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A new collaborative study down by Men’s Health and TheKnot.com have found that just 17% of guys would wear an engagement ring. Rings matter very little to a guy, but they are much more important to women.

The survey found that %59 of brides said both the carat size and quality of the diamond in their rings matter to them.

70% of men believe that quality is more important than quantity. The thought is that women would prefer a large diamond over several diamonds in their ring.

22% of the brides surveyed agreed that what their friends and family think about the ring matters.

44% of the grooms surveyed stated that they had chosen the ring themselves. So the other 54% were smart enough to bring their lady in to pick it for them!

98% of men thought that they ring they picked out their bride loved. 9% of women didn’t like the ring picked for them and just 4% let their man know how they felt.

76% of men believe they have to propose on bended knee, 48% of women agreed. That is something that has definitely changed over time!

21% of men and 28% of women believe that the man has to ask the women’s parents for permission to marry their daughter.

57% of brides shared their engagement by posting a picture on Facebook, 22% said that that was tacky!

So some cool facts and some interesting information!

So after all the talk about the United States largest mineral and jewelry show, the products on display plus all the other displays from private collections to museum, the show experienced its first crime!

Special agents from the Homeland Security Investigations unit received an anonymous tip about two vendors at the Gem and Lapidary Wholesalers show. They had an estimated 1 million dollars in counterfeit items! The special agents underwent a sting operation and caught the vendors red-handed. The two sellers admitted to the items being fake once under arrest.

Much of the jewelry were faking some of the largest known brands including Tiffany & Co. The two vendors are under arrest for fraud, counterfeiting, money laundering and illegal enterprise.

My first thought when reading this was how stupid do you have to be for trying to sell counterfeit jewelry at one of the most renown mineral and gem shows in the world? Did they not realize that there would be dozens of industry leading specialists from jewelry, gemology and mineralogy at the show who would be able to detect a fake gem in seconds?

Obviously they didn’t because they got busted big time! The minimum sentence they will get will probably be 25 years! Counterfeiting is a real problem, which is what I think I will do my next post on! There will not always be experts around to sort the fake from the real, so we must be educated on the topic to defend ourselves from being defrauded!

Courtesy of Crater of Diamonds State Park

Okay, so probably none of us are going to be getting this amazing diamond anytime soon for Valentines day, but we can sure dream about it!

In Murfreesboro , AK in there is a park that allows the general public to look for diamonds. Most would think it to be a gimmick but it is not as almost 30,000 diamonds have been discovered in their park. The 21k diamond recently found, dubbed “Silver Moon,” is the most valuable find since 2008. Yeah, that’s right, more valuable diamonds have been found at Diamonds State Park. The other stone found was appraised at $22,000. In 1998 the most valuable stone found so far at the park was appraised at $33,000. It was a 1.09 ct gem, ideal cut D-flawless diamond.

The diamond “Silver Moon” was appraised as a 1.067 ct. F WS2 stone with a cut grade of 1.

Most experts have been surprised by the finds as the mine is considered to be unproductive and basically defunct.

It is pretty cool that you can find a diamond in a park like this. The odds are like winning the lottery, but someone has to win! The costs is only $7 for adults and $4 for kids. You can bring your own supplies  (as long as you don’t go overboard!) or you can rent supplies from the park with a deposit and a few bucks.

Check out Diamond State Park here for more information about the park.

Find the original article here for more information!

The Tucson Gem and Mineral show has begin this week. Many consider it one of the premier gem shows in the US as it is the largest gem and mineral show. The show is open to the public if you want to check it out. There will be extraordinary minerals on show as well as gems, fossils, lapidary and jewelry exhibits. The exhibit will also let viewers see a few private and museum collections from around the world.

There will also be some lectures and seminars from leading specialists in their respective fields. Also going on will be a silent auction, live auction, awards ceremony and a photo-slide competition.

For more information visit their website here.

