High-Value Recoveries Drive up Gem Revenue

Gem Diamonds saw revenue and profits increase in FY2024, as high-value recoveries more than made up for persistent downward pressure of the diamond market.

In its Full Year 2024 Results published today (13 March), the UK-based miner reported a 10 per cent increase in revenue to $154.2m, largely driven by the sale of 13 +100-cts diamonds from its Letseng mine, in Lesotho.

Underlying EBITDA almost doubled to $29.7m and profit for the year increase from $1.6m to $8.1m.

Exceptional sales included an 11 carat pink diamond that was sold for $45,537 per carat, a 63 carat Type IIa white diamond that was sold for $41,007 per carat (the highest per carat price of the year) and a 113 carat Type IIa white diamond that was sold for $39,345 per carat.

The number of carats recovered during the year fell 4 per cent to 105,012.

Clifford Elphick, CEO at Gem, said: “2024 was another challenging year for the diamond market with decreasing rough and polished diamond prices. Our relentless focus on factors within our control – cost containment, operational efficiencies and appropriate capital allocation, has yielded pleasing results.”

Looking to the future, the company expects the market to remain under pressure during the year, with signs of a modest recovery in diamond prices.

Source: DCLA

52% of Engagement Rings are Now Lab Grown

More than half of all couples are now buying a lab grown diamond engagement ring, according to research carried out in January for The Knot wedding website.

A survey of almost 17,000 couples who married in 2024 found that 52 per cent opted for lab grown – the first time the balance has tipped from natural.

The figure for 2023 was 46 per cent and in 2019 it was just 12 per cent.

Couples are now spending less and getting bigger stones, according to the newly-published The Knot 2025 Real Weddings Study.

“The rise in popularity of lab-grown stones is fueling the decrease in the average cost of an engagement ring,” it says.

“2024 served as a continuation of that trend with proposers spending $5,200 on average for their ring. This is a decline from $5,500 in 2023, and $5,800 in 2022.

“Back in 2021, it was $6,000. Lab-grown stones typically begin at a lower price point than mined stones which is reflected in the average cost.

“A proposer purchasing a lab-grown engagement ring could expect to spend $4,900 versus spending $7,600, on average, for a mined diamond engagement ring.”

The average carat weight of an engagement ring bought last year was 1.7 carats, says the study, up from 1.5 carats in 2021.

Source: DCLA

Cleaner Accused of Stealing $1.3m Jewels from Princess

A cleaner has appeared in court in London, charged with stealing diamonds, watches and jewelry worth $1.3m (£1m) from her employer, Princess Firyal of Jordan.

Maria Taborda Henao, aged 69, from Colombia, is accused of stealing the items between February and November 2020 and of selling them through an auction house.

The case against her at Westminster Magistrates’ Court (pictured) was adjourned on Monday (10 March) because there wasn’t a Spanish interpreter in court.

Princess Firyal, aged 80, is a noted humanitarian and philanthropist, and has served as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 1992. She is the former wife of Prince Muhammad bin Talal, the second son of the late King Talal of Jordan.

The thefts of diamond rings, bracelets, watches and earrings allegedly took place at the princess’s $7.5m home in the exclusive Belgravia area of London. The case will resume next month.

Source: DCLA

World’s Biggest Pearl on Display in Toronto

The world’s largest pearl – weighing 27.65kg and valued at $98m is currently being displayed at a secret venue in Canada.

The Giga Pearl belongs to Toronto-based artist Abraham Reyes and is being shown as part of his Beneath The Surface exhibition of pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones.

The pearl was created 1,000 years ago by a giant clam, the largest of all bivalve molluscs (soft-bodied sea creatures with a hinged shell).

It has been certified by the GIA as the world’s largest natural blister pearl and holds the Guinness World Record.

Reyes inherited the pearl in 2019 from a great aunt after his grandfather bought it from a fisherman in the Philippines.

“I wanted to educate people about it,” Reyes said. “A lot of people don’t know that these giant clams exist because they’re endemic in the South Pacific. So this is something fascinating for people here in Toronto.”

The location of the Giga Pearl is being kept private for security reasons. 

Source: DCLA

Chopard Unveils Collection from 6,225-ct Emerald

Chopard has unveiled a high jewelry collection crafted from one of the world’s largest emeralds.

The Swiss jeweler bought the 6,225-carat monster (1.22kg) from Gemfields in 2018 for an undisclosed sum.

The rough emerald, named Insofu -“elephant” in the local Bemba language – has since yielded 850 carats of gem quality emeralds, the first of which now feature in a 15-piece ensemble of necklaces, chokers, rings, earrings, a bracelet, and a watch.

