An innovative company in Illinois, LifeGem, has found a way to memorialize a loved by converting their ashes to diamond in a patented process that mimics the real thing. Imagine wearing your loved one on an alternative jewelry pendant, keeping them close to your heart even after they’re gone. While some people might consider the practice a bit morbid, there are many other people flocking to LifeGem to have that eternal memorial of their loved one in the form of a diamond.

How It Works

The process is not at all complex, and it resolves the age-old problem of what to do with a loved ones remains when they are cremated. Instead of using decorative earns or scattering the ashes and forgetting them, now you have the option of sending them to LifeGem who will make a diamond from as little as eight ounces of ashes or even locks of hairs.

Lifegem takes the ashes and extracts as much carbon as they can from them. The carbon is then heated up so that it can be converted to graphite. This is the basis material used in a diamond press to create a diamond under the right heat and pressure settings. What pops out is a rough diamond.

How It Compares

This man-made diamond is, of course, no comparison to real diamonds in actual value. Synthetic diamonds are typically less valuable than natural diamonds. However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t share many of the same attributes of natural diamonds. It will have the same hardness as a diamond found in nature. They also sparkle as good as the real thing too. The impurities in the LifeGem diamond are dependent on the impurities present in the carbon derived form the ashes.

Continue reading »

Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. discovered eight kimberlites at the Chidliak Project. The kimberlites were discovered during Peregrine Diamonds Ltd’s exploration of diamond deposits in the Canadian Arctic alongside BHP Billiton Ltd. The Vancouver based Peregrine noted that the price of drilling and rock sampling in this area, Baffin Island, will increase from $13.5 million to $15.3 million in this year alone. It is believed by John Kaiser, publisher of Kaiser Bottom-Fish Online, a mining industry newsletter, that Chidliak, which is located more than 4,000 kilometers north of Ottawa, is a great new discovery and will yield a large amount of loose diamonds.

Continue reading »

The economic slowdown that gripped the entire world in the past year has also affected Russia in a big way. Russia’s largest diamond manufacturer that holds a virtual monopoly over the diamond market has lost its sheen due to the global meltdown and is now banking on the Russian government to step in and restore the lost sparkle in its business.

Alrosa produces almost all of Russia’s raw uncut diamonds that are then processed into diamond rings including diamond engagement rings and various other forms of diamond jewelry. It competes with other heavyweights in the engagement rings global diamond market such as De Beers and Rio Tinto. However, the manufacturer along with many other miners all over the globe had to slow down production due to depressed demand of their diamonds during the past year, no thanks to the global slowdown. This was partly to ensure that the prices of diamonds did not crash due to the over supply of diamonds.

Continue reading »

Diamonds are supposed to be a girl’s best friend. But you can rest assured about its authenticity only after you have conducted a few tests to that effect.  Most cubic zirconias of good quality are amazingly similar in shape, size and color, and sometimes even a good jeweler finds it difficult to tell the difference. This of course does not mean that you should take someone else’s word for it. Conduct the most common tests and find out for yourself.

The Scratch Test for testing diamonds is the oldest and most traditional. However, this test though being used often is not as accurate or reliable as once imagined. Everybody knows that a true diamond will scratch glass while an imitation cannot and therefore takes it to be a good sign of its authenticity. However, as modern technology has proved of late, there is high quality cubic zirconia that can also scratch glass. Hence this method falls short. The reason why many hesitate to use the Scratch Test is that in case the diamond is real, subjecting it to the test may cause damage and lower its value.

Continue reading »

Rare gems and gem encrusted jewelry will always have a story attached to them. The checkered past of such items is usually due to their immense value as well as the collectible value. One such situation is currently underway with what is known as the Bahia emerald which has garnered a lot of following. The kind of celebrity status that the uncut emerald currently has can easily be compared to a movie star as people from most walks of life are waiting for the intriguing battle for its ownership to resolve.

The Bahia diamond is an 840 pound chunk of rough green diamonds embedded in a chunk of granite. The size of the Bahia Emerald is roughly estimated at 4 x 4 x 4 feet, which makes it the biggest uncut emerald in the world. It is highly likely that the Bahia Emerald will not be cut for making jewelry as its value comes from its title of being the biggest uncut emerald in the world.