I love antique jewelry for many reasons, many of which can be read here. I love the fact that almost every piece is handmade. There is something to be said about crafts made by another human instead of mass produced by machines. I love how each piece has its own history. Antiques generally are influenced by the period of time they where made in. Victorian Jewelry is inspired by the Victorian era of the British Empire. nouveau/”target=”_self”title=”Art Deco” >Art Deco is inspired by the French modernist movement in the early 1900′s. And so on. There are many other pieces of jewelry that are not ancient and are just beautiful and unique in style. Costume jewelry and retro jewelry is jewelry that is less than 100 years old and fits in the estate jewelry category. Many of the pieces are beautiful in such unique ways, they offer character and style which is again totally different than what you can get from some mass producing jewelry store.
If you are interested in antique and estate jewelry, check out the site. I am sure you will find something that inspires you!

So it looks like the worlds largest emerald failed to sell. It really isn’t surprising considering all the bad media that came about the piece right before it sold. I thought though that despite the charges that the emerald wasn’t pure, that it size alone would attract someone. Turns out the owner was arrested for fraud! Nothing kills an auction faster than fraud! For more information about the worlds largest emerald I attached an article from JCK Online:

The so-called “world’s largest emerald” has turned out to lay an equally large egg.

The 57,500 ct. watermelon-size green rock, whose authenticity was increasingly coming under question, failed to attract any bids at its scheduled Jan. 28 auction by Kelowna, Canada–based Western Star Auctions.

The auction house’s hopes for a million-dollar payday were dealt a serious blow on Jan. 30, when word came that Reagan Reaney, the dealer who put the stone up for auction, had been arrested on fraud charges.

Reaney “is accused of multiple fraud offenses and has outstanding warrants for his arrest out of Hamilton, Ontario,” according to a release from the Kelowna Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The release indicated the charges were not related to the emerald, stating there are no investigations regarding Reaney in Kelowna.

Meanwhile, Western Star owner Mike Odenbach didn’t know if the auction house would put the stone up for sale again.

“That’s really not my decision to make,” he says. “There is still a pile of interest in it.”

Controversy has swirled around the stone since shortly after the auction was announced.

On Jan. 26, the gemologist who examined the stone told JCK that he couldn’t vouch that the stone was all emerald. And noting the presence of dyes, Shane McClure, director of GIA’s West Coast Identification Service, said “we would probably not call it emerald no matter what.”

A local news site, PeachlandNews.com, discovered that the stone had previously been up for sale on eBay with a $10,000 price tag. The listing can be seen here. A site designed to sell the emerald at press time has been taken down.

Jeff Nechka, the Calgary-based gemologist who appraised the stone, says it failed to sell for a variety of reasons.

“Perhaps people were hoping the media hype would die down,” he says. “Some people may have become skittish with the latest news over the owner of the stone. It could be there is no demand for something so big.”

He notes that he has no connection with the stone’s owner, and still stands by his $1.15 million valuation, adding that the high price tag is appropriate given the rock’s enormous size.

Reference:http://www.jckonline.com/2012/01/30/worlds-largest-emerald-fails-to-sell

So it looks like that the stone was on sale on eBay for just a meager 10k (in comparison to the 1.15 million dollar appraisal it got). It is really disappointing to see that find that the stone is losing more credibility by the day. Call me an optimist but I loved reading about the massive stone and its potential to be sold. I wonder what a person would do with such a thing?
It goes to show you that even in this day and age people are still trying to pull the wool of peoples eyes. Thankfully the internet and easy research makes it harder to do that.

Worlds Largest Emerald

The emerald gemstone valued at 1.15 million dollars and roughly the shape of a water melon is up for sale but apprasistes believe that it may not be all emerald. It has been dyed green apparently to hide the white beryl in it. If this is true the GIA would term it “beryl with zones of emerald.”

The emerald is 57,500 carats and if it was pure it is believed that it would valued at over 20 million dollars because of its huge size.

