January 31st, 2010
The BBC has an interesting article on the largest unseen diamond:
The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond was last seen in public at the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels. After that, it disappeared and its whereabouts remained a mystery until Laurence Graff, a billionaire diamond dealer, bought it at auction in 2008, appending his surname.
He and his son Francois were in the gallery of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC as the blue stone, was brought up from a secret vault and finally revealed.
Some great pictures in the article too:




December 6th, 2009

Vivid Pink Diamond
Christie’s just auctioned off a gorgeous 5.00-carat cushion-shaped Fancy Vivid Pink potentially flawless, Type IIa diamond. The sale broke the record for price per carat for a diamond. It went to a private Asian buyer. Coming next is a
Bvlgari Auction on December 8.
March 19th, 2009
Jason Kottke reports that the aforementioned Diamond Heist in Belgium will be turned into a movie by JJ Abrams. These types of heists always make for a good movie.
March 16th, 2009
They’ve been talking about diamond-plated glass on airplane windows for a long time. I first heard about it 20 years ago. Now it resurfaces in a story about the U.S. Airforce.
March 12th, 2009
Tiffany has decided to shut down their five-year-old chain of Iridesse pearl-jewelry shops. For more info, check out the Bloomberg story.
June 18th, 2008
Smithsonian Magazine covers Lab Grown Diamonds. Very interesting. Here’s a blurb:
“This is a virtual diamond mine,” says Apollo CEO Bryant Linares when I arrive at the company’s secret location, where diamonds are made. “If we were in Africa, we’d have barbed wire, security guards and watch towers. We can’t do that in Massachusetts.” Apollo’s directors worry about theft, corporate spies and their own safety. When Linares was at a diamond conference a few years ago, he says, a man he declines to describe slipped behind him as he was walking out of a hotel meeting room and said someone from a natural diamond company just might put a bullet in his head. “It was a scary moment,” Linares recalls.
May 16th, 2008
The nice folks at Scrubs helped an enterprising young groom to propose to his girlfriend in a unique way. I don’t know who wrote the script, but I do remember seeing an episode using that closet before…
See the full YouTube video.
May 16th, 2008
No, this is not the same as turning your dead pet into a diamond. Buzzfeed has a meme about jewelry made from living things. Seriously.