寶啾寶石報報：Bulgari’s New Book Explores the Stories Behind the Jewels 寶格麗：寶石背後的故事

 寶啾寶石報報：Bulgari's New Book Explores the Stories Behind the Jewels  寶格麗書：寶石背後的故事

 

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 February 23, 2018

New York--Author Vincent Meylan has recounted the stories behind the jewels of institutions such as Christie's and Van Cleef & Arpels. Now, he is turning his attention to Bulgari.

"Bulgari, Treasures of Rome" brings to life some of Bulgari's most iconic pieces and the clients who patronized the jewelry house.

Distinctly Roman in its inspiration, which encompasses Byzantine and Islamic architecture, Bulgari is known for several enduring designs like the "Trombino" ring and "Serpenti" bracelets. Meylan explores the development of these and other Bulgari pieces, from mine to workshop to model.

Meylan was granted "unprecedented access" to the Bulgari archives to write "Treasures of Rome" and the book features new photographs of important pieces.

Important Bulgari jewelry was photographed anew for "Bulgari, Treasures of Rome," which features 177 color illustrations.

It also features archival photos of Bulgari's impressive clientele, like the Countess di Frasso who frequented Bulgari with her Hollywood paramour Gary Cooper, or Infanta Beatriz of Spain and Princess Maria Jose of Belgium.

The Hollywood queen of jewelry, Elizabeth Taylor, naturally makes an appearance in the book alongside her love Richard Burton, who gave her Bulgari jewels. Also featured is the marriage of Tyrone Power and Linda Christian, who were wed with Bulgari rings.

Apart from the glamorous, Meylan also delves into the exciting and infamous, with stories of exiled Iranian shahs and Count Cini of Monselice, who has held for ransom by the Nazi SS and released in exchange for Bulgari jewelry.

"Bulgari, Treasures of Rome" is out now from ACC Art Books and retails for $95.

For the same publisher Meylan also has penned "Boucheron: The Secret Archives," 2011; "Van Cleef & Arpels: Treasures and Legends," 2014; and "Christie's: The Jewellery Archives Revealed," 2016.

寶啾寶石報報：US Consumers Spent $6,351 on Their Weddings ring Last Year 美國去年婚戒花費約＄6351美元

寶啾寶石報報：US Consumers Spent $6,351 on Their Weddings ring Last Year 

 美國去年婚戒花費約＄6351美元

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U.S. couples spent less on their weddings and their engagement rings last year but they continue to place importance on bucking tradition. This 18-karat white gold ring from Valani is set with a 2.06-carat Sri Lankan sapphire surrounded by 0.28 carats of diamonds ($5,700). 

 

 February 21, 2018

New York--Consumers' priorities when it comes to weddings sound a lot like their preferences when it comes to retail. They want to have a great experience, and they want something uniquely their own.

Last week, on Valentine's Day, wedding planning website The Knot released the results of the 2017 Real Weddings Study, which surveyed nearly 13,000 couples in the United States who tied the knot last year.

Overall, the study found that the average cost of U.S. weddings dipped in 2017, the first time that has happened in the 11 years The Knot has been doing the survey.

The average cost of a wedding was $33,391, down 5 percent from the high of $35,326 reached in 2016.

Slipping alongside the overall wedding cost was the amount spent on the engagement ring.

In 2017, the average was $5,764, a difference of about $400, or 6 percent, from the 2016 average of $6,163.

(The figures The Knot provides in its annual Real Weddings study are gleaned from a different set of respondents than its biennial Jewelry & Engagement Study; see full explanation below.)

In evaluating the results of the study, The Knot said that while couples are spending less and inviting fewer guests overall, the amount spent per guest reached a high of $268 last year, up from $194 eight years ago.

Couples are trying to make it a better experience for each guest, spending more money on reception amenities like sparklers, selfie stations, candy bars, musicians and lawn games.

The Knot also noted that there were fewer black-tie weddings, which tend to be pricier, and more weddings in non-traditional venues that speak to the couple's personalities, like barns, libraries and even a boxing gym.

The Metropolis Diamond Power Chevron ring from designer Julie Lamb is 14-karat white gold with diamond surround (14.5 points) and retails for $6,000 when set with a 2.5-carat white sapphire.

