ICA Newsletter | February 2022 |
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The ICA Newsletter is a monthly publication chock full of gemstone news, including reports from the country Ambassadors, industry news, the latest from auctions and laboratories worldwide, events and exhibitions in the trade and celebrities donning the best gem-set jewelry creations. |
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Amethyst - AMNH NYC
Amethyst - Birthstones for February
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Join us in Shenzhen!
ICA SHENZHEN CHINA CONGRESS
SEPTEMBER 2022
2022年金秋九月
国际彩色宝石协会深圳年会期待您的莅临！
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Chipembele - 7,525 Carats One of the Largest Emeralds Discovered in Africa - Acquired by ICA Member Eshed
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ICA News
"When I first saw the Chipembele—also known as the the Rhino Emerald—I knew I was looking at a true treasure of nature!" exclaimed Avraham Eshed, ICA founding member Gemstar.
"With more than 50 years in the emerald industry, I can definitely say that the combination of size and quality is like no other. This extraordinary piece weighs 7,525 carats and is considered to be the largest high-quality gem ever mined in Africa."
"As lifetime supporters of African gemstones, we are very proud to be the new owners of the Chipembele. For us, Chipembele is an inspiration and a symbol of the beauty and quality of African emeralds."
"The Chipembele carries DNA-based nano-sized particles, a process developed by Gübelin Gem Lab. These nanoparticles ensure that, in the case of cutting the piece, the polished gems it yields can still be identified and certified as having originated from this extraordinary gemstone."
"We are pleased to share new photos of the Rhino emerald with ICA."
Photo Credit: Eshed - Gemstar
In the photos: Liran Eshed, Avraham Eshed, Lior Eshed (Left to right)
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Post Tucson Gems & Minerals Shows - Our ICA Members Were There! |
Exhibiting Members in Tucson
ICA Office
As you know, our two premier Tucson events, the GILC and ICA Reception were postponed. But the shows did go on! Our exhibiting ICA members were there! Click on the ICA Exhibitors Tucson Show Guide 2022 for more information about who they were and what they had with them!
(If you picked up a printed ICA Show Guide in Tucson, please note that there were many last minute changes to the GJX floorplan, so make sure to keep this online Show Guide as your best reference.)
Covid Concerns Remain - By the Numbers
In Pima County, masks are still recommended for vaccinated individuals in public indoor spaces to reduce the spread of the Delta and Omicron variants, but the numbers are certainly getting better.
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ICA's InColor Magazine Winter Issue - Coping with Covid |
ICA News
Our latest InColor Magazine, a special issue about how the jewelry industry in general, and the colored gemstone industry in particular, have coped during a global pandemic and how such an experience has changed them, has been shipped to our members and is available online!
Included is a tribute to the life of the former Editor in Chief, Jean Claude Michelou, as well as articles about how the industry has adapted and changed due to Covid, written by renowned authors, covering the industry's leading challenges and the effects of Covid-19 in the global supply chain around the globe.
This latest issue also includes articles about trends, auctions, book reviews and jewelry designer interviews, as well as collector's points of view.
"In many ways, the theme of this issue is All Change. Covid has affected—and indeed changed—us all. Some have experienced the life-changing loss of loved ones; many have felt the restrictions on business as much as leisure; and we have all encountered the differing degrees and effects of physical shutdowns. From an industry perspective, the effects have been enormous, influencing different regions in different ways (Coping With Covid – Around the World, pp. 34-47)."
Helen Molesworth,
Editor in Chief, InColor magazine
Tucson attendees also got a chance to pick up a copy of the magazine. According to the ICA booth inside the AGTA Gem Fair, almost 300 copies of the magazine were distributed.
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UArizona Gem & Mineral Museum is Open! |
University of Arizona News
After four years of renovations, the Alfie Norville Gem & Mineral Museum has officially opened in its new space in the Pima County Historic Courthouse – complete with a world-class collection that includes Tucson's "own little Hope Diamond" and other rare items.
What sets the University of Arizona's Alfie Norville Gem & Mineral Museum apart from similar museums around the country? The answer might be found in the ampersand in its name.
That "&" declares the museum a world-class destination to see both minerals and gemstones, which is not typical for other museums focused on mineralogy or gemology, said geologist Elizabeth Gass, the museum's exhibit specialist.
For the uninitiated: Minerals are inorganic solids that occur naturally in Earth's crust. A gemstone is a mineral plus anything else – organic, inorganic or even synthetic – added for aesthetics.
