Hot new designer, buji bijoux is starting to make some waves. They made the February 2008 edition of inStyle Magazine with their honeysuckle rose earrings. Their all a-flutter hoop earrings are now the “essential item” in OK Magazine, and on the red carpet, their jewelry has been seen on Hilary Duff and is going to make a cameo in Get Smart the movie. Definitely a designer to watch!

Impressive diamond is going on Auction soon. It is an exquisite 72 carat pear-shaped D Flawless. Here is Yahoo’s take on the story:

“NEW YORK - A 72.22-carat diamond, so large it could fill a tablespoon, is expected to bring up to $13 million when it goes on auction next month.

Cut from an original rough diamond, the D-color, flawless gem is prized for its pear shape and GIA-graded excellent polish and symmetry. D-color is actually colorless and considered the most highly valued.

It was previewed in Manhattan on Monday and will be offered on April 10 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong galleries, which estimates its value at $10 million to $13 million. The buyer has the privilege of naming the stone.

Sotheby’s said the most expensive diamond and jewel sold at auction, the pear-shaped, 100.10 carat Star of Season, brought $16.5 million in May 1995.”

I was reading the latest news from my feeds and noticed a story about Diamonds from an unlikely source. Robert Scoble, formerly of Microsoft. He met some cool technologists at Davos who told him about their work.

I was never into fart jokes, so I did not repeat his headline in reporting the story, but our readers should find the story interesting. Dig in.

From the NY Times comes news that researchers at the University of Rochester can use a tabletop laser to turn aluminum into gold.

Neat trick

Gmail has this cool feature that helps you waste even more time than email does alone. They let you add your RSS feeds to a list which are fed back to you one at a time in web snippets on top of your email.

So while you’re reading some boring note from your boss or whatnot, you can see the latest, coolest headlines from the feeds you watch.

Today Joi Ito caught me with an intriguing headline about a TCHO beta. Expecting a cool new tech site I never heard of, I headed over there.

Turns out it’s even better. He and a couple people from Wired magazine invested in a Chocolate Factory. So put down your diamonds for a moment and give the chocolate beta a try.  Then report back. $4.00 for a 50g bar.

I just saw Charlie Wilson’s War. Not a bad movie at all. Of course you need to take movies and article and news reports that purport to tell you inside stories of CIA covert operations with a grain of salt. They are covert for a reason. They are a secret.

Published accounts of real events are easily manipulated. Who will be able to confirm or deny the story?

Sometimes a story is told to achieve an agenda, sometimes because the writer knows a little bit and needs to turn it into a compelling enough story to sell it. But if you look at these kinds of movies as somewhat fiction, they can be fun.

That’s NOT why I’m blogging about it. The reason for this post is that Julia Roberts wears some outstanding jewelry with enormous diamonds throughout this film. Even if for nothing else, our readership should enjoy that aspect of the movie alone. But besides, it is a good film.

The NY Post shouts: “JEWELER FOES BLAST SARANDON“. Politics in the Middle East is never simple. A Jewish group is upset with Lev Leviev not over any issue around diamonds, but his support for Jewish Settlements in the West Bank. His store has had picketers in front of it, on and off, since opening, and Sarandon apparently crossed the lines to attend a cocktail party.

Funny, the article mentions the Apthorp building. I just attended a cocktail party there myself and knew that I had heard something about the owner but couldn’t remember who it was. Not too many buildings like that one in New York.

I’m a fan of the TV court shows. Watched The People’s Court since Judge Wapner’s days. You learn a lot about people and the law from watching these shows. My favorite episodes revolve around Jewelry, although most episodes are about tenant law, puppies that got sick after purchase, used cars that go bad within a couple weeks and family members not paying back loans.

Today Judge Alex had a case of a Jeweler who was accused of switching diamonds.  Fascinating case, at least if you’re in the business.

