Glittering Stones News,Diamonds news,Gems and jewelry news

Diamond rings were the top selling lots at Christie’s key Jewels Auction in New York on Tuesday, with two stick out jewels fetching over $1 million each.

The star sale was a ring with a 46.51 carat oval-cut middle stone flanked by two 1 carat pearl shaped diamonds.

The jewel, set in platinum, was knocked down for $4,226,500 a per carat price of nearly $91,000.

Another diamond and platinum ring, set with a 10.01 carat diamond and two slighter pearl shaped diamonds, went for $1,314,500.

A 19.22 carat emerald cut yellow diamond ring with a color grade of Fancy Light Yellow flanked by two trilliant cut diamonds sold for $458,500, and a colorless 10.42 carat emerald cut diamond ring was knocked down for $422,500.

While diamond rings dominated the sale, other jewels as well performed well, such as the pair of square cut yellow diamond earrings weighing over 17 carats each set in gold and platinum fetched $722,500.

In total, the Christie’s New York significant Jewels Sale brought earned over $11.7 million.

During U.S. President Barack Obama’s first year in office, the First Family received nearly $200,000 value of gifts from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Among the gifts was a ruby and diamond jewelry set consisting of a pair of earrings and ring, bracelet and a necklace presented to Michelle Obama.
The overall set is valued at $132,000.

Among the new unusual gifts, the Deputy Commander of the Royal Saudi Air Force presented the United States’ Deputy under Secretary of the Air Force with an strange gift: “Large 8” x 15” x 4’ piece of ore, with what looks to be gold embedded throughout”.

It was the only gift listed with a mysterious value.

In total, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave U.S. Government workers over $323,000 worth of gifts in 2009, far surpassing the accumulated gifts of any other country.

The next uppermost amount of accumulated gifts was $73,000 from Qatar, Of sixteen gifts valued at more than $10,000, eight came from Saudi Arabia, three from Qatar, and all from the United Kingdom (a pen, wooden pen holder made from a slave ship, and 3 books worth $16,000), Italy, China, Germany, and Ghana.

Michelle Obama received the most luxurious gifts, besides the jewelry set from Saudi Arabia, she received an 18 karat gold watch with diamonds and skin worth $48,000 from Ghana.

The least luxurious gift listed was a $75 bottle of olive oil offered to President Obama by Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. Abbas also offered a painting and books prized at $446.

Among other gifts were a $20,000 textile depicting the First Family from China, four boxes of dates and twelve bottles of wine from Algeria, and a cd holder, a book, and 15 cds from Russia’s President.

The King of Jordan presented Obama with six decorative traditional weapons prized at $1,265.

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Fashion trends may come and go, in jewelry as in clothing and hairstyles, but just as in persons arenas, there are some elements that never seem to go out of style. In fact, they get reinvented for a new audience. The ballet flat. The little black dress. Pearl jewelry is one such fashion evergreen that just goes on and on. Though, far from the stuffy chokers of society matrons or demure Grace Kelly single strands, pearls today are used in jewelry as fresh and fashion-forward as any dressmaking collection.
Rambaud of Paris has been adorning French women with beautiful jewelry while 1885. Today the company specializes in cultured pearls from Tahiti and other parts of the South Seas such as China and Japan.
An organic gem, courtesy of a friendly oyster:
For the unqualified, a cultured pearl is not artificial. It is simply a “farmed” report of a pearl created naturally by ocean mollusks such as oysters in certain parts of the world. These “wild” pearls are shaped when a grain of sand lodges in the flesh of the mollusk. The pearl is the result of the animal’s retort to the foreign object. A guard mechanism kicks-in and coats the particle with layer after layer of a substance called nacre, or mother-of-pearl, which eventually becomes thick enough to form a pearl. The result is just as logically beautiful as pearls found in the wild, and can be restricted as to color and shape depending on the conditions. As in the wild, some pearls are refined in salt water and others in freshwater, giving different properties to the pearls.
Pearls: Not just for Jackie O any longer
Rambaud offers almost a dozen different collections featuring these pearls, in a range of styles from traditional to rock-n-roll, for an
amazing variety of looks. If you think of pearls as being white, or cream, or the occasional grey, think again. The cultured pearls in Rambaud’s collected works come in a dazzling array of colors, including pink, gold, even chocolate.
The cultured pearl earrings on the website range in price from under 100 euros for a simple Tahitian freshwater pearl and silver pair to nearly 1000 euros for a fantastic set of 9mm grey-green pearls set off with .028 carats of diamonds. There is a wide collection, in between, so every set of ears can find lovely cultured pearl earrings at a price that sounds good to them.
If a cultured pearl necklace is more your thing, you can find an range of lengths and fashion-forward styles at Rambaud. Pearls are the stars, but these necklaces bring in motivating supporting characters. you’ll find original styles including long pendants with iridescent disks or pearls dangling from delicate silver chains, as in the “Tactiles” collection, or an Art Deco-inspired creation combining black and white pearls in “Les Annees Folles” collection.

