Black Opal

It is most-sought-after variety of opal. It is treasure all over the world because in this particular colour, the colour play is displayed at its best. It comes in all deep and dark colour variations.

Opal

Play of colors.

Black Opal

Boulder Opal

It possess natural brown body colour or the back that appears black from the front. It is too available in all colour variations. Often it possesses rolling surface and ironstone inclusions. It can be given any innovative cut.

Australian opal

Australian Opal

Rough black matrix opals

Australian Opal

Black Australian opals from Lightning Ridge, Australia

Rough Opals

Opal from a mine in the state of Utah. These are in the rough, unprocessed form.

Green Opal

More Gemstone Resources

Sapphire with diamond

Sapphire with brilliant cut diamond ring.

Brilliant cut diamond engagement ring.

Ruby and diamond engagement ring

Aquamarine engagement ring

Ruby and diamond engagement Ring.

Aquamarine engagement ring in Yellow Gold.

Princess Escher.

Pave diamonds set engagement ring.

Five stone brilliant cut engagement ring.

Ceylon sapphire engagement ring.

Oval emerald with double row brilliant cut diamond cluster.

Cushion cut ceylon sapphire with brilliant cut diamond side stones ring. Set in platinum and yellow gold.

Brilliant cut diamond in a platinum setting.

Brilliant cut diamond with aquamarine trillian shoulders.

Oval emerald with brilliant cut diamonds.

Art Deco design diamond ring.

Marquise diamond engagement ring.

Triple diamond cluster ring with central oval diamond and pear shaped side stones.

Brilliant cut diamond with four claw setting and pave set diamonds.

More Engagement Ring Resources

Cushion shaped 38.88 carat rare diamond, sold for 6,354, 500 CHF (6 Million USD) at a auction in Geneva Nov 15th, 2011.

A Magnificent and Rare Emerald and Diamond Tiara, formerly in the Collection of Princess Katharina Henckel Von Donnersmarck, circa 1900.Sold for 11,282,500 CHF (12 Million USD) at a auction in Geneva May 17th 2011.

The fancy vivid yellow pear-shaped diamond weighing 110.03 carats, mounted in yellow gold as a ring for presentation, size 52, accompanied by a wooden presentation box. Sold for 11,282,500 CHF (12 Million USD) at Geneva, 15th Nov 2011

The emerald-cut fancy intense pink diamond weighing 10.99 carats, the shoulders set with triangular stones, mounted in platinum, size 45. Sold for 9,602,500 CHF (10 Million USD), 17th May at Geneva.

Centring on a cushion-shaped fancy vivid blue diamond weighing 6.01 carats, flanked on each side by an oval pink diamond weighing 0.46 and 0.44 carat respectively, mounted in platinum. Sold for 79,060,000 HKD (10 Million USD), at Hong Kong, 5th Oct, 2011.

Centring on a pear-shaped diamond weighing 30.31 carats, to a stylised mount highlighted by brilliant-cut diamonds, mounted in 18 karat pink gold and silver-topped gold. Sold for 43,220,000 HKD (5 Million USD), 5th Oct 2011 at Hong Kong.

Each suspending on a pear-shaped diamond weighing 14.42 and 14.04 carats respectively, surmounted by an oval diamond weighing 4.01 carats respectively, mounted in platinum. Sold for 37,620,000 HKD (4 Million USD), at Hong Kong, 6th April 2011.

The cushion-shaped ruby weighing 30.20 carats of exceptional colour, flanked by pear-shaped diamonds weighing respectively 2.00 and 2.02 carats, mounted in platinum, Sold For 3,778,500 CHF (4 Million USD), Geneva 17th May 2011.

Composed of five graduated rows of natural pearls, measuring from approximately 3.75 to 12.05mm, set to the sides with two shield-shaped plaques, set with circular- and single-cut diamonds, Sold for 3,050,500 CHF (3 Million USD), Geneva 15th Nov 2011.

The marquise-shaped diamond of fancy vivid blue color weighing 3.18 carats, within an openwork mounting designed as a flower set throughout with small round near colorless diamonds, mounted in 18 karat pink gold, sold for 3,274,500 USD, New York, 14th April.

Designed as a stylised floral spray, the flower head centres, mounted en tremblant, set with three cushion-shaped sapphires weighing 6.71, 7.00 and 10.21 carats respectively, the petals set with marquise-shaped diamonds, the stem with baguette diamonds. Sold for 1,426,500 CHF (1 Million USD), Geneva 17th May 2011.

Simply set with a cushion-shaped fancy vivid orange diamond weighing 4.19 carats, to a shank set throughout with brilliant-cut diamonds, mounted in 18 karat white gold, sold for 23,060,000 HKD (2 Million USD), Hong Kong, 5th October 2011.

