Archive for the ‘Diamonds’ Category

Kim Kardashian’s $2 Million Engagement Ring

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

They say it’s all about the bling and Kim Kardashian certainly proved that when she recently got engaged to Kris Humphries. Humphries has been quoted saying he wanted the engagement ring to be large and he definitely succeeded, as the gem is a reported 20-plus-carat stunner. If things don’t work out, she could use it as a paperweight, right? The ring probably weighs about four ounces, which is the equivalent of a deck and a half of playing cards! You’d have to get used to carting around that much weight on one hand, but I imagine most women wouldn’t be complaining if their significant other gifted them with such a trophy.

Humphries helped to design the ring along with renowned jeweler, Lorraine Schwartz. Schwartz has been a longtime friend of the Kardashians and is known for creating engagement rings for other stars, including Beyonce Knowles. The ring features a 16.5-carat emerald cut center stone and is flanked by a pair of 2-carat trapezoids. Kardashian loves the classic design, and what woman wouldn’t love that her fiancé went to such expense and care to design her engagement ring?

Humphries reportedly was able to keep his over-the-top ring a secret from then girlfriend, Kim. Kardashian said he just always listened to what she wanted and paid attention to the shapes she loves. She admitted to dropping the emerald cut hint, but Humphries called in his own parents as well as some of Kim’s friends to make sure he got Kim just what she wanted. The other Kardashian girls are giving Kim the win for biggest bling in the family! Humphries must have found a great hiding place as he said he had the ring for a few weeks before actually proposing.

The couple has only been dating for about six months, but Humphries is certainly enamored with Kim. Besides the stunning jewels, the ring features some more personal touches. There are two quotes from the Bible engraved on the ring as well as “K [heart] K”, standing for Kris and Kim. He took a few days to research the quotes and pick out the perfect ones. Can’t beat the romance factor!

There are some rumors being thrown around that the ring is a fake. This will be Kardashian’s second marriage, and there is a rumor she was actually engaged to former boyfriend, Reggie Bush, and sporting a similar engagement ring. Some people are saying that the whole thing is just a publicity stunt. Jay Leno even staged a scene on his show with Kim where he took the ring that she had on her finger and “tested” it by lighting a match under it to see if it would burn. The ring blazed up, but it was obviously a joke. He handed back her real ring soon after. While it was an amusing piece for Leno’s show, Kim, Kris, and their jeweler all assure the public that it’s the real deal.

Still, others in the population are more concerned that the ring actually is authentic. Some are voicing outrage that someone would actually spend that kind of money on an engagement ring. Comments on blog posts all over the Internet show that many Americans are less than impressed with such a hefty price tag.

Kris Humphries makes about 3.5 million a year as a salary, so even for him the ring is a pretty hefty financial commitment. Some call that a romantic gesture, others call it foolish. Either way, anybody would have a hard time denying the beauty of the $2 million rock. What’s your opinion?  Come by today to see our collection of diamond rings to learn more about this famous ring!

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The Royal Engagement Ring

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

On November 16, 2010, Prince William, heir to England’s royal throne, announced his engagement to Catherine Elizabeth Middleton. Prince William presented Kate Middleton with the same ring that his father, Prince Charles, gave to his mother, the late Princess Diana, at the time of their engagement in 1981: an 18-carat oval blue sapphire surrounded by fourteen brilliant cut diamonds set in 18-carat white gold, a Windsor family heirloom created by the official crown jeweler of the British Monarchy, Garrard Jewelers.

In the advent of the Royal wedding on April 29, 2011, commoners are anxious to purchase affordable replicas of the royal engagement ring. As Kate Middleton’s ring is one of the most coveted pieces of jewelry in the world, replicas are currently one of the top-selling engagement rings in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

Although Kate’s ring is valued at 225,000 British pounds, replicas are selling for as little as 9.99 US dollars. While a ring valued at this price is nothing more than a cheap knock-off, quality replicas of the royal engagement ring can be purchased for the same amount of money one would choose to spend on any legitimate engagement ring. How can a ring matching the beauty and uniqueness of the royal engagement ring be affordable for commoners? The secret lies in the combination of materials used and the ways in which the gemstones and metals are processed.

Sapphires: Most sapphires have dull colors and poor clarity when they are extracted from the earth, so they are usually treated in labs before becoming a bright, sparkling gemstone like the one in Kate Middleton’s ring. Sapphires that have this appearance without laboratory treatment are extremely rare and very expensive, accounting for only about 1% of sapphires that have been harvested to date.

Synthetic sapphires are considered to be real, genuine sapphires, but they have been created by humans in a lab rather than extracted from the earth. Sapphires that come from the earth are rare and very expensive, while synthetically produced ones are inexpensive to create in a lab, making sapphires a fairly common and affordable gemstone. Most sapphires for sale at an “affordable” price can be assumed to have been synthetically produced, and most jewelers will reveal a sapphire’s origins to potential buyers.

Imitation sapphires are most often made from blue glass, blue cubic zirconia, or synthetic spinel. Imitation sapphires often look too perfect or too clear, while a real one will come with slight imperfections that make it both unique and beautiful. Of course, the surefire way to tell an imitation sapphire is by the price, as in the cheap replicas of the royal engagement ring selling for $9.99.

