August 12, 2009
$65 Million Heist
Two well-dressed men walked into Graff Diamonds, in London, pulled out guns, took a hostage and escaped with $65 million worth of jewelry.
Two of the 43 stolen items were described as a flower necklace with 272 diamonds and a pair of triple-hoop earrings with 216 gems.
A 50 year old suspect has been arrested, but the second gentlemen and two others who participated in the getaway are still at-large.
In 2003, Graff Diamonds suffered another heist, losing $38 million. Nebojsa Denic, a member of the infamous Pink Panther gang was arrested and convicted for that crime.
June 25, 2009
Pittsburgh Steeler’s Super Bowl XLIII Ring
Have you see the cool ring that the Pittsburgh Steelers received as winners of Super Bowl XLIII?
The players were honored with their rings on June 9, 2009 in a special ceremony.
Each ring has 63 diamonds with a total weight of 3.61 cts.
The (6) larger diamonds represent the number of Super Bowl games that the team has won.
The (14) other diamonds represents (7) conference championships and (7) other division titles.
The red, blue and yellow stones resemble the team’s logo.
One side of the ring has (6) Lombardi trophies with and the final score of 27-23. The other side of the ring has the name of the player, his number, the Steeler’s helmet with logo and the NFL logo.
The league allotted $5000 per ring, however, it has been estimated that the actual production ran over that allotment. The manufacturing company absorbed the extra cost for the bragging rights and future production of related jewelry.
June 19, 2009
De Beers sees early signs of recovery
Ramat Gan, Israel-The Israel Diamond Institute and De Beers participated in Israel’s first “Diamond Town Hall Meeting.” At the meeting Gareth Penny, the De Beers Group Managing Director spoke on the industry and its outlook.
He explained that for the past 120 years the diamond industry has been extremely resilient and noted that after every recession the industry has enjoyed an immediate resurgence.
Penny also said that there have been early signs of a recovery with an increase in demand for rough. He believed that the 2009 holiday season would be stronger than it was last year. However, he did not believe that holiday sales would reach former levels until 2010.
June 18, 2009
Diamond Mining to Restart in Namibia in July
Namdeb is a joint-venture diamond mining operation shared by DeBeers and the government of Namibia. Namdeb halted production at all six of its mines on April 1st, 2009 as part of a DeBeers’ plan to reduce the production of rough diamonds by 40%.
DeBeers has now confirmed that mining will begin again on July 1st.
