What: An Unmounted, Cushion-Cut Diamond

Type of Diamonds

Natural diamonds are classified by the type and quantity of impurities found within them.

Type Ia - This is the most common type of natural diamond, containing up to 0.3% nitrogen.Clustered nitrogen atoms. Colourless to Yellow. 98% of all diamonds are Type Ia.

Type Ib - Very few natural diamonds are this type (~0.1%), but nearly all synthetic industrial diamonds are. Type Ib diamonds contain up to 500 ppm nitrogen. These diamonds about 0.1% prevalent.Isolated Nitrogen Atoms. Orange, Orange Yellow to Brown.Depending on the precise concentration and spread of the nitrogen atoms, these diamonds can appear deep yellow (”canary”), orange, brown or greenish.

Type IIa - This type is very rare in nature. Type IIa diamonds contain so little nitrogen that it isn’t readily detected using infrared or ultraviolet absorption methods. No specific colour centre.Yellow, Brown , Pink and Purple Type IIa diamonds have been documented. These diamonds are 1% to 2% prevalent.These diamonds can be considered as the “purest of the pure” - they contain no, or minuscule amounts of impurities, are usually colourless, highly transparent and can be a higher colour grade than D.Diamond Imports recently sold a round brilliant 1.36 carat D IF Ex/ Ex Type IIa.

Type IIb - This type is the rarest in nature. Type IIb diamonds contain no measurable amounts of nitrogen (even lower than type IIa) that the crystal is a p-type semiconductor.These diamonds contain no nitrogen - but they contain boron, which absorbs red, orange and yellow light. These diamonds therefore usually appear to be blue, although they can also be grey or nearly colorless. All naturally blue diamonds belong to Type IIb, which makes up 0.1% of all diamonds.

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Cushion Cut Diamonds

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Rosh Pinna, translation Cornerstone, once a place you passed through on the bus has become very trendy with small coffee shops and dress shops opening up on the sides of once dusty forgotten streets and lane ways. It’s a pretty place compared to thirty years ago when I used to live in the area. It amused me because the name Rosh Pinna rhymed with the Czech words ” motz shpina ” translation big mess.

And what a big mess it is too. Studying Kabbalah without studying Chumash, the foundation, is tantamount to building a house with the roof first.

Anyway it’s business as usual… don’t forget to buy your genuine Madonna ” kabbalah crosses ” hanging on some cheap red thread. It might make you feel good and only make you look confused to those of us who know better.

Hooooroooo from De Guru

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For the girl who has everything … the sqash-ball sized diamond is the biggest to come to market for 18 years.Photo: AP

HONG KONG (Xinhua): The largest colorless diamond seen at auction in nearly 20 years will go under the hammer on May 28 in Christie’s Hong Kong sale, officials said as it was previewed here Tuesday.

“Only three colorless diamonds of over 100 carats have ever appeared at auction, all sold in Geneva,” said Francois Curiel, chairman of jewelry at Christie’s.

The Spring sale of magnificent jewels on May 28 will sell 345 lots estimated to achieve in excess of $ 56 million.

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NO SALE François Curiel of Christie’s

However, Christie’s fetches $49.8 million in ‘traditional’ jewelry auction Gary Roskin, G.G., FGA, Senior Editor — JCK-Jewelers Circular Keystone, 4/17/2008

Christie’s New York, then the following day, as Merrill Lynch and Esmerian sparred in court over the sale.

Bloomberg News reports.

“After 2 days of court hearings, the sale of Rare Jewels and Gemstones could not take place, after a decision from the New York Bankruptcy Court,” a statement from Christie’s reads. “We were obviously disappointed not to proceed with the auction, but proud to have been selected as the auctioneers for this marvelous collection. Meanwhile, the traditional auction alone achieved $49.8 million, 88 percent sold by lot, 95 percent in value, with 10 top lots fetching above a $1 million and new benchmark reached for diamonds over 20 carats.”

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Fred Leighton Jewelry on Madison Avenue, New York.

A few minutes after 6, when the auction had been set to start, the cellphone of François Curiel, the director of Christie’s jewelry department, rang. He listened, said thank you and hung up.
“There is no auction tonight,” he announced to a small group of international jewelry dealers gathered at Christie’s Rockefeller Center rooms.

ALSO caught up in the drama is Peter E. Bacanovic, the former Merrill Lynch broker who was sentenced to five months in prison for his role in the Martha Stewart stock case. In January, the month Merrill Lynch first filed suit against Mr. Esmerian in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, he hired Mr. Bacanovic as president of Fred Leighton. He assigned him, among other duties, the job of using his strong social connections to help open a Beverly Hills store.

Hundreds of discerning jewel lovers had descended on Christie’s to admire the glittering wares of Mr. Esmerian. But he was conspicuously absent.

