Diamond News Archives

It was a great year for Africa-focused Gem Diamonds (LON:GEMD), as the company recovered a record number of huge precious stones from its flagship Letšeng mine in Lesotho.

With the two latest, a high quality 101 carat and 71 carat white Type IIa diamond, both recovered within a 24-hour period, the number of stones over 100 carats dug up at the mine reached 14, the company said Wednesday.

Letšeng is the world’s highest dollar per carat diamond mine.

Early in the year, it found the 910-carat “Lesotho Legend”, one of the largest diamonds ever discovered, which sold for $40 million.

Other big finds were a 115-carat diamond found in May and a 138-carat stone unveiled in August.

Since acquiring Letšeng in 2006, Gem Diamonds has found now five of the 20 largest white gem quality diamonds ever recovered, which makes the mine the world’s highest dollar per carat kimberlite diamond operation.

At an average elevation of 3,100 metres (10,000 feet) above sea level, Letšeng is also one of the world’s highest diamond mines.

The biggest diamond ever found was the 3,106-carat Cullinan, dug near Pretoria, South Africa, in 1905. It was later cut into several stones, including the First Star of Africa and the Second Star of Africa, which are part of Britain's Crown Jewels held in the Tower of London.

Lucara’s 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona was the second-biggest in record, while the 995-carat Excelsior and 969-carat Star of Sierra Leone were the third- and fourth-largest.

The post Gem Diamonds finds 14 stones over 100 carats, reaches record high in 2018 appeared first on MINING.com....

Hong Kong-based jewellery giant Chow Tai Fook became Wednesday the latest industry heavyweight to join De Beers' pilot of its end-to-end diamond blockchain program called Tracr, which aims at clearing the supply chain of imposters and conflict stones.

Chow Tai Fook’s participation will further extend the platform’s reach into the Asian diamond sector, particularly in Greater China, world’s No. 1 diamond producer by value De Beers said.

The Asian company is not foreign to initiatives to provide a single, tamper-proof and permanent digital record — from mine to consumer — for every diamond.

In September, the jewellery retailer had introduced a similar project developed with blockchain provider Everledger and secured by the IBM Blockchain Platform.

Tracr gives each diamond a unique ID that stores its characteristics such as weight, colour and clarity.

While the companies didn’t mention whether Chow Tai Fook had given up on its own tracking system or simply decided to test De Beers’ alternative at once, managing director Kent Wong noted that authenticity, provenance and traceability are becoming extremely important in the jewellery sector.

“We believe that our participation in Tracr will help ensure we are at the forefront of this important issue," Wong said in the joint statement.

Chow Taik Fook is just one of many sector leaders to have recently adopted distributed ledger technology, an umbrella term for a shared and synchronized database, to ensure the authenticity of the diamonds they sell by tracking them, from mine to shop. Their involvement is seen by analysts as an opportunity to clearly signal that they are willing to establish a closer and more transparent relationship with their consumers.

The world’s largest diamond jewellery retailer, Signet, was one of the first ones...

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(IDEX Online) – HRD Antwerp has signed a partnership with Dubai-based jewelry retailer Stargems to certify its jewelry inventory through the establishment of a diamond jewelry grading lab. <?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

 

The cooperation agreement will ensure the transparency and authenticity of each jewelry piece, the sides said in a statement.

 

As a result of the collaboration, HRD Antwerp will open its first diamond jewelry grading lab in the Middle East, located inside the Turkish Trade Center (TTC) in the Almas Tower in the DMCC Free Zone.

 

"HRD Antwerp’s laboratories use the most sophisticated technology and rely on the extensive expertise of their in-house research department to certify diamonds. With this new partnership, HRD Antwerp aspires to expand its presence in the Middle East by targeting some of the largest and most promising diamond markets."

 

Stargems Group Chairman Shailesh Javeri commented: “Within the diamond industry, trust is key. As a retailer, we want our customers to have confidence in our products. By certifying our entire inventory with the highly reputable HRD Antwerp brand, our customers can be assured about the authenticity and quality of our jewelry.”

 

HRD Antwerp’s CEO, Michel Janssens, explained, "We are delighted to be setting up our first diamond jewelry grading lab in the Middle East. Transparency and authenticity form the bedrock of our work and we want to make sure that Stargems’ clients purchase their jewelry with full confidence and peace of mind. We look forward to beginning our partnership and introducing a new standard to the industry.”

 

Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman, DMCC, commented: "We are thrilled to be...