(IDEX Online) - Items of jewelry stolen from the British Museum, in London, and worth as much as $63,000 ( ?50,000) each were advertised for sale on eBay for as little as $51 ( ?40).A long-serving curator has been dismissed following an internal investigation, according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.Pieces of jewelry made of gold, semi-precious stones and glass, some dating back over 3,500 year...Read More
(IDEX Online) - A jewelry store worker fired gunshots after two raiders armed with hammers started smashing display cases.Nobody was hurt in the attempted robbery at Gold Estate Jewelry in downtown Palm Springs, California, USA.Palm Springs Police Department said it was initially unclear who had fired the shots, but they were later able to confirm it was an employee. They are still investigating t...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Alrosa's diamond sales have been unaffected by sanctions, according to the company's first published set of financial results since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.First-half sales for 2023 were RUB 188.2 billion ($1.9 bn), up 0.2% from RUB 187.8bn ($1.9 bn), for H1 of 2022, and up 3.5 per cent on H1 of 2021. Net profit for H1 2023 was down 35 per cent year-on-yea...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Banks have frozen accounts belonging to dozens of diamond manufacturers and traders in India.No clear reason has been provided, although one news report mentions a police probe into alleged cyber-fraud.Police forces in the southern states of Telangana and and Kerala ordered banks to suspend 27 accounts of jewelry businesses based in Surat, the country's diamond polishing capit...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Pandora is rolling out its lab grown diamond jewelry to Australia, Mexico and Brazil, and renaming its collections to acknowledge their origin.Diamonds by Pandora will now be known as Pandora Lab-Grown Diamonds, the company said in a news release.The Danish brand, best known for its charm bracelets, announced in May 2021 that it would no longer use mined diamonds, even though they...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Grizzly Mining says its latest emerald auction raised $48.63m, a record high since the company was founded in 1997.The market for emeralds remains "extremely strong", it said, after a sealed-bid auction for its mid-high grade rough emeralds held in Dubai during the first week of August.Grizzly produces around 60m carats of emeralds and beryl a year from its 100 per cent-owned mine...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Pandora has reported a five per cent growth in Q2 sales, despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties. The Danish jeweler says strong brands and products helped it deliver "robust growth" and it had expanded its network by four per cent.Revenue for the quarter was $864m (DK 5.894bn). Overall like-for-like growth was two per cent, although it was minus four per cent in the US.Pa...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Former South African president Jacob Zuma has been ordered to repay a donation made by diamond dealer Louis Liebenberg to fund his legal team.Liebenberg reportedly gave Zuma (pictured) almost $170,000 (R3.2m) towards private prosecutions against journalist Karyn Maughan, state advocate Billy Downer and current president Cyril Ramaphosa. after confidential medical records were leake...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Watches of Switzerland (WoS) has reported a 10 per cent hike in revenue from its US operation - but an 8 per cent drop in the UK and Europe.Revenue across its 202 showrooms dipped slightly during Q1 2024 (to 31 July 2023), down 1 per cent to $485m at constant currency rates.The UK-based business said demand for luxury watches remained robust and continued to exceed supply.But it sa...Read More
(IDEX Online) - A lab grown brand in South Korea is offering customers the option to trade up to a mined diamond - and get a full refund, minus tax."If a customer who purchased a lab-grown diamond from us later wishes to buy a natural diamond of the same grade and size, we guarantee 100 per cent of the price excluding value-added tax," an spokesman for Alod told the Maeil business newspaper....Read More
(IDEX Online) - A jewelry store owner admitted failing to declare cash transactions over $10,000, after selling items to an undercover federal agent posing as a heroin dealer.Junaid "Jay" Sahibzada, 37, faces up to five years in federal prison without parole, said the U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Missouri. Sentencing will take place later.Sahibzada, of Lenexa, Kansas, co-owns G...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Mountain Province saw revenue from the Gahcho Kue mine, in Canada, slide by 41 per cent during Q2, down from $76m to $44.6m (all figures are US dollars).The Toronto-based miner, a 49 per cent joint venture partner with De Beers, said the quarterly figures were skewed because it held three sales in Q1, rather the normal two.Average price carat dipped slightly from $130 in Q2 2...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Eira Thomas is to step down as president and CEO of Lucara, the Vancouver-based diamond mining company she co-founded in 2007.She will be replaced by William Lamb, who served as CEO from 2011 to 2018, until Thomas's appointment.Lucara said she'd been integral to the success and development of its Karowe mine, in Botswana, which last week announced the recovery of its four...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Pandora has appointed Ashley Park, star of the Netflix show Emily in Paris, as its latest global brand ambassador."I remember the first Pandora bracelet I received and cherished from one of my early birthdays," said US actress Park, 32.She appears in the newly-released film Joy Ride has been on the Broadway stage in productions of Mamma Mia, Mean Girls and The King and I.Park follo...Read More
(IDEX Online) - A jewelry retailer is giving away hundreds of one-carat lab grown diamonds, pledging it will never sell stones that "will be worthless one day".Steven Singer Jewelers, based in Philadelphia, USA, is giving away 600 one-carat lab growns with any purchase from its range of mined diamond engagement rings, with a starting price of $548.To kick things off, the retailer also gave away 10...Read More
(IDEX Online) - IIJS Premiere 2023 says it generated over $8.4bn of business - way ahead of forecasts before the six-day event, and far in excess of last year's show."IIJS Premiere 2023 is estimated to have seen business worth ?,?70,000 crore being generated ($8.438bn) which is far beyond anyone's wildest dreams," said Vipul Shah, chairman of GJEPC (Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Co...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Four men have been arrested and charged over a $1.1m smash-and-grab - in which a Rolex watch fitted with a GPS tracker was stolen.The heist, described by police as very quick and very violent, took place in March at the family-owned Heller Jewelers at a mall in San Ramon, California, USA.Armed and masked gang members fled with 38 watches in four getaway cars.San Ramon Police Depart...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Nobody is to be charged over newspaper allegations that HRD Antwerp routinely bumped up diamond gradings.The public prosecutor's office in Belgium has concluded its investigation after claims by De Tijd in March that the lab upgraded GIA-certified diamonds by up to two color grades and one clarity grade. HRD Antwerp, founded in 1973 and wholly-owned by the AWDC (Antwerp W...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Rio Tinto is to start work in the coming weeks on a huge solar farm that will provide up to a quarter of the power needed during the three-year closure works at its Diavik mine, in Canada.It will install 6,600 two-sided panels at the deposit on the edge of Arctic Circle - to capture direct sunlight and reflections from the snow.The solar farm will be the biggest in Canada, and will...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Brilliant Earth, the US-based "ethical jeweler", reported a rise in Q2 sales, driven by its best ever Mother's Day performance.The total numbers of orders was up by over 21 per cent, although the average value of those orders dropped by 16 per cent compared with Q2 2022 as customers tightened their belts. The average order value was $2,571.Net sales for Q2 were $110.2m a...Read More