Among the highlights of the Insofu collection are an elephant-shaped pendant with 50 carats of emeralds, and diamonds forming tusks, which can also be worn as a brooch; a Great Gatsby-inspired 4-in-1 necklace featuring a 15.53-carat octagonal emerald and a diamond choker with a 2.50-carat square-cut emerald.

Insofu was recovered by London-based Gemfields at its Kagem mine, in Zambia.

At the time Gemfields CEO Ian Harebottle said: “This is a unique find. The Insofu displays wonderful color and good translucency. Its sheer size, rich color and fine protective biotite shell makes it difficult to see deep into the gem.

“However, all indications suggest that the core of the emerald is competent and that it should yield a number of cut gems of significant size.”

Source: DCLA

Alrosa set to Sell More Rough to Government

                                       Rough diamond weighing 390.7 carats

The Russian government could buy more rough diamonds from the state-run miner Alrosa, as it faces ongoing G7 sanctions and weak global demand.

The Finance Ministry says it will assess the situation after seeing second quarter results.

Alrosa last week reported a 77 per cent slump in profits for 2024 (down to $223m) and has said it could suspend some less profitable activities and lay off some of its 35,000 workers.

“As we have already said, it is possible that Gokhran will buy some of the stones, said Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseyev, according to a report by the privately-run Interfax news agency.

“At this stage, we are still observing the market dynamics, indeed, it is quite weak, but not much time has passed. In principle, the first quarter is rarely good.”

Alrosa has previously offloaded excess inventory to Gokhran, the Russian State Precious Metals and Gemstones Repository in times of weak demand.

During the financial crisis of 2009 Gokhran bought up $1bn of Alrosa’s diamonds. And it sold back millions of carats in 2022, when a surge in post-lockdown demand outstripped the miner’s production capacities.

Last November it said it would be selling a batch of rough diamonds, including its largest recovery in a decade – an irregular-shaped diamond weighing 390.7 carats

Source: DCLA

Swallowing Tiffany & Co Diamonds Earrings

It’s hard to swallow. In fact most of us would probably choke trying to down over 13 carats of Tiffany’s finest diamonds.

But that, allegedly, is how Jaythan Lawrence Gilder, aged 32, responded when cops in the US finally caught up with him last week.

He swallowed two pairs of earrings that had been stolen a couple of days earlier from the Tiffany & Co store at the Mall of Millenia, in Orlando, Florida, according to an arrest affidavit.

The Orlando Police Department say X-rays taken in custody appear to confirm their suspicions, though at the time of writing they were waiting for nature to take its course.

Gilder allegedly posed as the representative of an Orlando Magic basketball player so that he’d be taken to a private room to view high-value items.

Police said he grabbed a pair of 8.19-carat diamond earrings (valued at $609,500), and a 4.86-carat diamond pair (valued at $160,000) together with a ring valued at $587,000 (no description given).

He then pushed past an employee, according to the arrest affidavit, and escaped in a blue 2024 Mitsubishi Outlander.

Two days later he was apprehended by Florida Highway Patrol troopers who spotted his vehicle. He was arrested on 48 outstanding warrants for other offences, but the officers couldn’t immediately locate the stolen Tiffany jewelry.

While in custody, however, Gilder reportedly asked jail staff whether he was going to be charged with “what’s in my stomach”. A scan revealed “foreign objects” that appeared to be the stolen earrings.

“These foreign objects are suspected to be the Tiffany & Co earrings taken in the robbery but will need to be collected by WCSO (Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Florida) after they are passed through Gilder’s system prior to confirming,” the arrest report states.

It is indeed a bizarre crime, but it is not unique. In fact Joan Hannington, aka The Godmother, perfected the technique of diamond swallowing over a long and notorious criminal career.

It started when she was working in a high-end jewelry store in London in the 1970s. Realizing that the surveillance cameras weren’t working, she took a handful of loose diamonds from the safe on impulse and swallowed them. It later turned out they were worth £800,000.

“Swallowing diamonds was my life, my buzz, my drug,” she later wrote in her memoir I Am What I Am.

For the next 20 years she used the same technique – as described in her second memoir, Joan: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Diamond Thief, and as depicted in the fictionalized 2024 TV series Joan.

She’d visit a jewelry store, posing as a wealthy US tourist, often in a fur coat. She’d flirt outrageously with the salesman, while carefully memorizing her target piece.

She’d later return with a cheap but convincing replica, fake a sneeze as she was viewing the piece for a second time, and swallow the genuine item. She’d then sterilize the stolen gems in a bowl of gin and sell them on to a fence.

Hannington, now aged 68, was sentenced to 30 months for possession of a stolen check book when she was 24,but she says she was never jailed for her diamond swallowing escapades. She does however suffer painful ulcers as a long-term consequence.

Source: DCLA