 

 Outside of the engagement ring, here are a few other figures from the study: average cost of a venue, $15,163; wedding dress, $1,509; favors, $252; photographer, $2,630; and videographer, $1,912.   

The most expensive place to have a wedding in 2017 was—no surprise at all—Manhattan, with the average cost of a wedding nearing $77,000. Weddings in nearby north/central New Jersey ($62,074) and Long Island ($61,113) were the second and third most expensive in the country.

The city/state with the lowest average wedding cost in 2017 was Utah at $18,516.

 

The study also showed that today, the bride and groom split the cost almost equally with the bride's parents. The parents footed the bill for, on average, 44.5 percent of the wedding while the couple contributed 41.1 percent. Other contributors included the groom's parents (12.7 percent) and other (1.79 percent).

The Real Weddings Study is one of the studies The Knot conducts on a regular basis. It comes out every year and acts as a barometer for overall wedding spending in the U.S.

Every other year, The Knot publishes its Jewelry & Engagement Study, which focuses on trends surrounding the proposal, including how much couples are spending on engagement rings.

The latest Jewelry & Engagement Study came out last year. It surveyed 14,000 couples, a mix of engaged and newly married pairs, and showed that the average amount spent on an engagement ring is now $6,351.

寶啾寶石報報：5 Things to Know About … Conch Pearls 關於孔克珠

5 Things to Know About … Conch Pearls

This ring from Assael features two natural conch pearls and 4.51 carats of diamonds set in platinum ($150,000).

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 Everyone knows about oyster pearls; their luster and beauty make for classic and timeless jewelry.  

But for the gem connoisseur looking for something a little different, there's a mollusk that creates a pearl in shades of pink and peach that resemble some of the best colors of coral.

Conch pearls are produced naturally by the queen conch mollusk, found in the Caribbean. Most are elongated or baroque in shape; near-round specimens are extremely rare.

They were used in the Victorian era for the carving of cameos, and became even more popular during King Edward's reign. They also can be seen in some Art Nouveau jewelry pieces.

Their popularity lasted through about the Art Deco period, after which they disappeared from the scene for a while before regaining popularity in the late '70s and 1980s.

This was due in part to American professional diver Sue Hendrickson, who started buying the pearls fishermen in the Caribbean found when emptying shells for sale. She eventually built up a collection of high-quality pearls and helped reintroduce them into jewelry design.

Now, this pink-hued pearl is used in designs from well-known brands such as Mikimoto, Tiffany & Co., Harry Winston, Chopard and Hemmerle.

Here are five facts about conch pearls that you might not have known.

1. They differ from oyster pearls in that they are non-nacreous.

Conch pearls are calcareous concretions of the queen conch mollusk, a large sea snail with a spiral-shaped shell. They have a pearl structure but, like melo melo pearls, are non-nacreous, according to the Gemological Institute of America.

A queen conch mollusk shellThey also weigh more than an oyster pearl and are sized by carat weight instead of millimeters, and are harder and more resistant to erosion.

But conch pearls and nacreous pearls do have the same chemical composition; the only difference between them is their polycrystalline structures, according to the GIA.

2. The finest examples often exhibit a "flame-like structure" that's visible to the naked eye.

Because they are formed by concentric layers of fibrous calcium within the queen conch, the layering often produces a flame-like structure.

The most coveted have a vibrant chatoyancy that allows the flame to be visible to the naked eye; in fact, flame vibrancy is one of the most important determinants of value for a conch pearl, along with its shape and size.

Conch pearls also can come in a variety of colors, ranging from pink to white to brownish, though pink is the most common.  

Sonny Sethi of Tara Pearls said in Tucson that the conch pearls that are "baby-bubble-gum pink" in color continue to be the most in demand for them.

A loose conch pearl from Assael3. The queen conch is extremely rare.

There are a range of numbers in regards to the rarity of conch pearls, but most sources have it somewhere between one conch pearl found in every 10,000 shells to one in every 20,000.

Sethi told me that in his experience, one in 2,000 shells holds a pearl, one in 10,000 contains a conch that can be used in jewelry; and one in 100,000 holds a gem-quality piece.

Adding to this is the fact that the queen conch lives in fairly shallow water, is slow to grow and has a late maturation that makes it susceptible to overfishing, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In fact, it's in decline because of overfishing and is now a threatened species.

