(IDEX Online) - Tiffany is poised to expand its offering to include more gold, precious gems and watches, after LVMH's $15.8bn buyout was finally completed earlier this month.The French luxury conglomerate also has its sights set on revamping many of its 320 US stores and expanding its operations in Europe and Asia.The new owners outlining their vision to 14,000 Tiffany employees, said the em...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Grading reports by the IGI on lab-grown diamonds will now include details of post-growth treatments.The lab says previous reports have indicated only that lab-growns "may include post-growth treatments to alter color".Thanks to advances in technology it says it can now it can confidently state whether a diamond was "as grown" or may have been treated. For untreated CVD) and Hi...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Mountain Province sold 241,827 carats for $21.8m in Antwerp at its first sale of year and reported an eight per cent increase in like-for-like prices. The miner, which holds a 49 per cent stake in Gahcho Ku?? (C) , Canada, said the results were excellent, and reflected a "growing confidence" among rough buyers.The sale, which closed on 22 January, achieved an average value of...Read More
RAPAPORT... Consumers increasingly want to know the story behind their diamond. But what type of provenance information are they seeking, and how can the industry provide this?Four guests explored this topic in the second installment of Rapaport's new podcast series, "Technology and the Diamond Trade," sponsored by Sarine Technologies.They included David Block, Sarine's CEO; Alexey Tikhonov,...Read More
RAPAPORT... Lab-grown producer Diamond Foundry plans to launch the American Diamond Council (ADC), which will concentrate on promoting US-made goods.The company expects to unveil the association in the spring, a Diamond Foundry spokesperson told Rapaport News last week. Its mission will be to "celebrate the virtues of American diamonds, focusing on diamonds manufactured in America and the loc...Read More
RAPAPORT... HourUniverse, the successor to Baselworld, has been postponed until the summer due to continued uncertainty over Covid-19, the show organizers said Monday in a letter to exhibitors.This year's event will take place "a few months" later than the April dates for which MCH Group had been planning, the company noted. It has not given specific timing.MCH, which owned the defunct Baselw...Read More
Six months ago, BIPOC jewelry professionals put out a call for greater equality and diversity in the trade, but how much has changed since then? RAPAPORT... The dearth of representation for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in the jewelry trade became the focus of a new manifesto and open letter that burst onto the scene half a year ago, following the killing of George Floyd...Read More
(IDEX Online) - The show that was due to replace the ill-fated Baselworld has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.HourUniverse had been scheduled for 8 to 12 April In Basel, Switzerland, but a notice on the organizers' website simply says: "Due to the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, we are assessing new dates to hold a live HourUniverse show in Basel in 2021." MCH Grou...Read More
(IDEX Online) - De Beers is poised to report the highest sales from a sight in three years, as the diamond industry enjoys a global boom.It could net as much as $600m, well-placed sources have told the Bloomberg news website, despite reportedly increasing prices of larger (+1-ct) stones by five per cent at the first Sight of 2020, which ended last week.For context, the UK-based miner sold rough wo...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Sales of watches and jewelry in the US enjoyed a sixth consecutive month of increase in November 2020, according to new Department of Commerce figures. They were up 16.6 per cent year-on-year, largely in line with the previous two months, once we take account of the revision downwards of the October figure (from 18.6 per cent to 15.9 per cent based on actual rather than forecast sa...Read More
(IDEX Online) - The offices of diamond scanning firm Diyora & Bhanderi Corporation (DBC) have been raided by the tax authorities in India.Fifty officers scaled the walls to two premises in Surat last Thursday and Friday after they were denied entry, according to local media reports.The company, which describes itself on its Facebook page as "the world's largest diamond scanning facility"...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Operations have finally resumed at the Ekati mine, in Canada, 10 months after it was closed at the start of the global pandemic.At the time owners Dominion Diamond Mines warned the 1,800 employees that it could be months before they returned to work.In the interim the company entered insolvency protection, and last month it agreed to sell the mine to investment managers acting for...Read More
RAPAPORT... JCK Las Vegas has been postponed until late August, giving the organizers a better chance of holding the event in its usual physical form."After a year without an opportunity for the jewelry community to gather, it is important to JCK to facilitate an in-person event in the most positive and safe way possible," JCK said in a statement Monday.Both the main JCK fair and the Luxury s...Read More
RAPAPORT... Lucapa Diamond Company's revenue plunged in the fourth quarter as the miner delayed sales while it negotiated a partnership agreement with manufacturer Safdico.The company did not garner any revenue from its Mothae mine in Lesotho while it concluded talks over a sales deal with the Graff subsidiary related to rough from that site. In addition, it held only one sale of goods from its Lu...Read More
RAPAPORT... The US jewelry industry continued to downsize in the fourth quarter of 2020, with 91 companies leaving the business, according to data from the Jewelers Board of Trade (JBT).Only one firm went bankrupt, while 21 dropped out due to mergers or takeovers, the JBT reported last week. A further 69 closed for other reasons.The number of exits plunged 71% compared with the same period of 2019...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Diamond billionaire Beny Steinmetz has been sentenced to five years in jail after a Swiss court convicted him of bribing officials in Guinea for valuable mining rights.He was found guilty of paying $8.5m in bribes to Mamadie Tour?? (C), ex-wife of Lansana Cont?? (C), the country's former president, to secure iron ore rights for the BSGR Group (Beny Steinmetz Group Resources).I...Read More
RAPAPORT... Sales at Alrosa showed a strong recovery in the fourth quarter of 2020 amid holiday demand and a rise in activity at Indian diamond manufacturers.Revenue from rough diamonds grew 29% year on year to $1.14 billion, the company reported Thursday, as a release of pent-up demand enabled the Russian miner to offload goods that had been unsellable earlier in the year. The company's roug...Read More
RAPAPORT... The Women's Jewelry Association (WJA) has chosen Susan Chandler, the chief merchandising officer for Citizen Watch America, as president-elect of its international board of directors.In her role at WJA, Chandler will help foster community, connection and collaboration within the trade, the association said Wednesday. Last year, she served as the WJA sponsorship chair, and was instrumen...Read More
RAPAPORT... The International Gemological Institute (IGI) has updated its grading report for synthetic diamonds to include information about post-growth treatments.The reports will now outline the growth process for untreated chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT) stones, the lab said Wednesday. They will also specifically indicate those diamonds are "as grown wit...Read More
RAPAPORT... India's polished-diamond exports fell 31% to $14.17 billion in 2020, according to Rapaport calculations based on data from the country's Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC).A slump during the peak of the coronavirus crisis outweighed a recovery in the fourth quarter, with polished exports up 38% year on year in December amid holiday demand and restocking."The rece...Read More