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.
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.”
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
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.
Sales of watches and jewelry in the US dipped in January, for the first time in well over a year. They were 3.0 per cent less than the previous January, according to the latest figures from the US Department of Commerce.
In addition, revisions to November and December sales figures now show slower growth than originally reported.
Figures based on actual through-the-till transactions, rather than estimates, put sales at +2.6 per cent and +1.5 per cent respectively, rather than the revised figures of +3.0 per cent and +4.0 per cent.
Sales of watches and jewelry had been in positive growth since October 2023, and they peaked last September and October at around 10 per cent. Prior to that they’d been in overall decline since October 2022.
Jewelry from the collection of screen icon Elizabeth Taylor are to be sold at a Beverly Hills auction.
The highlight is a ruby, diamond, and gold necklace (pictured) with lion’s face design and matching earrings. Estimate $100,000 to $200,000.
There’s also a 1935 Art Deco emerald and diamond brooch – old mine-cut and European cut – mounted in platinum and gold, with an estimate of $20.000 to $30,000.
And a gold and diamond Star of David pendant necklace designed by Theo Fennell and marking her conversion to Judaism in 1959. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000.
They’ll be offered for sale at Bold Luxury: The Limelight Edit auction by Julien’s Auctions, on 27 March 27 at The Peninsula Beverly Hills, along with fashion and other items owned by Marilyn Monroe, Cher, Victoria Beckham and Amy Winehouse.
“Bold Luxury is not just an auction — it’s an invitation to step into the limelight and own a tangible piece of cultural history,” said Martin Nolan, co-founder and executive director of Julien’s Auctions.
The 1,094-carat Seriti diamond recovered last September from Lucara’s Karowe mine, in Botswana, is now in Belgium, where it will be cut by HB Antwerp as part of an ongoing partnership.
HB, founded in 2020, cut the 1,758-carat Sewelo diamond and the 549-carat Sethunya diamond – both of which were recovered at Karowe and both of which were bought by Louis Vuitton.
Exact prices were not disclosed, although Lucara did say last month that the Sethunya and the 1,080 carat Eva Star, sold for a combined $54m. HB gave no details of a buyer for the Seriti.
Seriti is the world’s sixth largest rough diamond, and the sixth +1,000-ct diamond recovered at Karowe.
HB says it will use “groundbreaking technology, traceability, and expertise to unlock the full brilliance of nature’s most exceptional creations”.
That includes its proprietary Hyperloupe technologies, designed specifically for large (up to 6,000 carats) and complex diamonds.
HB has a 10-year contract with Lucara to cut all its +10.8-cts stones. They account for around 70 per cent of the miner’s revenue.
Rio Tinto reported a $127m loss for 2024 from its Diavik diamond mine, in Canada, as weak market conditions led to “fixed cost inefficiencies”.
That compares with underlying earnings of $26m in 2023. Rio Tinto’s diamond sector generated $297m of revenue during the year, a 37 per cent drop on $444m the previous year.
The British-Australian multinational emailed over 1,300 employees last September, offering them voluntary separations to reduce operating costs as it prepares to close the mine next year.
In its Full Year Results 2024 the company noted the tragic loss of four Diavik workers and two air crew when a plane headed for the mine crashed last January.
Rio Tinto reported a 17 per cent drop in production, from 3.3m carats in 2023 to 3.4m carats in 2024.
The company acquired full ownership of the mine in November 2021 after it bought out a 40 per cent stake from Dominion Diamond Mines.
Diamond Foundry, which has just opened a lab grown factory in Trujillo, western Spain, is facing an environmental backlash over claims it uses more water than the entire 8,500-population town where it is located.
Residents at a meeting earlier this month were told the new facility, built with $85m of European Union cash, was estimated to consume more than 730,000 cubic meters of water annually.
The huge facility will produce at least 4m carats a year and create 300 jobs. But environmental groups are concerned about the factory’s water usage, which is, they say “completely unsustainable”.
“There would be enough water for the diamonds but the population of Trujillo would have to buy jugs at the supermarket to drink, shower, cook, etc,” says an article in
Diamond Foundry, a Silicon Valley startup with Leonardo Dicaprio, star of the Blood Diamond movie, among its backers, is valued at $1.8bn.
“The water supply to Diamond Foundry is, once again, also in question, as it would cause serious supply problems for drinking water for the population of Trujillo and its surroundings,” according to the El Salto local news website.
It says the building is one of the first industrial projects in the world powered entirely by solar electricity and insists it holds the necessary permits to use reclaimed water from local treatment plants.
Sarine says cost reductions and efficiency improvements allowed it to reverse a $2.8m loss in 2023 into a $1.1m profit in 2024.
But the Israel-based diamond tech company said revenue dipped 8 per cent to $39.2m amid ongoing difficult market conditions – primarily weak demand in China and “continuing disruption from lab-grown diamonds”.
Sarine said it was recouping some of the costs invested in adapting its rough planning technologies for lab growns, and had also benefitted from opening a GCAL by Sarine lab in India, largely grading lab growns.
As party of its “aggressive business streamlining and cost cutting”, the company plans to relocate its manufacturing activities to India, its main market.
Looking to the future, it said demand for natural diamonds is likely to remain “constrained” throughout 2025, although markets for both natural and lab grown would become more distinct.
“It is our belief that diamond jewellery retailing will settle on a new equilibrium in the near term, with natural diamonds trending towards a significant market share especially in the bridal segment and LGD dominating the fashion jewellery segment.”
