RAPAPORT... Luxury jeweler Graff is preparing to cut and polish the exceptional 13.33-carat Lesotho Pink that sold for $8.8 million in February. The company revealed this week that it bought the stone from Gem Diamonds at a tender in Antwerp. At $656,933 per carat, the sale was the highest average price for any rough diamond recovered at the Let??eng mine in Lesotho, Gem Diamonds sa...Read More
RAPAPORT... The American Gem Society (AGS) will honor three industryleaders at its Circle of Distinction dinner, it said last week. Alan Zimmer, CEO of Reeds Jewelers, will receive theLifetime Achievement Award. Zimmer's father opened Reeds in 1946, with the business now covering more than 50 store locations across the US. Caryl Capeci, president of Chow Tai Fook North America, andElliot Tann...Read More
Baselworld runs until March 26, 2019. And while the show has been and still is heavily criticized, there is also some good news. At the opening press conference, it was announced that in 2018, the Swiss Watch industry recorded a 6.3 percent increase in exports, and had reported a turnover of CHF 21.2 billion. But some already had made up their mind about this year's edition of the...Read More
RAPAPORT... The American Gem Society (AGS) will honor three industryleaders at its Circle of Distinction dinner, it said last week. Alan Zimmer, CEO of Reeds Jewelers, will receive theLifetime Achievement Award. Zimmer's father opened Reeds in 1946, with the business now covering more than 50 store locations across the US. Caryl Capeci, president of Chow Tai Fook North America, andElliot Tann...Read More
Aim-listed Botswana Diamonds has confirmed that its Thorny River diamond dyke project, in South Africa, remains on track to start bulk sampling and diamond production by the middle of this year.Bulk sampling is anticipated to start in May, assuming final permits are obtained in time, and will ramp up to 20 000 t a month.AdvertisementBotswana Diamonds on Monday said that, during its interim fi...Read More
The world's top diamond producer by output, Alrosa (MCX:ALRS), ran an experiment at its Zapolyarnaya pipe, which is a part of the Verkhne-Munskoye deposit in the west of Yakutia, and found that the area has the potential to become one of its richest in large diamonds deposits.The test, which took place from March 11 to March 15, 2019, consisted in feeding the processing plant N12 in the town of Ud...Read More
RAPAPORT... Jeweler Coronet has achieved a new Guinness World Record for themost diamonds set on a watch, it said Friday. The watch, named Mudan, which is Chinese for peony -the "king of flowers" in Chinese culture - features 15,858 diamonds,weighing a combined 50.01 carats. The piece is set in 18-karat gold, and has a 3-D dial painted by jeweler and artist Reena Ahluwalia to look like a diam...Read More
RAPAPORT... The devaluation of the Canadian dollar pushed Mountain Province to a loss in 2018, even as sales grew strongly in the first full year of commercial operations at the Gahcho Ku?(C) mine.The miner reported a net loss of CAD 18.9 million ($14.1million), compared with a profit of CAD 17.2 million ($12.8 million) in 2017,it said last week. The miner sells rough in US dollars, but...Read More
RAPAPORT... Tiffany & Co. reported its best ever annual sales in 2018, despite the challenging economic environment that caused a slowdown in the fourth quarter. "In 2018...net sales surpassed levels not seen since 2014," said Tiffany CEO Alessandro Bogliolo. "Softer trends in the second half of the year reflected, in part, what we believe were external challenges and uncertaint...Read More
RAPAPORT... A twin-stone blue diamond ring will be the top lot at nextmonth's Christie's New York auction, with a presale estimate of $6 million to $8million. The piece, bearing two pear modified brilliant-cut, fancy-vivid-blue, VS2-clarity diamonds weighing 3.06 and 2.61 carats, will go underthe hammer at the Magnificent Jewels sale on April 16, the auction house saidlast week. Christie's w...Read More
Alrosa predicts that the Zapolyarnaya pipe in its Verkhne-Munskoye diamond deposit in west Yakutia may become one of its richest sources for large diamonds. During a week-long experiment conducted earlier this month, about 100,000 tons of ore from the Zapolyarnaya pipe was processed with the goal to establish the quality, color and clarity grades of the diamonds samples and to assess the cost per...Read More
RAPAPORT... Gem Diamonds has recovered a 161-carat rough stone, the first over 100 carats it has reported this year. It found the high-quality, white, type IIa diamond on March 21at its Let??eng mine in Lesotho, the company said Friday. Last year, Gem Diamonds found 15 stones weighing more than100 carats, a record for the company. That haul included the 910-carat LesothoLegend, which sold fo...Read More
The American Gem Society (AGS) will honor three leaders in the jewelry industry at its annual Circle of Distinction Dinner on Tuesday, July 30 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.Alan M. Zimmer, President and CEO of REEDS Jewelers, Inc., will receive the AGS' Lifetime Achievement Award for his significant contributions to the industry throughout his career. Caryl Capeci, President, Chow Tai Fook N...Read More
Aron Shum, principal of the Hong Kong-based Coronet company, established yet another Guinness World Record, this time for a watch set with most diamonds. The feat was achieved during the earlier this month during Baselworld, the prestigious Swiss watch and jewelry trade fair. It was Coronet's 9th Guinness World Record. The 'Mudan' diamond watch features 5,858 diamonds. The 18-karat gold...Read More
"Attendance was excellent, and people were in a spending mood" is how Dave Siminski, vice president of sales and marketing at United Precious Metal Refining in Alden, New York, described the atmosphere of the 2019 MJSA Expo, which ran March 10-12. Siminski--was among the many exhibitors at this year's show,. Over the course of those three days, more than 3,000 buyers crowded the aisles at New...Read More
Conventional wisdom has it that increased diamond recycling results in downward price pressure, owing to the theoretical increase in supply, diamond analyst Paul Zimnisky notes in a release published earlier this month. However, he suggests that the contrary may be true, and, “in fact, a more prevalent diamond recycling market could . . . be the natural-diamond industry’s saving grace&...Read More
"Alrosa will assess the quality of Zimbabwe's diamond reserves over the next six months but would only start mining if it can take a majority stake in such a project, the company's chief executive said on Monday," Alrosa's CEO, Sergey Ivanov, said to Reuters "Of course we'll only be ready to participate in projects in cases where we can have management control and operational control of the assets...Read More
The Southern Times of Africa reported that Botswana expects mineral revenue for the 2019/20 fiscal year to drop due to a decline in royalty dividends. Eric Molale, Botswana's minister of mineral resources wrote in a paper he presented to the Batswana parliament "that global diamond demand was showing signs of slowing down." Molale reported that retail jewelry sales had dropped during the las...Read More
Mining equipment manufacturer and supplier Becker Mining South Africa’s short turnaround time for the manufacturing of rope attachments provides the company with a competitive edge to take on large projects in the local mining sector, Becker Mining SA capital senior GM Tom Searle tells Mining Weekly.The company received an order for the manufacture and supply of rope attachments for an under...Read More
Graff Diamonds will be showcasing no less than three luxury watches, all set with fancy vivid yellow diamonds at BaselWorld 2019. The "Round Graff Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond watch" is set with 211 diamonds weighing 59.25 carats. The "Graff Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond Watch" has an oval dial. The second piece is set with 60 diamonds weighing 25.85 carats. The third yellow diamond watch will only be...Read More