"When you take something that looks pretty and make it look prettier, that's a gemstone," Gass said as she stood in the museum's Mineral Evolution Gallery, where display cases filled with many "pretty" things caught and refracted the showroom lights around her.
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From Boucheron to Louis Vuitton, the Most Jaw-Dropping Jewels From Paris High-Jewelry Week |
RobbReport.com
The ongoing pandemic may have put a tiny chill on the recent high jewelry presentations in Paris, but the luxury jewelers that did hold private appointments - Including Boucheron, Cindy Chao, Chopard, De Beers and Louis Vuitton—brought more than enough fire (or should we say ice?) to set the City of Light ablaze, metaphorically speaking. We’ve cherrypicked the highlights below.
How do you revive the magnificent jewels of the Maharajas for the modern era?
Go monochromatic.
Boucheron creative director, Claire Choisne, has a knack for turning the simplicity of airy-looking jewels and stones into splendor. For the recent collection high-jewelry collection in January, a season when the house typically revisits its archives, Choisne was inspired by a legendary event in the maison’s history when, in 1928, the Maharaja of Patiala arrived on Boucheron’s doorstep to place the largest special order in history in Paris’ jewelry mecca, the Place Vendôme.
Nothing about the occasion was discrete. He arrived with 40 servants in tow, booked 35 rooms at the Ritz and was escorted to the company’s boutique by Sikh guards carrying iron safes filled to the brim with jewels. Already a physical titan at a towering 6 foot 7, he intended to accentuate his royal presence to the ultimate heights in 149 unique designs. Unfortunately, while the sketches survived, the jeweled creations did not. Their whereabouts are unknown and the pieces have never been seen past his generation, save for one photo of his son wearing a necklace. So, it was a heavy task for Choisne to reinterpret the designs for modern royalty. ...
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Sotheby’s Sets $48M Price Tag for De Beers Blue |
RAPAPORT
A record blue diamond co-owned by De Beers will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in April, carrying a price estimate of $48 million.
The step-cut, 15.10-carat, fancy-vivid-blue, internally flawless stone is the largest of its color to appear at auction, Sotheby’s said Wednesday. The diamond will feature in a stand-alone sale in Hong Kong as part of the auction house’s Luxury Week.
“Blue diamonds of any kind are rare on the market, but this is the rarest of the rare; nothing of remotely similar caliber has appeared at auction in recent years,” said Sotheby’s Asia chairman Patti Wong. “Brought to dazzling life by the hand of one of the world’s most skillful cutters, it is the ultimate masterpiece — as rare and desirable as the very greatest works of art. At a time of unprecedented demand for the finest, world-class, colored diamonds, we are incredibly excited to bring to the market what is sure to become one of the most celebrated gems in the world.”
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This huge black diamond just sold for $4.3 million. No one knows where it came from. |
nationalgeographic.com
With a final closing bid of $4.28 million, an anonymous buyer just became the new owner of the 555.55-carat black diamond known as the Enigma. The sale of this bizarre stone has reignited a long-simmering debate about where it came from, stoked by the controversial theory that it may have arrived from outer space.
The Enigma and all other carbonado diamonds formed in a mysterious event some 3.8 to 2.6 billion years ago. Jet black, opaque, and full of visible holes, carbonados have a unique combination of physical and chemical features unlike any other known diamonds.
They are found in only two regions of the world—Brazil and the Central African Republic—and can grow astonishingly large. The group includes the hulking 3,167-carat Brazilian carbonado known as Sergio—the largest diamond ever found. And the Enigma itself is no small rock at nearly the size of a racquetball. "This is a pretty honking big diamond," says Thomas Stachel, a mineralogist specializing in diamonds at the University of Alberta.
Until recently, though, carbonados were recognized not for their beauty but for their toughness. Unlike the single crystals of traditional gem diamonds, carbonados are ...
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Bucherer’s Pastello Collection Brings the Beach Vacation Home |
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WMagazine.com
A piece of fine jewelry or classic investment timepiece is never just an accessory—there’s always a rich story behind it. In W’s series Rock Stars, we delve into what makes past, present, and future heirlooms so unique.
The house of Bucherer was founded out of Mina Bucherer’s curiosity to discover far-flung gemstones and her husband, Carl’s, desire to encourage her passion. In the 1920s, when they ran their eponymous jewelry atelier out of Lucerne, Mina traveled the world in pursuit of the most spectacular gemstones for the atelier’s creations.
