RAPAPORT... Fortunoff Jewelry founder and trailblazing entrepreneur Helene Fortunoff died on Monday at the age of 88 from a non-Covid-19-related respiratory illness.Fortunoff began her jewelry career shortly after meeting her first husband, Alan Fortunoff. She entered his family's housewares business, which Max and Clara Fortunoff started in 1922. Knowledgeable in the merchandising and design of f...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Lucapa says it has recovered 13 diamonds - eight of them Type IIa - from bulk sampling at Lulo, in Angola.The Australian miner describes results from initial processing as "positive and significant". It says the L028 kimberlite being explored is adjacent to alluvial Mining Block 46, known for its high-value Type IIa and fancy colored diamonds.The 13 stones recovered from L028...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Police have released CCTV images of a suspect who placed a fake bomb in the doorway of a jewelry store, with a note demanding cash and jewelry.He prompted a full-scale alert at Sergio's Fine Jewelers, in Ellicott City, Maryland, USA.Police deployed drones, sniffer dogs, and a bomb robot before establishing for certain that the device, inside a box, was not genuine. The en...Read More
RAPAPORT... The World Diamond Council (WDC) has repeated its call for reforms to the Kimberley Process (KP), warning that failure to do so could lead to a "two-tiered" industry.Companies that fall below consumers' expectations on responsible sourcing will lose market share, putting many people out of business, WDC president Edward Asscher told the annual KP plenary on Monday.Asscher urged KP...Read More
RAPAPORT... Mountain Province has named mining veteran Mark Wall as CEO. He will also become president and a director, the company said Tuesday.Wall has more than 25 years of experience in executive, operational, commercial and sustainability roles for mining businesses. He was most recently CEO of Streamers Gold Mining, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Shandong Gold Mining. He has also held...Read More
RAPAPORT... Rough-diamond production is not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels. The coronavirus forced the mining companies to rethink their production programs and downscale accordingly. However, 2020 was always going to be a tipping point for supply. Global output peaked in 2017 when the Gahcho Ku?(C) and Renard mines came onstream in Canada. It has been gradually declining since then, un...Read More
RAPAPORT... Industry leaders in India have published draft rules aimed at stopping members from selling diamonds with false grading reports.The new Diamond Charter calls for tight measures to prevent the misuse of certificates. It also requires companies to take action to stem the circulation of grading reports that are not attached to a stone.The document, which the Gem & Jewellery Expor...Read More
RAPAPORT... Asian Star, one of India's largest manufacturers of diamonds and jewelry, saw sales rebound in the three months ending September 30 as the global market continued its recovery from the Covid-19 crisis.Revenue more than doubled to INR 11.59 billion ($156.6 million) for the Mumbai-based company's second fiscal quarter, versus INR 4.98 billion ($67.2 million) a year earlier. Net prof...Read More
RAPAPORT... Growth at the retail division of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway slowed in the third quarter as supply-chain disruptions led to an inventory shortage.The division - which includes jewelry chains Borsheims, Helzberg Diamonds and Ben Bridge Jeweler - saw sales increase 8% year on year to $4.5 billion, the company reported last week. That represented a gentler rise than the 48% s...Read More
RAPAPORT... Gemfields has recovered a 7,525-carat emerald from its Kagem mine, the largest in the Zambian deposit's history.The miner named the stone Chipembele, meaning rhinoceros in the local dialect of Bemba, Gemfields said Monday. Geologist Manas Banerjee and veteran miner Richard Kapeta and his team unearthed it on July 13.The name comes from the words Kapeta used when he spotted the emerald,...Read More
(IDEX Online) - New owners of Canada's Ekati mine are seeking consent to drain a nearby lake and dig three kimberlite pipes.The Arctic Canadian Diamond Company says the move is crucial to securing the future of the mine and to filling a gap in production that would otherwise see the mine temporarily shut down.It has successfully lobbied for the Point Lake open pit project not to be subjected...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Prices of fancy color diamonds kept rising in Q3 - up 0.7 per cent as the market recovered from the pandemic.The rate of increase is accelerating, according to the Fancy Color Diamond Index (FCDI): The Q2 rise was 0.2 per cent and Q1 was 0.3 per cent.No figures were produced for Q1 and Q2 of 2020 because business was too slow to yield sufficient data.Blue diamonds showed an a...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Prosecutors in Britain have launched a legal battle to reclaim proceeds of the $7.8m "pebble swap" heist.Lulu Lakatos aged 60, from Romania, was jailed in July for five-and-a-half-years for the sleight-of-hand switch at Boodles, in Mayfair, London.The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is now attempting to recover money from the Russian mobsters believed to behind the 2016 raid, accor...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Manufacturers in Surat are hoping to kickstart the price of polished diamond prices by extending the Diwali vacation.The city's 6,000 cutting and polishing units will remain closed for three weeks, rather than the usual seven or 10 days."Even though rough diamond prices were going up due to supply constraint, polished prices were not witnessing an upward trajectory and the pro...Read More
RAPAPORT... Prices of fancy-color diamonds rose 1.1% year on year in the third quarter, rebounding from a long depression caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF) said."This increase was actually expected, as fancy-color prices were too low for too long," FCRF advisory board member Eden Rachminov said last week. The index for pinks jumped 1.3% for the same per...Read More
RAPAPORT... Pluczenik Diamond Company, one of Antwerp's largest polished suppliers, has opened a cutting factory in South Africa through a partnership with local manufacturer Nungu Diamonds.The deal sees the Belgian dealer and polisher return to the country where Isaac Pluczenik founded the business in 1948, the two companies said last week.Tzvi and David Pluczenik, grandsons of Isaac Pluczen...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Hackers who plundered the London jeweler Graff have issued a groveling apology to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and other Middle East leaders.In a bizarre twist, the Russian-based Conti gang posted a "press release" apologizing for any inconvenience and pledging to delete all their details.It said, however, that it had no issues about posting information on US and EU...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Beyonce has again been photographed wearing the iconic Tiffany Diamond, despite having said she was "angry and disappointed" to learn it was a blood diamond.The 40-year-old singer wore the 128.54-carat gem in a new photo-shoot with husband Jay-Z, 51, for Tiffany & Co's About Love campaign. The pic was posted on her Instagram account last Tuesday.She prompted an online back...Read More
RAPAPORT... Belgium has registered its seventh consecutive monthly increase in polished-diamond exports, with shipments growing 32% year on year in September. A rise in the average price outweighed a slight decline in volume, according to Rapaport calculations based on recent data from the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC).Belgium Trade Data for September 2021 Read More
RAPAPORT... China's polished-diamond imports soared in the first nine months of the year as domestic jewelry demand continued to recover from the Covid-19 downturn.Shipments into the country through the Shanghai Diamond Exchange (SDE) - after returns of unsold goods - more than tripled year on year to $2.32 billion for the period from January to September, the bourse said in a recent statemen...Read More