Do you own some pieces of jewellery that you never put on? Possibly you have a necklace that was fashionable when you bought it but now looks dated. Or you might have inborn a brooch or bracelet that has great sentimental value but simply isn’t your style. And what about all those bits and pieces: single earrings and cufflinks that have lost their followers, a ring with a missing stone, or a damaged pendant?
Instead of continuing to hide them absent, or selling them for their scrap value, why not examine the possibility of having unworn pieces of jewellery expertly remodelled into attractive new pieces?
A professional jeweller who offers a jewellery remodelling service will usually be able to suggest a number of ways in which the precious metals or gemstones in a piece of jewellery could be altered or rearranged. Most will also do their best to integrate your own ideas into the new design.
Some ways in which old jewellery can be given a new lease of life contain:

• taking precious stones from an old-fashioned setting and putting them into a more recent setting
• breaking up a huge piece such as an ornate necklace or tiara to create several smaller pieces
• simplifying over choosy designs
• incorporating small ‘odd’ pieces into a new bigger piece
• building a new piece from melted down damaged gold, silver or platinum

When someone admires your ‘new’ jewellery it will be up to you to choose whether or not to tell them you’ve had it for years!

For the best results look for a jeweller whose work you like and who is skilled in remodelling all types of jewellery. If your jewellery includes diamonds or other precious gems it’s significant that you only entrust them to someone qualified to work with them.

Students of the National Institute of Design (NID),is the only institute participating in the India International Jewellery Week (IIJW), presented a unique and innovative jewellery collection which left the viewers enthralled on the inaugural day Sunday.

The edgy and funky collection, called New Adorn, was put jointly by five students – Swati Agarwal, Chetan Sharma, Avantika Kumar, sanjeev Gupta and Gauri Pandey – of the Lifestyle Accessory Design department of the NID, which is a premier institute in the field of design education and research. “We always relate jewellery with precious and non-precious gems but the fact is that the beauty of the jewellery piece lies in the beauty of the material, whatever it may be. The whole focus of our collection was to make use of curious and different materials to make jewellery designs,” said Pandey.

Models sashayed the ramp in black outfits tiring uncommon and experimental designs for neck pieces, waist chains, rings and earrings among other pieces. Few models also sported jewellery pieces at seats which are not usually adorned. “We are have tried to make designs which are not characteristic. When we were working on the designs, we realised that there are so many other places in the body that you can decorate with a piece of jewellery. So we created designs by discovering new geographies of adorning the body,” Pandey added.

The students also strained on the fact that their designs are eco- and nature friendly. “We also tried to make the designs eco-friendly and close to the nature by using integrating used cans and cold drink bottle crowns since we felt that that will be the base of designs in the future,” said Agarwal, another student of the team.

The team also said that their collection revisited educational aspects of Indian traditions to explore alternative techniques and materials to lend a bold, alluring and exhuberant petition to their work. IIJW is India’s first jewellery week and will run till Thursday at the Hotel Grand Hyatt, Santa Cruz.

The extravaganza will showcase the collections of 30 designers, together with Farah Khan Ali, Varun D. Jani, Bina Goenka and Rhea Nasta. Well-known jewellery brands like Mirari, Gitanjali, Amrapali, Tanishq and Ganjam are also participating.