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Chopard Buys 6,225-carat Emerald for Undisclosed Sum |
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Israeli Diamond Institute
The stone could yield “a dedicated high jewelry collection with infinite possibilities”
Swiss-based jeweler Chopard has bought a 1.22 kg, 6,225-carat emerald – one of the world’s largest – for an undisclosed sum, IDEX Online reports. Chopard said that the raw stone will enable it “to create a dedicated high jewelry collection with infinite possibilities”.
Chopard said that the emerald will highlight its Exceptional Gemstones presentation at its flagship store in Paris.
The huge emerald was recovered by Gemfields at its Kagem mine in Zambia in February 2010. It was named “Insofu” – “elephant” in Bemba. The language spoken by the people indigenous to the region where the impressive stone was mined ...
Those who attended ICA's Jaipur Congress in 2017 got a close up view of Insofu, presented by Sean Gilbertson of Gemfields and Rajkumar Tongya of Precious Jewels.
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Dubai Jewellery Fair Debuts in February Amid COVID Surge |
jewellermagazine.com
Undaunted by the rise of COVID cases worldwide, the Jewellery, Gem & Technology (JGT) Dubai will push through with the inaugural show on 22 to 24 February at the Dubai World Trade Centre, according to organisers.
Suppliers from Hong Kong, Belgium, Italy, India, and the UAE will exhibit at the three-day buying event which organisers said is “the industry’s first in-person B2B event of the year”.
The exhibition will feature jewellery, rough diamonds, gemstones, jewellery parts and components and technology solutions and equipment.
“We are thrilled to kickstart the global jewellery event calendar with a premier marketplace featuring best-in-class exhibitors in Dubai, one of the most exciting cities in the world” - David Bondi, Informa Markets-Asia
JGT Dubai is organised by Informa Markets – which produces the Jewellery & Gem World Hong Kong and Jewellery & Gem ASIA shows – and Italian Exhibition Group, which produces Vicenzaoro.
Organisers have partnered with the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre for the show and have assured exhibitors and attendees that the venue will be ‘COVID-safe for trade exhibitions. The Dubai World Trade Centre is ...
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Afghanistan's Emerald Mountains |
Gandhara: Stories From Afghanistan And Pakistan
In Afghanistan's Panjshir Province, former police officers and soldiers scrape together a living by digging emeralds out of the frigid Hindu Kush Mountains.
These men are sifting through piles of stone on the hunt for glistening green emeralds that will eventually adorn jewelry.
The gem-rich Hindu Kush Mountains flank the Mikeni Valley, which lies around 130 kilometers northeast of Kabul, and have been mined systematically since the 1970s.
One of the miners told AFP that he used to head an anti-terrorism unit of the Afghan police. When the Western-backed government collapsed in the face of the Taliban's advance last summer, he tried selling used clothing on the street but says "it didn't work out" and he soon headed to the hills to hunt for emeralds ....
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Rapaport Jewelry Connoisseur
Amethyst is arguably one of the most distinctive and ubiquitous gemstones in decorative jewelry. In ancient times, it was considered as valuable as ruby and emerald, and it has associations with mythology, Saint Valentine and high-ranking clerics of the Catholic church.
Legend has it that the semiprecious quartz got its name from the nymph Amethyste, who came under the wrath of Bacchus, the god of wine. For this reason, these gems were often studded or carved into goblets as protection against intoxication and to stave off evil spells.
Today, esoterica adherents believe the calming February birthstone possesses a tranquilizing energy, clearing the mind and relieving stress. The first known amethyst mines were discovered in the 18th century in Russia and Brazil, with Russian specimens being the most prized for their deep “imperial” purple. “With a distinctive red secondary hue, [the Russian variety] is truly luminous and has a richness to it that makes it very desirable,” says Sara Thomeier, head of jewelry for the Americas at auction house Phillips. ...
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7 Ultra-Rare Precious Stones We Saw at the Tuscon Gem Shows |
Robb Report
For all its beauty, however, the ruby was far from the show’s most superlative stone.
Robb Report surveyed dealers [...] and assembled a list of the rarest and most expensive gems to be found, some as loose stones and others set into jewels.
Below, we offer a highly debatable list of Tucson’s finest stones, in ascending order of suggested retail value.
(featuring ICA's own Omi Privé 2.21-carat Grandidierite)
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Jewelry Belonging to Victoria, Lady de Rothschild, Heads to Auction |
National Jeweler
Jewelry from the collection of the late Victoria, Lady de Rothschild, is heading to auction next month at Dreweatts’ London showroom.
The auction is scheduled for March 8 and 9, featuring her jewelry as well as a selection of silver and tableware.
Victoria, Lady de Rothschild, was born in Daytona Beach, Florida on Sept. 17, 1949, as Victoria Lou Schott, according to her obituary in The New York Times.