Continue reading »

Jewelry designers have thought up something new: the divorce ring. It’s similar to an engagement ring in that it is celebrating a big life-changing occasion, even if that occasion is the break-up of a marriage. The idea behind the divorce ring appeals to many different types of people who want to have some way to tell others they are now divorced, or simply to mark the event in their own lives. Jewelry has traditionally been a way to mark big events, from graduations to weddings, so it’s not that far-fetched to include divorces. With about half the U.S. population experiencing a divorce at some point in their lives, this piece of statement jewelry should only become more and more popular with as time goes on.

Continue reading »

Losing one diamond ring is bad enough, but imagine losing multiple sets of diamond jewelry high-end quality and all. That’s what happened to Gail Hultgren of Australia. It wasn’t that she was careless, it’s that she had decided that the three rings wore well together, so she had them soldered together and when she misplaced one, she managed to misplace all three! The engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the eternity ring disappeared one day as she set about doing laundry. She took them off, put them on a laundry bench, and fifteen years later their disappearance was still a mystery.

Years of Looking

Gail and Max Hultgren never gave up looking for the rings. Even when they moved from the house, they advised the moving company that they might find the rings as they took everything out of the house. Despite going over every inch of the house, the rings could not be found. They tried to stay in contact with friends and acquaintances in their neighborhood, sharing the mystery of the lost rings in the hope they might someday turn up. They eventually decided they might have been stolen and had filed a police report trying to locate the missing rings. Yet, they ended up moving away and still not finding the rings.

A Good Samaritan

After 15 years, the rings remained lost until a new owner of the home suddenly came upon their dogs digging something up in the backyard: the rings! They had come apart. It took some cleaning, but eventually, the new homeowner, Josh Howland was able to make out an inscription in the band of one of the rings: Gail Max 27/02/65. He took the rings to the local police station where an old report unearthed the previous owner of the ring. Needless to say the Hultgrens were ecstatic to get a call from the police station telling them that after 15 years their rings had been found.

A Precious Mystery

No one really knows how the rings went from a laundry bench to the backyard or how they ended up dug into the dirt. After so many years, Gail Hultgren still loves her rings and has had them re-soldered together. She now wears them on her little finger, instead of her ring finger, due to arthritis. However, their reappearance has deepened their meaning and made them all the more precious to the Hultgrens.

Everyone knows the “rules” for dating that used to talk about what was appropriate for women to do in order to land a husband. Once they get a proposal, however, some women lose their manners and begin to do all sorts of things, from demanding a $2 million diamond ring, to assaulting shop owners who don’t meet their demands. There are definitely some rules to follow when you’re planning your wedding, so people remember you as a gracious bride, not a Bridezilla.

It’s Not All About You

What may come as a shock to many brides is that a wedding is often a time of great conflict as new families come together and want to have a say in the proceedings. To be gracious try to include some of their suggestions, giving a little where possible, but including your own preferences as well.

Continue reading »

Methods of finding out whether your diamond is fake or not

Before you can be really proud of owning a precious and sparkling diamond, you should try to find out if it is really genuine or a good imitation. Since the imitations are so similar in size, shape and color it is not easy to determine its authenticity until certain tests are conducted.

One of the most common tests is the traditional Scratch Test. Though it is widely used, it has been found to fall short and not as reliable and accurate. This is because even though it is a known fact that a real diamond can scratch glass, and a fake one cannot, modern technology has revealed that some cubic zirconium of very high quality can also scratch glass. Moreover, conducting a scratch test on a real diamond may cause you to damage it and thus lower the value.

Continue reading »

The diamond trade is one that has endured the test of time and a finicky customer base. Although, in general, diamonds are always fashionable in some respect, their popularity trends in ways that cannot be predicted with any certainty. Women and men want the latest fashions in diamond jewelry as well as a great selection of modern designs suitable for everyday use and for luxurious outfits. They also want low, low prices as well as ease of purchase. In many ways, the customer base of diamond sellers has dictated the supply and one company has truly been there involved in all aspects of the diamond trade from distribution and sale to retailers that resell them online and at jewelry stores around the globe. DeBeers has been around and involved in the diamond industry since the late 19th century and at one time had a monopoly on diamonds and their sale from the mining to the selling of finished gems. They were not able to truly profit from this monopoly and they have since changed their business model and have become much more profitable. This also has helped drive diamond prices down for resellers, so they can pass the savings onto their customers.

Continue reading »