More Diamond Resources

Created by: Masters Degree Online

Right now the gaming industry is ruled by 3 consoles. Those are the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the Wii from Nintendo, and the PlayStation 3 from Sony. They are the benchmarks, the 3 players in a billion dollar industry, and they are the backbones of most games out there. All 3 are the latest generation of consoles that follow a long line before them, and each brought innovations that were unique to them. But what will the next generation look like?

Processing / Graphics power: For now there’s no question the Wii is the most underpowered device. When releasing it, Nintendo decided to go for innovation with the Wii Remote instead of better graphics. The PS3 and Xbox 360 however were top of the line at the time. But now, they aren’t much to look at. With a PowerPC CPU and 512MB of RAM, the 360 is much weaker than any modern gaming PC which typically features 8GB of RAM or more. For the next generation, it’s obvious they will all be much beefed up. For example, Intel right now is working hard on low-power chips. These CPUs provide a lot of performance using 8 cores or more, while producing very little heat, which will help with the notorious heating issues Microsoft had, but not sure Microsoft goes with Intel chips instead of PowerPC CPUs.  Sony adopting more easier programmable CPUs or sticking to powerful cell processor is still unknown. Instead of multiple competing architecture a consolidation on the processor architecture may help content creators and consumers, but it is unlikely to happen in the competitive console market where Sony and Microsoft trying to grab computing share in living room.

On top of that, graphics have improved as well. Right now, the latest DirectX provides amazing advances to PC gamers, and those will no doubt be replicated on a next generation console. Sony however may have a harder road ahead. Using OpenGL, it seems like support for the latest technologies, at least on the PC, is lagging behind slightly.

Controllers: Movement based controls, started with the Wii Remote, have been replicated on all consoles with Kinect and PS Move. There’s no doubt these will be integral in the next generation of consoles. Both Sony and Microsoft are spending a lot of research hours working on improving those technologies, and soon we’ll see software that can recognize a whole room, replicate it in real time in 3D, and recreate your environment, along with yourself, on the screen. That screen will support 3D as well, so it’s going to end up being very Meta. We may even see Microsoft and Sony doing what Nintendo did, and ditching the controller altogether.

Content creation: One of the major problems for game developers is making games for multiple consoles. The programming models are different, they use different hardware and APIs, and they have different capabilities. This is an area I don’t see changing at all. Even with all the talk of trying to standardize, the simple fact is that each company wants its own standard to win, since they already invested so much in them. There’s no question that unless a very powerful standard emerges, it will be just as difficult creating games for the next generation of consoles.

One caveat to that however is if these consoles provide full HTML5 support. Small games, which are typically made in XNA, Java, Flash or Silverlight now, may be done in HTML5, and work on all consoles as well as computers seamlessly.

Content consumption: The three companies are betting a lot on online services, with Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and the Wii channels. But Microsoft also focuses on a slightly different area. Since they launched Windows Phone 7, they’ve been working hard to integrate all their platforms together. Already we’re seeing games that link the Xbox, computer, and phone, and provide a seamless play among the devices, which may give them an edge over the others, although we’ve seen the others try similar things with their portable devices at least, and with Sony’s new Android based gaming platform. Whatever the next consoles are, chances are they will be highly connected, perhaps even serving as a home based Wi-Fi hot spot, to which all your gadgets talk to, and can stream anything from the web.

Content Distribution: Gone are the days of removable media. While the current consoles use DVDs, Blu-rays and HD-DVDs, there’s a high probability the next consoles will have no removable media at all, at least not integrated to the devices. All three companies are pushing their own versions of an App Store, and it’s likely to become the main way to get games from. Microsoft is even bringing their App Store to Windows 8, so you know they’re serious about it.

Look: As for what the physical consoles will look like, it’s hard to say. In all 3 cases, the shape of the devices changed a lot, so the tech giants are likely to drastically change their shapes and sizes once again. Everything seems to be going smaller, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if the next generation consoles look tiny compared with the large boxes we currently have. But in the end, another console war will benefit the players, who have been waiting impatiently for some time now, and could use a new console, just in time for when the economy picks back up.

As reported earlier, The Sun drop Diamond, a giant Yellow diamond weighing 110.3 carats, has sold for more than $10.9 million at a auction in Sotheby Geneva, Tuesday, Nov 15th.  An unidentified telephone buyer paid almost $12.4 million for the gem, including the commision. Sotheby earlier estimated the dimaond may go under hammer with in range of 10 to 15 million USD.

It is a record sale, beating previos records for a jewel of this type, Yellow diamond sold for this big price is first time, said David Bennet, the head of Sotheby’s diamond and jewelry division. This is eighth most expensive diamond ever sold in an auction, as David said.

At this price estimate, there are only half a dozen people who can actually participate, said Mourad Hatik, a geneva based jewel trader.

