Christie's Auctions $5 Million Diamond

I've got one doozy of a 'lower jaw drop' alert, jewelry lovers. Christie's reports that the storied 'Evening Star' diamond recently sold for a whopping $5.4 million, the latest in a line of remarkable diamonds to dazzle at auction.

According to a press release, the 39-carat, D color diamond from India's famed Golconda mines was snatched up by an anonymous buyer, paying $138,000 per carat for the diamond dubbed the "Evening Star" because its previous owner liked to wear it out at night.

How charming for them.

The icy rock was part of Christie's "Magnificent Jewels from a Distinguished Private Collector" sale, held Thursday in New York.

The sale of the "Evening Star" comes on the heels of the record-setting $10.8 million sale of "The Vivid Pink" diamond Dec. 1 in Hong Kong and the $7.7 million sale of the 32.01-carat D-flawless Annenberg Diamond in October.

"The diamond market continues to show remarkable strength despite the volatility of the financial world," Rahul Kadakia, head of jewelry at Christie's New York, said in the release.

Indeed.

My question is: who wears these things in the light of day? Don't you have to have a body guard brigade following your every move? Or is it something these folks will just keep in a showcase for or a vault somewhere for their own personal enjoyment (which would be a crying shame)?

What would you guys do with a rock that size? Weigh in!

December Blues

Blue Topaz is December's birthstone and one of the more popular colored gemstones on the market today. Find out more about this cool creation and slip some well-informed hints to the gift givers in your life.

BLUE TOPAZ FACTS AND FLAIR:

Blue topaz has become one of the most popular gemstones on the market today, due to its clarity, durability, availability and affordable cost. Yet it is a shade of topaz rarely found in nature. The stone's watery blue color is most often created through a combination of heat treatment and irradiation.

Topaz is one of the well-known pegmatite minerals that also includes beryl and tourmaline. Blue topaz is the birthstone for December - and is also the recommended gemstone for couples celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary.

Most blue topaz starts life as a colorless or slightly tinted topaz from places like Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and China. It is then irradiated (to incite the color change) and heated (to stabilize the change). The result is a permanent aqua shade. Despite the stone's exposure to irradiation, experts say it poses no health hazard whatsoever to the wearer.

Topaz holds the distinction of being the gemstone thought to have the widest rage of curative powers. According to legend, the stone can dispel enchantment and improve the eyesight. The ancient Greeks believed that it had the power to increase strength and make its wearer invisible in times of emergency. Topaz is also said to change color in the presence of poisoned food or drink.

With a ranking of "8" on the Mohs scale of hardness, blue topaz is exceptionally strong and durable and well-suited to everyday wear. However, it should be protected against hard blows that can split, crack or chip it.

Shop Blue Topaz on Jewelry.com

Reindeer Games Gone Glam

Breaking news: Rudolph apparently has a nose for the jewelry business.

Jewelry lovers who are hoping for, say, a nice tasteful pair of diamond studs or an inexpensive gemstone piece for the holidays this year might be disappointed to find a lovely pendant made out of that rarest of materials - reindeer dung - under the tree instead.

Yup. Sparkly reindeer-dung necklaces are indeed on sale at an Illinois zoo that hopes to attract the same holiday shoppers who swept up their dung Christmas ornaments last year. The limited-edition Magical Reindeer Gem contains dried, sterilized reindeer droppings -- sprayed with glitter (of course) -- on a beaded chain. They'll be available at the Bloomington zoo's gift shop for $15, or by mail for $20.

Miller Park Zoological Society spokeswoman Susie Ohley told the Chicago Tribune that while 'silly', she estimates the zoo could make as much as $16,500 - a welcome windfall since they lost $200,000 under city budget cuts this year.

Stop 'taking crap' and sell it instead - not a bad business plan.

What do you guys think? Would you wear jewelry made from Dancer's droppings? Or are you strictly a dung-less consumer?

Celebrity Jewelry Stars of the Week

Update: Rumor has it the necklace SJP is wearing here is a diamond snake from the Brangelina Asprey jewelry collection. To be continued...

Three leading ladies stole my heart recently with their icy jewelry fashion choices. It’s the holiday season after all – time to bring out the big guns. And while I certainly don’t have the budget to bling out like these fabulous females, it doesn’t hurt to break your lower jaw just lookin’ at ‘em, right? So. Here goes.