Gemologist Gary Roskin was quoted as saying “any enhancement by dye certainly lessions its value when compared to one that is naturally colored by Mother Nature.” He is the publisher of the Roskin Gem News Report.

What does all of this mean? Well it reminds us that not every stone is real and that anytime you buy something you should have it appraised first. Or at the very least buy from a reputable source that doesn’t lie about the gem stone quality. Often we see and hear advertisements of gems stones, especially diamonds. If you do not mind a lesser quality stone, that is all well and good but at least you should know what you are buying and not get duped into buying some overpriced gem.

Which gives me an idea! Next blog post I will build an infographic that contains all the different types cuts and qualities! Hopefully it should be a little better than my last infographic blog post and contain more information and look cleaner!

Until next time!

Hey all, I thought I would make a chart to help show the difference between antique and estate jewelry. First let me say that I made a quick mistake, in essence antique jewelry IS estate jewelry as all estate jewelry is previously owned jewelry. Estate jewelry can throw a wrench into the things because often people associate estate with rich and dead. This is not true!

Say your mother passes you down a precious necklace, that would be considered an estate piece of jewelry. Or if you buy something a beautiful ring from a pawn shop, that technically would be a piece of estate jewelry too. So generally all antique jewelry is estate jewelry, but not all estate jewelry is antique jewelry as antique jewelry needs to be at least 100 years old.

Leave a comment if you have any questions!

According to the Economic Census recently taken diamond jewelry accounts for 43% of a typical jewelers sales, which translated says that diamonds are the most sought after gemstone. The holds true for estate jewelry and antique jewelry too.

Surprisingly gold jewelry sales have fallen in half since 1992. Because of the increasing prices this may be the reason.

In the end this report states how well mass jewelry producing companies like Jared and Kay’s have marketed diamonds. Though a true connoisseur of jewelry knows there is more value in gems than just the diamond. That is one of the wonderful things about antique jewelry that I enjoy so much, each peace is individual and unique. The peace isn’t about the gem in it, it is about the time period and the history surrounding each peace.

Handmade jewelry is becoming an extinct art form, which while in its own right is a sad thing, it also speaks to the changing times. Too many consumers it is more about the having a diamond and were it was purchased than what made that particular piece what it is.

It truly is the history behind each piece that makes it what it is. One of my favorite rings is a stunning Victorian Black Opal Mine Cut Diamond ring. While the ring has diamonds on it, the center peace of the ring is a beautiful solid Black Opal stone. There are flashes of greens and blues in the stone against the rock. I believe it to be made somewhere around the 1860′s, during the late Victorian period. You can’t find a piece like this at any ole mass diamond retailer!

The rare stoned nicknamed “Golden Eye” because of its vast size and color is being auctioned off. Experts believe that the stone could be auctioned off at up to 20 million dollars! The minimum bid, as released by the Marshalls office is going to start at just shy of 1 million dollars at 900k. The bidding is going to take place on September 6th and conclude on two days later on the 8th. There will be a mandatory 120K down deposit required to be considered a serious buyer.

The 43 ct. flawless fancy intense yellow stone is a modified rectangular brilliant cut is being sold online at bid4assests.com. The stone use to belong to Ohio Native Paul Monea who had been convicted of laundering money made from drug trafficking.The diamond was seized in 2006 as part of a drug sting.

The proceeds of the sale will go to the victims of the case, to the litigators and of course to the agencies that conducted the investigations. GIA has authenticated the diamond to be real, they came to the conclusion in the June 8th report which is numbered 15154097.

If you are interested in seeing the diamond it will be held on display from August 29th to September 2nd in Cleveland, Ohio. But you in order to see you will have had to made a security deposit and be considered a qualified buyer (too bad!)

It isn’t often we get to see diamonds like this and it is even less often that they go on sale. Often they are purchased and put into a collected never to be seen again.