Mr. Esmerian had used the jewelry as part of his collateral for $177 million in loans (now $187 million, with interest and costs) from Merrill Lynch, most of which went to finance the purchase of Fred Leighton. Mr. Esmerian’s contention — part of his legal maneuvers last week — was that his jewelry collection had been undervalued for the forced sale.

Mr. Esmerian was apoplectic about the planned auction being forced by Merrill Lynch. In an emotional interview on Tuesday, he shook his head in dismay as he thumbed through Christie’s lavishly illustrated catalog, pointing to beloved items of jewelry collected by him and by his late father, Raphael Esmerian, a gem dealer who emigrated from Paris in 1940.

How did Mr. Esmerian — an aesthete educated at Groton and Princeton who until last year controlled a jewelry collection estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars — land in such a predicament? His lawyer Helen Davis Chaitman ascribed his woes to a clash of cultures between her client, an amiable philanthropist who has given millions to museums, she said, and Merrill Lynch bankers who issued and capriciously rescinded his credit.

Among other philanthropic work, Mr. Esmerian is chairman emeritus of the American Folk Art Museum, to which he pledged 400 works in 2000.

With the bank’s encouragement, Mr. Esmerian borrowed $110 million more in March 2006, in part to buy Fred Leighton, an estate jewelry company with stores on Madison Avenue and at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, which had raised the profile of estate jewelry in the United States.

IN acquiring Fred Leighton, Mr. Esmerian planned to sell museum-quality jewels from the family’s Special Collection in a retail setting, along with thousands of other pieces from his private stock. (Until then his business was mostly wholesale, consigning jewels to Cartier and other luxury stores around the world.)

After he made timely payments for more than a year, Mr. Esmerian said, the merriment expired abruptly in September 2007 when he called his bankers at Merrill Lynch to ask for two weeks’ leeway for half his monthly interest payments of $1.5 million. “They said, ‘Sorry, we can’t give you any more time to pay the interest,’ ” he said.

Ms. Chaitman places the blame for Merrill’s decision to force the sale of Mr. Esmerian’s jewels on the bank’s own internal woes related to the subprime mortgage crisis. The bank has taken some $30 billion in mortgage-related write-downs since last year; on Thursday it announced layoffs of 2,900 employees.

“In December we had reached agreement on negotiated terms for a forbearance that would have avoided court,” Mr. Halldin said, “but he refused to sign the documentation needed.”

(Ms. Chaitman responded that her client had been forthcoming with Merrill Lynch about his jewelry holdings and that money from some jewelry sales did not go into proper accounts because of a mistake by another bank.)

ANOTHER concern of Merrill’s, Mr. Halldin said, was Mr. Esmerian’s hiring of Mr. Bacanovic, a former stockbroker with a criminal record. The bank discussed its misgivings with Mr. Esmerian.

Fired from his job at Merrill and banned from the securities industry, Mr. Bacanovic had been struggling to find a new path after his release from prison in Las Vegas. “Unlike Martha Stewart, who came right out of jail and went back to running her company,” Ms. Chaitman said, “Peter did not have a platform to come back to.”

While Mr. Bacanovic is not a party to the litigation between Merrill Lynch and Mr. Esmerian, he is involved in pushing Fred Leighton forward, despite the continuing drama. He has changed the displays in the New York store, hired sales people, worked with a public relations team to publicize the brand and brought in his friends, Ms. Chaitman said.

“He has an enormous group of friends and supporters,” Ms. Chaitman said. “And he mixes in a circle of people who can become Fred Leighton customers.”

But in a surprise move, Mr. Esmerian’s lawyers filed for bankruptcy protection of his companies at 4:20. The sale was off again. “In my 40 years at Christie’s, this is the first time it happens,” Mr. Curiel, the auctioneer, said after he had announced the halt, calming his nerves with a white wine spritzer at the bar.

Merrill now seems to have given up on selling the jewelry. Both sides have taken a breath and seem resigned to working within the confines of bankruptcy court. “We think it’s positive that there will be close court supervision of all their activities,” Mr. Halldin said. In any case, the jewelry auction season has passed in New York, and the next one is not until December.

It seems that neither diamonds nor fine art are truly forever. Some of the paintings Mr. Esmerian gave to the American Folk Art Museum were outright gifts, and some were merely promised as gifts, with the understanding that they were being used as collateral on a loan from Sotheby’s.

Although a promise is only a promise, the museum was taken by surprise. “We didn’t know about Ralph’s problems,” said Susan Flamm, a spokeswoman.

From top; Evan Agostini/Getty Images; Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times; Lars Klove for The New York Times
BEDAZZLING Ralph O. Esmerian, center, encouraged actresses like Cameron Diaz, top, to wear his jewelry and hired Peter E. Bacanovic, above, as president of his estate jewelry concern, Fred Leighton. Now Mr. Esmerian is at the center of a battle over a big part of his collection.
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Ivana Trump (R), Czech-born businesswoman and former Olympic athelete, fashion model and wife of mogul Donald Trump, and her new husband Rossano Rubicondi (L) EPA/FELIX HEYDER

Ivana Trump has snagged a man twenty years her junior, and has married him this past weekend.

