years later. Art historians describe the one-off edition, permitted Russia’s Treasure of Diamonds and Precious Stones, as an epic work, while the Gemological Institute of America puts it among the most thorough inventories of tsarist treasures in existence.
According to Armand Hammer, author of the research work. “The Quest of the Romanoff Treasure”, the famous Romanov Crown Jewels collection dates back to the 16th Century. Catherine the Great, famous for acquiring the best diamonds in the world. With the outbreak of WWI, the collection was moved to Moscow to be stored in the landmark Armory Hall of the Kremlin, where it remained unharmed until 1922. Then the Soviet Government finally selected a special commission to take an inventory of the gems.
Hammer suggests that the size of the Romanov Collection is obtained from the following figures provided by the commission: “diamonds – 25,300 carats; pearls – 6,000; emeralds – 3,200; sapphires – 2,600, and rubies – 1,500 carats…”
It is supposed that the massive task of listing and photographing the Russian crown jewels began in 1922 and was carried out by the Hermitage Museum director and a committee of expert jewelers. “Russia’s Treasure of Diamonds and Precious Stones” was available in three languages, including French and Russian, but was recalled by the Soviet government shortly after publication, with almost all copies destroyed.
It is planned to be auctioned on October 14 in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles.

Tammy Jones has forever loved rocks. Glittery ones in exacting. As a child, she stored her rocks in a pink Styrofoam egg box. As her collection grew, so did her attention. Eventually, Jones fascination with rocks led to a obsession for gemstones and to a new business: making jewelry. Jones first tried her hand at jewelry creation while working at HGTV in the late 1990s. She left HGTV in 2005 and began the process of becoming certified as a gemologist. Making the jump into jewelry making was just an extension of her personality and interests.

“One day I just thinking, ‘I’m going to do this. I dragged out all my supplies and just started making stuff. I was a mad woman!” she laughed. “Within four days I had 100 pieces completed.” It was a week before she told someone. “I think I was scared,” Jones explained. “You never know if somebody is going to have the same taste as yours.” Once she sold her first part, the fear missing. “That was such a rush,” she said with a smile. “It was, you know, a small bit of validation.” “I have forever said I was born way too late,” she said with a laugh. “Everything back then was pretty. Every hinge on a door was beautiful. I respect that craftsmanship, and I don’t want it to just die out. I like to repurpose it. Plus, here’s a little of that eco-friendly part in there.

Jones’ love of the natural world extends to another of her favorite element to use: Precious Metal Clay. she gushed, “It is really amazing!”. “It starts off in a little packet that looks like gum, and you work it just like you would normal clay, just on a lesser scale. It is just particles of pure metal with some sort of binder. Once you polish it with something hard, they lay behind flat and pick up light.

Jones creations are encouraged by everything from vintage drawer pulls and the colors of the ocean, to the ironwork model of an old gate. Still, no issue what inspires her or how many pieces she creates, Jones is at rest in awe of her first love, rocks and gemstones. She said, “I have seen the expect diamond“. “I have been through the compilation at the Smithsonian.

SYDNEY: Australia’s central bank said Thursday that blooming trade with China has overshadowed the value of India as an equally profitable market with better long-term prospects.
India accounts for about five percent of the world’s gross domestic product after a decade of financial reforms, the Reserve Bank of Australia said, adding that the industrialising country’s population was estimated to rise gradually.
“While much attention has been paid to the fact that China has become Australia’s largest trading partner, less awareness has been paid to the fact that India has also become an important destination for Australia’s exports,” a quarterly bulletin said. “In 2009, India ranked as Australia’s third largest export destination from being 15th in 1999, surpassing Australian’s more traditional destinations such as the United Kingdom and the United States.”
Gold, coal, education and copper were among Australia’s top exports to India, while the biggest imports contain electrical parts, information technology and pearls and gems, the RBA said.
Australia recorded a trade surplus with India of 15.5 billion dollars (14.5 billion US) in 2009, second only to its extra with long-standing partner Japan. The RBA said the population of India, distinct that of China and other Asian countries, was expected to grow steadily, with the United Nations projecting it would become the world’s most crowded nation in the next 20 years. “India’s long-term economic growth is likely to benefit from a working-age population that is estimated to grow until at least the middle of this century, unlike countries such as Japan, South Korea and China”.
Globally, the RBA said India’s share of trade had tripled in the past 20 years to 1.5 percent, underpinned by strong output of processed petroleum goods to the United Arab Emirates. “Prospects for enlargement over coming years have improved noticeably.
“Strong growth in India is also expected to see a deepening of the bilateral trade relationship between Australia and India.” The bank added that foreign ownership of Australian shares and bonds had also soared during the global financial disaster, with offshore investors now accounting for about 50 percent. It said foreign investors had been concerned by Australia’s financial stability backed by a strong banking sector.

Zimbabwe seized a secret auction of diamonds from its Marange fields, where the army has been accused of forced labour and torture, an official says, “Yes, the sales were approved out this weekend,” Secretary for Mines Thankful Musukutwa told AFP, without giving extra details. The sale on Saturday and Sunday was supervised by Abbey Chikane, the monitor from the international Kimberley Process watchdog, another official said on condition of anonymity.
Kimberley method is charged with preventing the sale of “blood diamonds” used to fuel armed conflicts, but in November the controller banned sale of the gems from Marange after its investigators found soldiers had beaten nearby people and forced them to mine the stones.
The weekend sale was the second and last auction authorised by Kimberley until its investigators certify that the military has ended rights abuses in the fields near the Mozambican border. Musukutwa said, “We will not be releasing the quantity or amount that was generated because these were private sales by private companies”.
“No other country in the world releases their sales facts or quantities. When it comes to the issues of diamonds we must be chary as a country because of the sensitivity of the issues associated with them”. Zimbabwe says the military no longer runs the fields and has constricted operations at Marange to two little-known South African firms, Mbada Diamonds and Canadile Miners. A third company associated to a Chinese firm has also been allowed to operate there. The first Kimberley-backed sale generated about 30 million US dollars, according to government facts.