Now Alex is my favorite of the current crop of Judges (Marilyn Milian comes in a close second). It turns out, that besides being a former cop, former trial attorney and judge, Alex used to sell diamonds as well. Interesting…

Well this lady bought a ring off eBay. She didn’t follow up the purchase with an appraisal. Then she brought it into a Jeweler to get a matching band made. After she got back the ring, she noticed a little indentation in it. But she didn’t know much about Jewelry. She thought it was severe, but I think it was something easily polished away and both Alex and the Jeweler felt the same way.

The plaintiff lost the case. She thought that the Jeweler pulled out the small baguettes and switched them for diamonds of a worse quality.  Alex got an appraisal from a Jeweler he knew, who appraised the quality of the diamonds as identical to what her eBay ad said. I was really surprised at that. She got lucky with that purchase, but it’s mind blowing that so many customers have absolutely no clue as to when they are getting a good deal or getting had…

It’s clear she didn’t prove her case. She had to prove the condition before sending it to the Jeweler by getting an appraisal and then get another one after it came back from the Jeweler with issues. But just going by her recollection is not going to win her the case.

For those who have seen the show and wonder how to handle such a purchase…well first eBay is not the best place to buy Jewelry. But if you do want to use them, make sure the seller has a certificate from a reputable lab on the center stone. Then have the Jewelry appraised after receiving the item. Make sure the center stone matches the cert.

As Judge Alex said, for small stones, the labor is probably more expensive to the Jeweler than the gain in switching stones…let alone the loss in reputation. And if you have a cert on the center stone, the plot and specs are as good as a fingerprint and you can feel safe sending in the Jewelry for work. At least in terms of not worrying that stones would get switched. Also take lots of before and after pictures. Close-ups and from all angles.

Overall I thought the Judge did a great job.

There are enough talking points in the lawsuit brought by Tiffany&Co. against Ebay to teach a number of college courses in marketing, econ, law & ethics.  The crux of the complaint is that Ebay hasn’t and doesn’t police its auctions to Tiffany’s satisfaction.  They feel they are suffering brand dilution from all the counterfeit goods being sold on the auction site.  But Ebay has from its inception had the attitude that it provides the venue, but keeping out the counterfeit goods is not really their responsibility.  Tiffany disagrees of course and wants Ebay to be called to account and forced to change.

What I find interesting in the 3 or 4 years this suit has been meandering along, Ebay has seemingly changed its operational oversight very little.  Which makes you wonder if they’re being smart or arrogant about the outcome of this suit.  Tiffany is not the only luxury goods provider experiencing this problem; so will Ebay be vulnerable to other claims from Cartier,  Louis Vutton, Hermes, Cartier and all the other designers you can buy? Or will Judge Sullivan write the decision in such a way as to provide satisfaction to T&C without forcing Ebay to overhaul it’s business model?  Counterfeit goods show up anywhere things are sold so who has the ultimate responsibility to protect the “brand” especially since so many of the designer houses participate in their own brand dilution by selling their own lines of factory outlet goods.

Like I said there is enough material here for a number of tangent discussions, but focusing on Ebay’s attitude that it has little responsibility in overseeing the honesty in its sellers is why I’ve never been a fan of the site.  Over the years too many stories have been told to show that crooks are found by the consumers vs. the company, and when they’re outed Ebay takes forever to act on the realization.  We have experienced the problem of fraudulent sellers on DiamondRing but unlike Ebay we work to reject questionable sellers/goods before they post.  Swift action is something Ebay doesn’t do, and it seems the thing is designed to give the dishonest sellers the advantage.  I lost count of how many times one of our members found DiamondRing’s goods pictured on Ebay in a fraudulent auction; and the hoops the seller had to jump through to prove it was perplexing.

But I digress… It remains to be seen who will win this.  It may be that Ebay will lose because it’s its time as a monolith to be taken down a beg or two, or maybe Judge Sullivan will decide that Tiffany, and all the others in line behind them, will have to continue to rely on the in-house teams they already have to do what Ebay refuses to do with counterfeit goods.  Even when the decision is handed down the story won’t be over…Pass the popcorn!!