For the wedding dinner reception Saturday evening, which was attended by more than 300 friends, Ivana wore a Leviev diamond bracelet, earrings and necklace totaling more than 150 carats.

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - Global auction house Sotheby’s failed to hammer off a 72.22-carat, “D” flawless white diamond at its Asian sales last week in a possible sign of weakness in the global diamond trade.

The large diamond which had a pre-sale estimate of $10-12 million, attracted a final bid of HK$73 million ($9.24million) that fell short of the reserve price and went unsold, said Sotheby’s press officer Rhonda Yung.

The diamond was later sold to a private buyer for an undisclosed sum, Sotheby’s said. Yung added that several international buyers had bid for the stone but “confusion over exchange rates” had caused the auctioneer to retract some bids and may have dampened buyer enthusiasm.

The Sotheby’s stone was the third largest “pear-shaped” diamond ever auctioned globally, and was of exceptional quality given its size, symmetry and esteemed “Type IIA” rating, given only to the most brilliant of white “D” color diamonds.

Rare polished diamonds achieved all-time highs per carat at sales in Geneva late last year, fuelled by high commodity prices and strong demand in emerging economies like China and the Gulf States.

The poor Hong Kong result however suggests the market for top tier gems may be suffering from global economic weakness.

The stone was auctioned in Hong Kong on the back of a growing trend for top gemstones to grace Asian auction rooms from traditional gem hubs such as Geneva.

The next big test could be a massive 101-carat, “near-flawless”, squash-ball sized diamond which will be sold by rival auction Christie’s next month in Hong Kong, in what’s being dubbed the largest diamond ever auctioned in Asia and could fetch $6 million.

Last October, Sotheby’s sold a small and very rare blue diamond in Hong Kong for $8 million, or $1.3 million per carat making it the most expensive gemstone in the world, per carat.

Another magnificent 84-carat diamond was sold by Sotheby’s last November for $16.2 million to Guess Jeans founder Georges Marciano, who named it the “Chloe Diamond” after his daughter.

The diamond achieved a world record price per carat for a white diamond of $191,980.

It just missed out on becoming the most expensive diamond auctioned, a record held for more than a decade by the 100-carat “Star of the Season” that fetched $16.5 million in 1995. Source:Reuters

Original Story with Video : USD$10 million D IF Diamond on Sale

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Big Diamonds

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Mattel’s popular childhood icon, Barbie, is the inspiration of a new jewelry collection scheduled to be launched this month. The first collection, which features pink diamonds, precious and semi-precious colored stones and rare metals, entitled Silhouette, portrays the classic Barbie profile of a ponytail, long eyelashes and a ski-jump nose.

The collection includes two necklaces: the “Luxe” Barbie pendant and Barbie dogtag in 18k white, yellow or rose gold with black diamonds or yellow or pink sapphires; and, the “Classic” necklace in sterling silver.

The collection also contains Barbie bracelets in sterling silver with 18k rose gold charms.

The first collection is the Silhouette collection that shows the classic ponytail, long eyelashes and ski-jump nose profile. It features two necklace styles: the “Luxe” Barbie™ Pendant and Barbie™ DogTag, in 18K white, yellow or rose gold, with white or black diamonds or yellow or pink sapphires; and the “Classic,” which is done in sterling silver.

The Barbie bracelets are available in sterling silver with 18K rose gold charms

The jewelry, which was created by Layna and Alan Friedman, can be purchased at the Alan Friedman boutique or online for amounts which range between US$185 to US$15,000.

A portion of the proceeds from sales will be donated to the Children Affected by Aids Foundation.

Source: Luxist

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Highest Quality Certified Diamonds

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Inspired by a sensual and exquisitely feminine couture style, Piaget dares to go for a “sexy “look with creations echoing the lacing on corsets that are tied and untied with voluptuous delight. In an ultra-chic interpretation of wild Parisian nights, a ruby and pink sapphire necklace imitates untied ribbons hanging nonchalantly along a plunging neckline.

In the same glamorous spirit, Piaget introduces a fabulous cuff watch, a recurrent and emblematic object in the brand’s history.

Entirely paved with diamonds, this watch literally wraps the wrist in light, evoking a luxurious corset delicately laced by a ribbon of square-cut diamonds, and also comes in a version with a colourful satin ribbon.

SPECIFICATIONS: 18-carat white gold cuff-watch with case, dial and bracelet paved with 1576 brilliant-cut diamonds (85.8 cts) and 83 baguette-cut diamonds (7.4 cts) Piaget 56P quartz movement

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