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Music Friday: Ray Stevens Launched His 60-Year Career With a Song About a ‘Silver Bracelet’
on Mar 31 2017
Welcome to Music Friday when we often bring you golden oldies with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, we climb into our Wayback Machine and transport ourselves 60 years into the past, where a 17-year-old Ray Stevens has just signed a deal with Capitol Records’ subsidiary, Prep Records. For his...
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220-Pound ‘Big Maple Leaf’ Gold Coin Goes Missing at Berlin Museum; Did They Check the Sofa?
on Mar 30 2017
Brawny, brazen thieves broke into Berlin’s Bode Museum just after 3 a.m. on Monday and bolted with the “Big Maple Leaf,” a Canadian-minted coin weighing 220 pounds and worth $4.4 million. Measuring 20.8 inches in diameter, the coin was unveiled in 2007 as the world’s largest. While the original remained in a high-security vault in Ottawa,...
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Swiss Lab Reveals ‘Game-Changing’ Nanotechnology That Can Trace the Origin of Emeralds
on Mar 29 2017
In what has been labeled as a “true game-changer” for the colored-gemstone market, a Switzerland-based laboratory is using DNA-based nanoparticles to mark emeralds with an invisible imprint that will provide proof of their origin anywhere along the supply chain. The particles, which are smaller than 100 nanometers in size, will be applied to rough emerald crystals at...
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NYC Sanitation Workers Help Couple Find Platinum Rings in an 800-Bag Mountain of Trash
on Mar 28 2017
With the assistance of New York City sanitation workers, a desperate couple waded through 800 disgusting trash bags to find two “priceless” platinum rings that had been accidentally thrown away. “I felt really helpless,” NYC apartment dweller Shannon Lombardo told WABC-TV. “It wasn’t so much about the [value] of the rings. It was what they represented.”...
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Australia Post Set to Release Eye-Catching Series of Gem Stamps
on Mar 27 2017
On Thursday, Australia Post will release a dazzling collection of colorful stamps illustrated with native gemstones — the golden sapphire, pink diamond, rhodonite and fluorite. The stamp issue is titled “The Rare Beauties: Extraordinary Gemstones.” What all four gems have in common is that they are housed in the mineral collection of the Australian Museum in Sydney....
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Music Friday: Cher Is Wearing Sonny’s Ring in 1965’s #1 Hit, ‘I Got You Babe’
on Mar 24 2017
Welcome to Music Friday when we often bring you throwback songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today we zoom back to the summer of 1965 — a time of hippies, bell bottoms, flower power and a chart-topping duo named Sonny & Cher singing “I Got You Babe.” In this...
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Lucky Pastor Pulls 706-Carat Diamond From a River Bed in Sierra Leone
on Mar 23 2017
Using only his bare hands and a sieve, pastor and part-time miner Emmanuel Momoh pulled a 706-carat diamond from the sediment of a river bed in Sierra Leone. About the size of a hockey puck, the diamond is the second-largest ever found in this western African nation and ranks as one of the top-10 largest...
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Australian Mining Company Unearths Five Ultra-Rare Green Diamonds
on Mar 22 2017
The Merlin Diamond Mine in Australia’s Northern Territory has yielded not one — but five — ultra-rare green diamonds, the largest of which weighs 1.42 carats. The discoveries are noteworthy because barely a handful of green diamonds are introduced to the market each year and the finest-quality ones can fetch upwards of $3 million per...
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Back on the Block: 59.60-Carat ‘Pink Star’ Looks to Regain the Title of Priciest Diamond Ever
on Mar 21 2017
All eyes will be on the stunning 59.60-carat “Pink Star” diamond when it returns to the big stage at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on April 4. If all goes as planned, the largest internally flawless, fancy vivid pink diamond ever graded by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) will regain its title as the world’s most...
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The Man of Steel’s Namesake Scores 7.44-Carat ‘Superman’s Diamond’ at Crater of Diamonds State Park
on Mar 20 2017
The origin story of Superman tells us that The Man of Steel was born Kal-El on the planet of Krypton and was sent to Earth as an infant by his scientist father, Jor-El, just before Krypton’s destruction. On Saturday, March 11, 14-year-old Kalel Langford of Centerton, Ark., celebrated his connection with DC Comics’ superhero by...