First up is Sarah Jessica Parker in a stunning wrap-around diamond creation worn to the UK premiere of her latest romantic comedy, Did You Hear About the Morgans? Hard to tell if the movie will be any better than her previous rom com outings post SATC (we'll just call Failure to Launch a 'minor' misstep), but this diamond doozy more than makes up for her collecting the proverbial paycheck.

Next up is the leading lady who gives the term ‘family jewels’ new meaning. Queen Elizabeth stepped out this weekend in more carats than a bunny convention – giving her royal subjects and eyeful of ice just in time for the holiday season. Cherrio, mortals!

And finally – I just have to drool like the rest of the world over Michelle Obama’s Kennedy Center Honors ensemble. Purple is ‘her’ color, and she knocked it out of the park in a strapless Peter Soronen number with a Tom Binns gemstone statement necklace that couldn’t be more perfect (um, yeah, that lower jaw thing is happening).

What do you guys think of this triumvirate of taste? Am I scoring some good looks to satisfy your inner jewelry hound? Weigh in!

Champagne Diamonds - Brown is the New Black

As promised, jewelry hounds, I am continuing coverage of my new favorite gemstone - champagne diamonds - a positively glittering new jewelry trend that's sure to have staying power well into the bubbly New Year and beyond!


Tired of the same old same old? Champagne diamonds not only offer up the glam, they give you something different from the natural diamond color wheel when accessorizing for the season. Red carpets and runways have already taken to the sparkling stone, and Jewelry.com just curated a cool collection of the cognac-colored gems just ripe for the picking.

Most of the world's supply of champagne diamonds comes from Rio Tinto’s Argyle Diamond Mine in the rugged and beautiful East Kimberley region of Western Australia.

The Australian Aborigines who are traditional owners of the land in the East Kimberley believe that the diamonds were formed when a barramundi fish escaped through a spinifex net. According to that myth, the colors of the diamonds mined from the red earth of the region come from different parts of the barramundi.

Fish or no fish, these diamond beauties have really captured me. I'm putting this champagne diamond right hand ring from Reed's on my holiday wish list (a girl can dream, right?). Which champagne styles do you want under the tree this year?

Rare Pink Diamond Sets Auction Record

Hold on to your haute couture, jewelry hounds. One whopper of a diamond just entered the hands of a lucky (and filthy rich) bidder on Tuesday.

A rare, 5-carat pink diamond was auctioned off by Christie's Hong Kong for a record $10.8 million, putting some shine back into the world's rare and large stones market.

The stone, of a "vivid pink" hue and considered near perfect but not quite flawless, triggered brisk bidding with a final price that smashed the previous record set 15 years ago in Geneva for a 19.66-carat stone that sold for $7.4 million. The pink gem's per-carat price of $2.2 million was also the highest ever paid for any diamond at auction, Christie's said.

"No stone has ever been sold for $2 million a carat, we were used to ... a million dollars a carat for colored diamonds but never 2 million," Francois Curiel, Christie's Europe chairman told Reuters. "This is an absolute record that is not going to be broken for a while I believe."

But the famed Wittelsbach Blue Diamond still holds the record as the world's most expensive jewel ever sold at auction, fetching a mere $24 million last year. Just a drop in the proverbial bucket, right?

Pink diamonds have always been coveted by the rich, the famous and we mere mortals alike. Click here to see which celeb dazzled their loved one with a pink diamond engagement ring for the ages - not quite 10 carats, but a keeper nonetheless.

Tiger Woods’ Doghouse Jewelry

Jewelry has always been a ‘go to’ option for guys who find themselves in the proverbial doghouse. Poker night run late? How about a pair of diamond studs. Forget her birthday? Better make a beeline for some bling.

And whether or not you agree with the tactic (I for one think it’s a meager attempt to buy our love – depending on the carat count, of course), the measure has indeed proved successful over the years.

Let’s revisit the Kobe Bryant incident for a moment, shall we?

Remember when the married basketball star was acquitted of raping a woman who was NOT his betrothed back in the day? Enter a $4 million purple diamond ring for wife, Vanessa, after the dust settled. Talk about setting the bar...

The latest sports figure to bark at the moon is the notoriously private golf phenom, Tiger Woods. We’ve all heard the affair rumors, and TMZ is reporting that Woods told an unnamed source ‘he needed to give his wife a ‘Kobe Special’ or make a trip to Zales to get a ‘house on a finger’ in order to make things right.

Judging from his wife’s golf swing, he might want to buy the whole store…