Kate Middleton’s Engagement Ring was Princess Diana’s

The engagement of Prince William with Kate Middleton has everyone talking. Prince William gave his soon to be wife his mothers wedding ring. This is the only way of making sure that my mother didn’t miss out on today” said William as he and his fiancé post for a picture in St. James’ Palace.

So if any of you guys are wondering what the ring look like here is a short description: it’s a dazzling oval, 18- carat blue sapphire and white diamond ring.

Prince William waited and proposed the right way. He asked her father for Kate hand first before proposing to her. He then popped the question and asked her. However he was very nervous when he did, he said “I was not sure she would say yes. How could I be?”

Pope Paul VI's jewelry for sale in eBay auction



An opulent jeweled cross and ring once owned by Pope Paul VI sits in a North Carolina jewelry store awaiting the winning bidder for an eBay auction.

As odd as it may sound, it is true; the Wilmington store owner is a Southern Baptist with a flair for self-promotion - allowing him to meet with figures such as UN Secretary General U Thant and Evel Knievel. This interesting journey began with Paul VI's decision to have some of his jewelry to be sold to raise money for charity.

One of the jewelry pieces is a pectoral cross, given to clergy who achieve a rank as bishop or higher. The eBay post advertises that the ring is a 12.75-carat diamond solitaire cut encircled with smaller diamonds. The cross holds 12 main diamonds over 60 carats in total diamond weight, and is coated in smaller diamonds and emeralds.

Paul VI donated the ring and cross to the UN during a 1965 visit, requesting that they be auction and the proceeds to be used to charity. Chicago jeweler Harry Levinson purchased the set in 1967 for $64,000, and the money was divided among 4 UN agencies. Over the years, the jewels changed hands several times, and was even owned at one point by Evel Knievel.

Presently the owner of jewelry store, Perry's Emporium, has ownership of the papal jewelry.

"This is new for me," said owner Alan Perry, who estimates that the items may fetch somewehere between $800,000 and $900,000 at auction. "That's why we're going to put it up on eBay. It's only worth what someone's willing to pay for it, and eBay might be a good measure to see if people are interested."

Perry plans to put the jewelry set on public display starting April 14 through Holy Week, with armed security watching closely.

Source: Associated Press

Flawed Diamonds perfect for Quantum Memory

Scientists have found a way for diamond crystals to store quantum information.

Atoms are manipulated inside the diamonds so that they hold information long enough for quantum memory, encoding information in states that are both 0 and 1 at the same time, not the strings of 0s and 1s calculated by conventional computers.



flickr.com/Jennifer Dickert


The perfect diamonds for these are not from Harry Winston, Tiffany & Co., or the type to sell to buyers like World Jeweler. Flawed diamonds work best.

David Awschalom of University of California, Santa Barbara reports, “Oddly enough, perfection may not be the way to go. We want to build in defects.”

Nitrogen stands as one of the most common defects in diamonds, turning the stone yellow. When a nitrogen atom is next to an empty spot in the carbon crystal, the atom gives off an extra electron that moves into that spot. Several  years ago, scientists have learned that using microwave energy can change the spin of those extra electrons, and have put them to work as quantum bits, or qubits.

Awschalom discovered how to connect the electron spin to the spin of the nearest nitrogen’s nucleus, providing a more stable way to store information. Triggered by magnetic fields, this transfer happens very fast at about 100 nanoseconds.

Diamond memory works at room temperature. The electron spins within the diamond can be manipulated and measured by shining a laser light into the diamond. This could provide high potential for scientists to use diamonds for developing nanophotonic systems to move and store information in packets of light.

Quantum memory isn’t forever, but it does last for quite some time by quantum standards. The nuclear spin stays coherent, or stable, for a little more than a millisecond, with potential to last up to seconds.”

Sebastian Loth, physicist at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, clarifies, “You can only do your quantum magic as long as you have coherence. If you have a lifetime of milliseconds, that lets you do millions of operations.”

Source: Science News

A Hollywood Icon and her Diamonds

Widely known for her Hollywood legacy and her love affairs, Elizabeth Taylor admits that her greatest love affair was with her jewelry.

“You can’t cry on a diamond’s shoulder, and diamonds won’t keep you warm at night, but they sure are fun when the sun shines,” Taylor once said about her collection.

Some key statement pieces of her diamond and jewelry collection include the Krupp diamond, the 69-carat Taylor-Burton diamond, La Peregrina Pearl, and the Taj Mahal Diamond.

She even marketed her love of jewelry into a brand, imbued notably in her classic “White Diamonds” fragrance, whose ad campaigns often had her draped in gems and diamonds.

