Chandelier lights-up Emmys
A chandelier made from over 3,300 diamonds and worth an estimated $US10 million adorned the green room at this year's Emmy Awards.
According to a report in National Jeweler, the Hearts on Fire (HOF)-designed piece was handmade in Boston by a team led by designer Katherine Rosenberg Pineau. It totals more than 1,000 carats, is plated with platinum and consists of a series of diamond strands illuminated by fibre optics.
"The HOF diamond chandelier is the most extravagant, brilliant, glamorous diamond chandelier ever made," Pineau said. "You can't imagine when it is illuminated how spectacular it is."
The lighting fixture hung in the centre of the 625-square-foot room, located offstage at LA's Nokia Theatre and accessible only by Emmy nominees and presenters. It was for sale following the show; however, no reports of a buyer have emerged.
Green bands
A US-based ring manufacturer is now fashioning its engagement and wedding bands from 100 per cent-recycled precious metals.
The Danforth Diamond Company has partnered with jewellery manufacturer Hoover and Strong to produce the Harmony Recycled
Precious Metals brand of recycled platinum and palladium engagement and wedding rings.
Taking unwanted or damaged jewellery, shavings and metal lost during the jewellery manufacture and crafting processes, and scrap precious metals from industrial uses, the company melts down the metals and then reuses them.
India still loves gold
Indian consumers have remained undeterred by price gains in gold during September when the metal posted its biggest weekly gain in a decade, climbing 13 per cent to 864.70 dollars an ounce as mounting credit turmoil pushed investors into safe haven assets.
India remains the world's biggest gold consumer, importing 800 tones a year on average - around 30 per cent of global demand.
Sustaining the market may be the beginning of the Indian wedding season. India buys more gold during marriage and festival seasons, with Indian brides traditionally adorned in heavy gold jewellery - seen as a family heirloom and a means of personal security.
With around 10 million marriages a year, wedding-related demand is huge, especially between October and January.
Christie's offers giant diamonds
A pair of polished diamonds cut from the 316.15-carat Ponahalo diamond was the highpoint of Christie's October auction.
According to a report in National Jeweler, Christie's Jewels: the New York Sale featured diamonds of 102.11 carats and 70.87 carats, both cut from the Ponahalo diamond.
The Ponahalo diamond came out of De Beers' Venetian mine in 2005, and is the largest stone ever to emerge from that mine.
Jonathan Oppenheimer of De Beers named the diamond, which means "vision" in Sotho, the tribal language spoken by the Venda tribe in the area of South Africa where the stone was mined.
Auction results were not available at the time of print.
Diamonds from outer space
Diamonds may have started life as primitive molecules from outer space, according to a group of German scientists.
Research being conducted by Andrei Sommer, Dan Zhu, and Hans-Joerg Fecht at the University of Ulm intends to find that diamonds, as crystallised carbon, provided a platform for genesis by forming layers of water on the surface of Earth billions of years ago.
According to the researchers, the resulting reaction may have been sufficient enough to generate more complex organic molecules that eventually gave rise to life.
The research was inconclusive at the time of print.
Fraudster steals £400,000 in jewels
A London woman has posed as a glamorous French socialite to steal hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and antiques from Europe's leading auction houses.
A court heard 52-year-old Shahra Marsh allegedly posed as an expert to obtain a stash worth £400,000 - all secured using cheques that later bounced.
A large jewellery order from Giafferi, including a sapphire and diamond ring, diamond broach, a diamond and emerald necklace, a gold and diamond bracelet and a gold Caesar pendant were among the stolen items.
Marsh was fluent in French and fooled staff into believing she was their "usual type of affluent client" who could afford the most expensive lots on offer, Southwark Crown Court heard.
In the month it took the money to clear, Marsh convinced the firms to send her the goods, taking advantage of the trust she had built up with the seller, it was claimed.
Marsh was caught in February 2008. No sentencing information was available at the time of print.
Platinum stops aging
A Swiss beauty company has developed an age-fighting moisturiser that contains platinum.
La Prairie's Cellular Cream Platinum Rare officially debuted in Los Angeles over Emmy weekend, at the Platinum Guild International Gifting Suite in Beverly Hills, at a cost of $US1,000 a tub.
The product is not being advertised at all. Instead, the company is distributing the cream among stars, stylists, beauty editors and makeup artists - hoping word of mouth will work its magic.
"At $1,000, this product is not for everybody," the company's publicist explained. "It's really for people for whom skin care is a major priority, like actors, presenters and so on."
While platinum's restorative properties are well-known, this is the first time the metal has been incorporated into a beauty product.