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on Mar 17 2017
Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, platinum, silver and gold take center stage in Justin Bieber’s 2012 hit, “As Long as You Love Me,” a song about how true love conquers all. The 23-year-old Canadian-born superstar uses three noble...
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‘Bachelor’ Nick Viall Proposes to Vanessa Grimaldi With 3.75-Carat Diamond Ring Worth $100K
on Mar 16 2017
Season 21’s Bachelor Nick Viall popped the question Monday night to finalist Vanessa Grimaldi with a diamond-and-platinum engagement ring valued at $100,000. Featuring a round, brilliant-cut center diamond accented with baguette diamonds and 164 smaller round diamonds, the ring boasts a diamond total weight of 3.75 carats. Viall chose a ring with a classic round center diamond...
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Photographer Delivers Spectacular Northern Lights Marriage Proposal — on His Second Try
on Mar 15 2017
Nine months ago, Australian landscape photographer Dale Sharpe planned to pop the question to his photographer girlfriend, Karlie Russell, under the Northern Lights in Iceland. Together, they had shot the colorful Aurora borealis more than 30 times, so Sharpe decided that the Lights would be the perfect backdrop for a surprise marriage proposal. To maintain...
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Legendary Jonker V Diamond Expected to Sell for $3 Million-Plus at Christie’s Hong Kong
on Mar 14 2017
The Jonker V diamond, one of 13 magnificent diamonds cleaved from the famous 726-carat Jonker rough more than 80 years ago, will go under the hammer on May 30 at Christie’s Hong Kong. The 25.27-carat emerald-cut gem is expected to fetch upwards of $3.6 million. On January 17, 1934, a rough diamond the size of...
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Nicole Kidman Reveals She Clapped Like a Seal at the Oscars to Protect Huge Diamond Rings
on Mar 13 2017
Beleaguered actress Nicole Kidman finally revealed why she clapped like a seal at the 89th Academy Awards. It was all about the rings. In the two weeks since the broadcast, social media has exploded with memes trying to explain Kidman’s strange clapping behavior where she essentially slapped the bottom of her palms together while splaying...
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on Mar 10 2017
Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you great songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger sings about finding the perfect love in the group’s 2008 hit, “Gotta Be Somebody.” In Kroeger’s view, we all dream about the love of a lifetime, the perfect soulmate....
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Named After a Perfume, 1,000-Carat ‘Most Precious’ Aquamarine Resides at the Smithsonian
on Mar 09 2017
“Most Precious” is one of the world’s most beautiful examples of March’s official birthstone. Presented as part of the National Gem and Mineral collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., the rectangular-cut aquamarine from Brazil weighs a startling 1,000-carats and evokes the clear blue hue of a tranquil sea. A gift of...
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Arkansas-Sourced ‘Esperanza’ Diamond Heads to the Auction Block March 21
on Mar 08 2017
Here’s your chance to own a piece of Americana. The 4.64-carat D-flawless “Esperanza” diamond, which was found by Bobbie Oskarson in 2015 at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Ark., will be offered for sale at Skinner’s fine jewelry auction in Boston on March 21. Esperanza carries a pre-sale estimate of $100,000 to $150,000...
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NASA Captures Image of Giant ‘Ice Diamond’ Floating in Caspian Sea
on Mar 07 2017
NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite spotted a glistening diamond-shaped ice jewel while orbiting above the cold, 600-mile northern region of the Caspian Sea — the world’s largest inland body of water — stretching from Kazakhstan to Iran. The image of Ice Diamond was captured on February 4 by NASA’s Operational Land Imager (OLI), a high-tech camera...
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UK Treasure Hunters Unearth Four Golden Torcs Dating Back 2,500 Years
on Mar 02 2017
Two buddies with a passion for treasure hunting unearthed four 2,500-year-old golden torcs within the parish of Leekfrith (pop. 363) in the English countryside. The items, which include three neck torcs and one bracelet weighing between 1 ounce and 8 ounces, may date back to 400 BC and represent the earliest Iron Age gold work...
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