In 2002, the actressed published “My Love Affair with Jewelry,” an oversized volume chronicling her prolific jewelry collection.

Additionally, some of her most regarded jewelry pieces come from her tumultuous marriages to Richard Burton, with whom she met on the set of “Cleopatra.”

The Taylor-Burton Diamond

They acquired the Krupp diamond, the Grand Duchess Vladimir Suite, the La Preregrina Pearl, and the massive Taylor-Butron Diamond, a 69-carat pear-shaped diamond. For Taylor’s 40^th birthday, Burton gifted her with the heart-shaped Taj Mahal diamond.

Some of her most treasured pieces were gifts from her ex-husband Mike Todd, who would lavish her with jewelry “just because.” Showman Mike Todd gave her a suite of Cartier diamonds and rubies just for swimming laps in a pool.

Taylor would deliberately wear her jewels uniquely. During the time she worked with hairstylist Alexandre de Paris, he would find ways of adorning jewelry into her hair, such as fastening a broach or weaving a string of pearls into an updo.

Later in her years, Taylor would often lend her jewelry to museums for exhibitions. “I am only their guardians.  Just like a painting, you can’t own jewelry,” she said.

 Dame Elizabeth Taylor passed away March 23, 2011, at the age of 79.

Pink Diamond could be worth $15 million at auction

A purple-pink 10 carat diamond could fetch up to $15 million when it goes up for Magnificent Jewels auction in April 12.
The 10.09 Fancy Vivid cushion-cut is expected to be the highlight of the auction being held next month in New York.

Renowned fine art auctioneers Christie's have reported that prices for large pink diamonds have soared recently, with four pink diamonds going for over $1 million per carat since late 2009.

Increasing demand and rarity have driven prices,  making pink diamonds the most expensive colored diamonds currently on the market.

"Collector demand for large coloured diamonds have never been stronger, especially where pink diamonds of this size and quality are concerned," affirmed Rahul Kadakia, head of jewelry at Christie's in New York.

Christie's set a per-carat record in December 2009 for any diamond at auction when the Vivid Pink 5-carat cushion cut diaond sold for over $2.1 million per carat in Hong Kong.

The auction house disclosed that less than 10% of all pink diamonds mined weigh over .20 carats, and even fewer exhibited the deep purple-pink saturation and brilliance as the Fancy Vivid to be auctioned.

The 10.09 carat Fancy Vivid had an richer, deeper hue than a 6.89 carat Fancy Vivid purple-pink diamond that sold for $6.9 million in December. "I have never seen such vivid color in a stone of this size," said Kadakia.

There are only a few mines in the world that produce rough pink diamonds. According to Christie's, out of those stones that are cut an polished, only 1 in about 10 million diamonds have color pure enough to be graded Fancy Vivid.

The World's Most Expensive Purse

Valued at $3.8 million, the "1001 Nights Diamond Purse" has been officially crowned by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most expensive purse.

The bag is encrusted with 4,517 diamonds, comprised of 105 yellow, 56 pink, and 4,365 colorless diamonds. The total carat weight of those diamonds on the heart-shaped bag come out to a grand total of 381.92 carats.

It took 10 artisans 1,100 hours to handcraft and create the purse from 18-carat gold over a period of 4 months

The 1001 Nights Diamond Purse was created by Pascal Mouawad, co-guardian of the House of Mouawad founded in 1890. "The Mouaward 1001 Nights Diamond Purse is designed to mesmerize with its lavish attention to detail and elaborate workmaship incorporating thousands of diamonds," said the Dubai-based designer.

Mouawad and the jewelry design house have created several objects heavily encrusted in diamonds before, including the Very Sexy Fantasy Bra for Victoria's Secret.

The diamond purse sat on display at the Doha Jewellery and Watches Exhibition over the weekend of February 20.

Demand for Diamonds brings Good News to Petra

Diamond prices have recovered beyond 2008 pre-recession levels thanks to a limited supply, a rebound demand in Western countries, and a zealous market in the growing middle classes of India and China.

Generally speaking, this bit of good news benefits diamond miners; but particularly Petra, the largest pure play listed diamond miner, makes one of the largest gains as a result of rising diamond prices.

Somewhere between 80% - 90% of the world production of diamonds is used for jewelry, as measured by value. Rough diamonds worth around $10 billion per year get turned into reail jewelry sales worth six or seven times as much.

After several acquisitions, Petra now has seven producing mines. Six of those are in South Africa, of which Petra (in cooperation with Black Empowerment partners) owns between 70% - 74% of each mine. Petra has a 75% interest in its seventh mine in Tanzania.

The Cullinan mine brought 80% of the half year's output of 582 thousand carats, dominating in production out of all the mines.

Source: Yahoo!