While sapphires that came from the earth may be unaffordable to most, a synthetic sapphire is a perfectly appropriate and legitimate substitute that you’ll find for sale at a fair price from most jewelers.

Diamonds: The price of a half-carat diamond ranges anywhere from under $1000 to over $3000, depending on the color, cut, and quality of the gemstone. While a 1-carat diamond with a good cut can be found for around $5000, a ring like Kate Middleton’s containing fourteen of these diamonds could be quite costly, especially after adding in the price of the 18-carat sapphire and white gold.

Although diamonds are the most coveted and most expensive gemstone of our time, they are not particularly rare and may even be considered a renewable resource that will never be exhausted from the earth. Still, their high price is dictated by supply and demand, as well as by the four C’s of diamonds: cut, clarity, color, and carat (size).

Imitation diamonds are fairly common, and most often come in the form of cubic zirconia (cz). The look of cz is actually very similar to that of a real diamond, and professional testing equipment is usually required to distinguish between the two materials. Moissanite is another, less common type of imitation diamond, also difficult to distinguish from the real thing without testing equipment. While cz and moissanite will scratch more easily than a diamond, all three materials produce brilliant rainbows when held up to light.

Glass imitation diamonds, on the other hand, do not produce rainbows, and this is what is most often used to make cheap diamond knock-offs like the ones in the rings priced at $9.99. While cz is much more affordable than a real diamond, it is also not considered a cheap imitation and it’s use is fairly common in legitimate jewelry.

Purchasing Your Own Royal Engagement Ring: If you happen to be a “commoner,” as most of us are, don’t fret. You can still present your bride-to-be with her own royal engagement ring for a decent cost without stooping to the ultra-low price of $9.99. Talk to your jeweler about creating a custom engagement ring that integrates one or more of the elements discussed above. A lab-created sapphire surrounded by low-carat diamonds or larger cuts of cubic zirconia in a white gold setting will not be out of reach.

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How Are Diamonds Formed?

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

The mysterious precious stone that has both been a foundation for everlasting love and also at the center of third-world wars is one of the hardest and most precious stones known to man: the diamond. This beautiful stone has amazing refracting qualities and the hardness to withstand any amount of abuse. It has a long history that many people might not have learned about in school. It took billions of years, just the right amount of temperature and pressure, and a little carbon mixed in to get where we are today: searching through mines for these extremely valuable rocks. Here is a breakdown of how stones were formed, where they come from, and how technology is changing the industry.

Formation of Diamonds: It isn’t a mystery how diamonds are actually formed, but it is very difficult to replicate. In order for a diamond to form naturally, extremely high temperatures at just the right amount of pressure is needed. Technically speaking, you would need to reach temperatures over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit and 5000 megapascals of pressure (an insanely high amount of pressure) to even come close to forming a diamond. If you do have the right temperature/pressure environment, you then need carbon-containing minerals that can be melted and possibly reformed into diamonds when the temperature cools. The complicated process of diamond formation is the explanation for why there is such high demand and so little supply of the most precious stone known to man.

Source of Diamonds: You may be surprised to learn that diamonds do not come from the mines where they are found but from deep down in our Earth’s mantle. Somewhere between 87 and 120 miles below the Earth’s surface is where you have to dig to if you want to find the true origin of natural diamonds. Digging that deep isn’t possible so we must either wait patiently for them to make it to the surface or create our own somehow.

How Diamonds Surface: Since one of the only possible environments with enough pressure and high temperatures lies many miles below the Earth’s surface, you must be wondering how we ever got our hands on the precious stones. Luckily, billions of years ago the Earth was covered in volcanoes that were erupting and bringing the Earth’s core and mantle onto the surface so all of us could search through it today. Erupting volcanoes are caused by fissures in the Earth’s tectonic plates where molten magma mixes with a lot of subterranean substances that are then spread all over the surface where we now have diamond-rich soil.

Age of Diamonds: Unfortunately, almost all of the diamonds in the Earth were formed between 1 billion and 3.3 billion years ago. This means that we are no longer naturally producing anymore diamonds and solely relying on what is on the surface or what we can manufacture ourselves. There are still plenty of diamonds hiding near the surface, so don’t worry about running out any time soon. Remember, there were hundreds of millions of years where diamonds were being spread over the earth, I don’t think we have found them all yet.

Diamonds from Meteors: Another formation of diamonds but much less common than the diamond forming below the Earth and surfacing with volcanoes is when a large meteorite strikes the Earth’s surface. Meteorites have many carbon minerals and are traveling at extremely high speeds capable of producing the heat needed to form a diamond. When they strike the earth, the pressure and heat combined usually will leave minuscule diamonds, almost never large enough to be used in jewelry.

Manufactured Diamonds: If for some reason we do begin running out of diamonds, technology has advanced enough that we can manufacture our own. These are known as synthetic diamonds and are produced using one of two methods. High-Pressure-High-Temperature (HPHT) and Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) were both developed in the mid 20th century and have been used to create synthetic diamonds sometimes superior to natural diamonds ever since. Both processes can produce multiple color variations, hardness, thermal conductivity, and electron mobility similar to what can be found in natural diamond mines, often better. Instead of a million year long process, both HPHT and CVD can produce a flawless diamond in a matter of days. The Gemological Institute of America has accepted synthetic diamonds as real and now they are finally on the market for people to save a bundle of money when purchasing diamond jewelry.

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