Queen conch was once abundant in the Florida Keys but, after a collapse in conch fisheries in the 1970s, it is now illegal to commercially or recreationally harvest queen conch there.

It also has been listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) agreement since 1992 and since then, most of the countries involved in the trade of queen conch have been consistently agreeing to a number of actions to improve its sustainability and legality.

According to CITES, the queen conch is making a slow comeback.

4. The idea of a cultured conch pearl is a relatively new idea.

In the development of all pearls, nacreous or non-nacreous, an irritant gets trapped inside the mollusk and the pearl begins forming around it.

Because a queen conch shell has only one entrance, it is more difficult for an irritant to become trapped inside and start the pearl formation.

This is why it has been so difficult to cultivate them, until very recently.

In 2009, scientists at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute developed proprietary seeding techniques to produced beaded (nucleated) and non-beaded cultured pearls from the queen conch.

After less than two years of research and experimentation, researchers Héctor Acosta-Salmón and Megan Davis produced more than 200 cultured conch pearls. The researchers then took the specimens for laboratory testing.  

I reached out to the university to see what progress has been made since then, but they said they didn't have any additional information at this time.  

This bracelet from Tara Pearls features 20 pieces of natural conch pearls weighing 23.60 total carats, 1.27 carats of rubies, 0.42 carats of fancy diamonds and 2.62 carats of white diamonds, all set in 18-karat white gold ($79,485). 
And, according to a 2015 article in the GIA's Gems & Gemology, the Laboratoire Français de Gemmologie analyzed eight samples of cultured conch pearls from a farm in Honduras.

The article said the cultured conch pearl samples had a "luster (that) was porcelaneous, and the surface was very smooth and homogenous with no defects. Almost all the samples possessed a typical but subtle flame pattern."

Though the article noted at the time that "queen conch pearl culture is undergoing intensive development," with the quality improving with each harvest, lab director Olivier Segura said Monday via email that the recent events in the Caribbean have had "huge consequences" on their farming.

Sethi told me no cultured conch pearls have yet hit the market, and Segura noted that while the farmers had improved techniques, in his opinion, the culturing of conch pearls is "not yet a market issue."

5. Demand in the United States is steady.

While conch pearls are in demand once again, thanks to their uniqueness, that demand is staying fairly consistent, Sethi said.  

This is not that surprising, given their rarity and higher pricing, which makes them accessible only to a certain customer.

Since they got into the conch pearl market seven or eight years ago and started advertising it, Sethi said not much has changed for them in this sector.

"The demand is there, but it's only at the very elite level," he commented, adding that this means conch pearls can only be sold at stores with a deep understanding of the gemstone.

寶啾寶石報報： Sotheby’s Offers Rare 102ct., D-Flawless Diamond

寶啾寶石報報： Sotheby's Offers Rare 102ct., D-Flawless Diamond 

 

 

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Sotheby's has unveiled a rare white diamond that, it claims, is the only known round brilliant-cut diamond over 100 carats possessing the highest cut, color and clarity grades.

Sotheby's Diamonds, the group's retail boutique, revealed the 102.34-carat, D-color, flawless stone to mark the first anniversary of its salon on London's New Bond Street, the auction house said Thursday.

The polished diamond — which is available for private purchase, rather than at auction — originated from a 425-carat rough that De Beers unearthed in Botswana. Diacore, a South Africa-based manufacturer, spent six months cutting and polishing it in Johannesburg and New York.

The round shape is the most sought-after for colorless stones, as it gives the most "light and life," Sotheby's said. However, in auction history, not even one of the seven 100-carat-plus, D-color diamonds that have sold was brilliant-cut.

Large, round-brilliant diamonds are rare because cutters generally try to maximize carat weight when working with the rough. That usually means choosing a fancy shape such as cushion, emerald or pear, the auction house explained.

"In the course of my long career, which has brought me close to some of the greatest stones the earth has ever yielded, I have not encountered anything quite like this," said Patti Wong, founder and chairman of Sotheby's Diamonds.

"With its outstanding weight, its perfect color, clarity and cut, it is a masterpiece of nature brought to life by human hand, blazing with a brilliant firework-like display of almost every color on the spectrum — mesmerizing to behold," she added.

The diamond is on view to the public until Friday at Sotheby's galleries on New Bond Street.

Image: Sotheby's