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Brand Heritage Remains the Top Source of Inspiration for the World's Best Jewelry Houses |
Veranda magazine
Every January, the haute couture shows and high jewelry presentations take place in Paris, providing a much-needed jolt of inspiration, freshness, and beauty.
One-of-a-kind gowns that take hours upon hours to come to life cascade down the various runways, while the jewelry maisons employ their most talented and artistic to create the intricate high jewelry collections that tell the amazing stories of each house.
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The 40 Most Expensive Jewels Ever Sold at Auction |
Town & Country magazine
What gets top dollar? The six most expensive jewels—each above $40 million—were fancy colored pink and blue diamonds.
They are rare natural wonders that auction experts compared to great works of art; there is only one and it can’t be repeated.
But even better than art, buyers can wear these jewels every day—though some may require a security guard.
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Member Resources & Initiatives |
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It is intended that members who undertake this accreditation process will understand more fully their duty of care within the gem and jewelry supply chain. It is designed to be a practical self-audit and a voluntary pledge on responsible sourcing. |
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We want to make a difference by providing assistance to artisanal mining and cutting communities, which will focus on the key areas of concern: safety, human rights, fair work, inclusiveness, environmental impact, resource sustainability and community amenity. |
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Images of colored gems from around the globe, plus all aspects of the colored gem industry including mining, cutting, manufacture, gemmological research, education, marketing, design and retailing. |
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In the hopes to be of service to members, the ICA has put together this small compendium of resources related to COVID-19 and its challenges and opportunities. |
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Promote your business in ICA's website. It has over 40,000 pageviews per month. There are several placements and special prices.
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Promote your business in ICA's Newsletter, it goes out to over 10,000 subscribers every month. Get a monthly banner and be seen by the industry.
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Amethyst
The deposits with the greatest economic significance are in various states in southern Brazil and in neighbouring Uruguay. The third major export country is Madagascar. However, this gemstone is spread all over the world. Good specimens were found in Aztec graves, though the deposits from which they were extracted are no longer known today. On the Canadian side of Lake Superior in North America, there is a place named Amethyst Harbor.
The violet quartz is found there in ample quantities, though rarely in gemstone quality. The fame of Idar-Oberstein, the German gemstone centre, is based on domestic amethyst finds. In earlier times, raw material was delivered there from the Zillertal Alps. When these nearby deposits ceased to yield, the old cutters' tradition was able to be preserved thanks to supplies organised by German emigrés in South America. Russian amethysts, which were mainly mined in winter in the Urals, were once famous for their particularly beautiful colour, which shone magnificently even in artificial light. In Tibet there were amethyst rosaries, for there the gemstone was dedicated to Buddha and was said to promote clarity of mind. In Sri Lanka, stones which have rolled down on their own are found in debris.
However, the amethyst is more likely to turn up in spaces lining agate almonds and druses in igneous rocks. What was presumed to be the largest-ever cavity was discovered in 1900 in Rio Grande do Sul. The almond measured ten by five by three metres (33 by 16 by 10 ft.) and weighed an estimated eight tonnes. The dark violet amethysts, some as large as a man's fist, may have weighed some 700 cwt. altogether ...
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February 2022
Greetings from the ICA,
Tucson has concluded its gems and minerals shows, and it appears that the US is one country that appears to be on its way to being open again to holding safe in-person trade shows. What this means is that ICA is looking to June's JCK show with great anticipation!
There are still supply chain concerns, so we are not quite back to normal. Case in point, InColor Magazine.
InColor issue #48 was delivered to Tucson and mailed to all ICA members. However, that distribution challenge will affect shipping to several destinations, as certain countries have placed restrictions on parcel deliveries due to continuing Covid concerns. This would include gemstone shipments as well. But things are changing rapidly, so we are always prepared to pivot.
The NEW Members Portal on the ICA's website is open and active (find the link above). Members have been able to network easily and it's not just for catching up with old friends and making new ones, but for making new business as well. Watch for member expert advice and supply side tips coming soon.
2022 has been a good year already for ICA membership as our numbers have been growing steadily these first 6 weeks. If you are not yet an ICA member, please get in touch with the ICA office to take advantage of ICA member benefits and most importantly to support the global Colored Gemstone Industry.
As always, if we can help with anything from the office, do not hesitate to contact us directly.
On behalf of the President, the Board of Directors, and the ICA office staff (Claudiu, Cecilia, and Maggie),
Best wishes, keep healthy and stay safe,
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Gary Roskin
Chief Executive Officer
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