Including commission, the unidentified telephone bidder paid almost $12.4 million for the gem, putting it within the $11 million to $15 million range Sotheby’s had estimated before the sale.

The Sun Drop, which was found in South Africa last year, was put up for sale by New York based company Cora International. GIA, the reputed Gemstone valuation, and education institute, had rated it as fancy, vivid yellow,the highest possible color grading and purity of VVS1, highest again. Yellow diamonds are created by nitrogen impurities being trapped within carbon molecules and hardening over the course of millions of years.  And the proud owner, and the buyer is still unknown, which sotheby declined to comment.

Created by: Marketing Degree

Why gold price sky rocket recently, data and facts

The recent times have seen a remarkable shoot up in the gold prices which have left every firm and organization awestruck and thinking. One of the main reasons for the increasing rise in gold prices is the rising shortfall in the balance of trade of theUnited States. This deficit in turn is caused due to the increase in the proportion of the imports in the private consumption inclusive of the export volume. For instance, the ratio of the rise in imports and exports is 1.4%, then the deficit in the balance of trade becomes 0.4% which leads to the increase in the gold prices.

The US manufacturing base hence owing to the depression period has been shipped overseas along with creating jobs in either the government or the service sector. The volatility infects the stock market, resulting theUSgovernment falling into a huge gulch of amounting to a multi trillion dollar deficits and even unfunded liabilities. To evolve from this deep hole the country levies high taxes and austerity measures.

Secondly, the gold price is also shooting up due to the decline in the production in the gold producing countries. Few of the major gold producing countries areCanada,United States,South Africa,Australia,PhilippinesandChina.

On the other hand, many a times the rise in gold prices is also in respect to the economic and political events in the world. Due to the fluctuations in both these sectors the global markets saw an increase of nearly 25% as compared to the previous year. Further the exchange rates of the various currencies generally particularly in dollar, in turn prompt some countries to store huge quantities of raw gold. This is done in the anticipation of them being exposed to the political risks and hence for security.

Moreover, the fear and minute hint of risk provoke the investors to abandon everything. The sovereign-debt crisis inGreeceandIcelandhas lead to threatening the entire world. This has further leaded the investors to shift assets from weak currencies and euro to gold.

Demand is another major factor which leads to the increase in price of gold in the recent years. For instance, the Federal Reserve has always kept the interest rates of US nearly zero, without any sign of increment which in turn always keeps the opportunity cost lowers of buying gold. The major reason for the increase in gold prices is due to its acceptance worldwide as the safest value to store.

Moreover, owing to the loss of interest in paper currencies, the desire for gold is and will continue to increase exponentially.  Also, the world’s central banks have now become the major buyers of gold instead of the sellers. For instance,Beijingis not only stocking gold but is also in turn encouraging its citizens to buy gold. In fact, the creation of paper gold although has inherent risks, has definitely increased both the demand and the price of gold in the recent years.

Further, dollars health in today and the longer run both remain dependent on the foreigner’s appetite in respect to theUSassets. This will however decline owing to the fact that the economy will falter as the government will continue to inject the additional liquidity. Dollar weakness, policy reflection and plentiful liquidity will remain to be persistent in the future as well leading to the increment in the gold prices.

The reason for the dollar weakness owes to the monetary and massive fiscal stimulus which has emerged from the European debt crisis. The rise in gold prices is clear with the figures where gold price in 2002 was 24.7% USD and 25.9% USD in 2011, which results to an average increase of 20.7%USD.

Gold prices increasing at a speeding rate is sure to affect the stock market, the investors, organizations and definitely the common man up to a great extent. The economic and political conditions of various countries are still fluctuating and are sure to affect the gold rates in the near future. Moreover, with gold being looked forward to safest value to store, the prices seem to be rising further by leaps and bounds.

Christopher Michale Shellis sandals: $229,169

Made with solid gold and 30 carats of diamonds.

Stuart Weitzmans Diamond Dream Stilettos : $500,000

1,420 Carat diamonds set in platinum.

Stuart Weitzman’s Cinderella Slippers – $2 million

595 carats of platinum-set Kwiat diamonds. The 5-carat diamond on the left shoe is worth $1 million.

Stuart Weitzman Retro Rose Pumps – $1 million

1,800 Kwiat diamonds weighing 100 carats.

Stuart Weitzman’s Ruby Slippers – $1.6 million

Encrusted with 642 rubies, a half a pound of platinum settings.

Stuart Weitzman’s Tanzanite Sandals – $2 million

Encrusted with 185 carats of rare blue tanzanite gemstones and 28 carats of diamonds.

Stuart Weitzman’s Rita Hayworth Heels – $3 million

These heels are adorned with rubies, sapphires and diamonds.

Harry Winston’s Ruby Slippers – $3 million

1,350 carats of rubies, plus 50 carats of diamonds.