With gold trading near an all-time high, it might be a great time to take a closer look at another undeniably elegant noble metal, platinum. Gold was in the news last Friday as it hit $2,448 per ounce due to investors flocking to the precious metal as a hedge against inflation and international uncertainty. By contrast, an ounce of platinum was priced at $1,000 per ounce, about 41% of gold’s value. Historically, platinum has traded at a premium to gold. In January of 2014, for instance, one could purchase an ounce of platinum for $1,378, while an ounce of gold sold for $1,225. In January of 1 ..read more

Back in October of 2017, thousands of astronomers from around the globe joined together to confirm the first-ever sighting of two neutron stars colliding in space. In just one second, the “kilonova” located 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra triggered the equivalent of 50 Earth masses of silver, 100 Earth masses of gold and 500 Earth masses of platinum. The scientists estimated that the gold alone was worth more than $100 octillion. That’s $100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1 followed by 29 zeroes). The astronomers aimed their equipment at the super-dense kil ..read more

Phillips is estimating that a magnificent 6.21-carat Fancy Vivid Pink diamond ring could fetch as much as $15 million as the star lot of its “Geneva Jewels Auction: TWO” on May 13. Other baubles expected to turn heads at Hotel President Geneva include a 280.84-carat Colombian emerald and a super-rare 1.56-carat Fancy Red diamond. In all, the meticulously curated sale of just over 100 lots will showcase signed jewels from illustrious houses such as Cartier, JAR, Sterlé, Suzanne Belperron, and Van Cleef & Arpels. The property of an “important private collector,” the 6.21-carat pink diamond ..read more

Welcome to Music Friday when we feature wonderful tunes with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, introspective indie artist Briston Maroney sings about achieving his life-long dream of dating a girl with “eyes of gold” and then comes to the realization that he still feels empty in his 2017 release, “June.” He sings, “Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told / My woman, she’s got eyes of gold / Well, I spend all day and I search all night / ‘Til I see ’em in that perfect light / Oh, I’m gonna see ’em in that perfect light.” The term “eyes of gold” reflects songwr ..read more

A Botswana diamond exploration company is employing artificial intelligence (AI) to make sense of 380 gigabytes of survey data that will help identify the best places to find new deposits. About the size of France, the landlocked Republic of Botswana in southern Africa produces more high-quality diamonds than any other country in the world, except for Russia. Jwaneng, in southern Botswana, is regarded as the world’s richest diamond mine, and Orapa, in northeast Botswana, is the world’s largest diamond mine by area. Making the monumental decision about where the country’s next diamond mine sho ..read more

During the April 7 episode of Gold Rush: White Water, Dustin Hurt and his mining team are moved to tears after pulling a near-6-ounce nugget from their Alaskan claim. The extraordinary find — which is estimated to be worth more than $20,000 — came at a time when the crew was struggling to make ends meet. They saw the nugget as the late Fred Hurt’s way of saying thanks to the team for following his crazy dream of white water gold mining. Fred was 80 years old when he succumbed to brain cancer only four month’s after being diagnosed with the disease. The veteran miner and father of Dustin was t ..read more

Sparkling with 250 diamonds weighing a total of 4.10 carats, the Columbus Crew’s 2023 MLS Cup ring celebrates the team’s third championship and tells the story of an inspiring playoff campaign and a franchise steeped in soccer tradition. The Crew’s journey to the MLS Cup was one of determination, resilience, tenacity and emotion. After multiple hard-fought matches leading up to a final showdown with defending champion LAFC, the Black & Gold emerged victorious and became one of only three clubs with three MLS titles (2008, 2020 and 2023). “Like earning a championship, this ring is timeless ..read more

Determined to keep her relationship status with pro football player Nnamdi Asomugha a secret, actress Kerry Washington pinned her engagement ring to her “undergarments” — for three years. “I loved my ring so much, so I would sleep in it at night, and then in the morning, I would pin it to my undergarments so that nobody knew we were engaged,” she told James Corden during a recent appearance on his SiriusXM show, This Life of Mine. She explained that she took extreme measures to keep their three-year engagement and summer 2013 wedding hidden from the prying eyes of the paparazzi because they w ..read more

Welcome to Music Friday when we unravel the mysteries behind famous songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, we’re bending the rules a bit to visit Carly Simon’s 1972 hit, “You’re So Vain,” the most popular song ever to use the phrase “total eclipse of the sun.” This is a particularly timely subject because on Monday, April 8, a rare total eclipse — and the resulting “Diamond Ring Effect” — will be visible to curious sky gazers on a long, bending path that starts at the Texas/Mexico border and exits in the Maritime provinces of Canada. The next total ecl ..read more

Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, one of the original cast members of MTV’s hit series Jersey Shore, turned to Instagram on Monday to announce her engagement to boyfriend Justin May — and to show off her new diamond ring. The 37-year-old told her 3.8 million followers that she was the “happiest and luckiest girl in the world” and shared closeup shots of a prong-set round diamond solitaire on a thin yellow gold band. Giancola’s new bling mirrors the recent resurgence of yellow gold and solitaire settings, as reported in The Knot’s 2023 “Real Weddings Study.” In a post sprinkled with a series of em ..read more