Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Diamond-Covered iPhone 4S: Now The World's Most Expensive Phone!


Some people say that you are what you eat, and many people say you are what you use. Do you like expensive things? Are you a collector by any chance? How far would you go to own a phone that many people cannot dare to earn even in their lifetime of work and sacrifices?

Introducing the diamond collection iPhone 4, now the world's most expensive mobile phone on the planet!

This ultra expensive handset is brought to you by Stuart Hughes, the same British designer who made the iPhone 3GS Supreme (1.92 million pounds) and the iPad Supreme Gold (129,995 pounds).

What makes this particular iPhone 4 cost too much? Diamonds, of course, and lots of them! Over 500 diamonds can be found on the phone's exterior body, with a total of over 100 carats. It also comes with its own a special granite box.

Other goodies include two interchangeable diamonds which fit over the "home" button - a single cut 7.4 carat pink diamond and a rare 8 carat single cut flawless diamond. The back of the phone is plated in rose gold and the Apple logo glitters with 53 diamonds.

The phone cost $5.5 million pounds or almost $9.5 million US dollars!

Diamond Earrings

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Saturday, January 21, 2012

How Diamond-Studded Magma Rises From Earth's Depths


The recipe for making diamonds is no secret: Take carbon and squeeze it under the extremely high temperatures and pressures found deep inside the Earth.

The mystery lies in how the prized gemstones then get delivered from the depths to parts of Earth's crust that are accessible to miners.

According to a new study, diamonds can be carried up through the lithosphere—the crust and uppermost layer of the mantle—by dense magmas rich in carbonate.

"These melts are really quite special, because they can hold a huge amount of dissolved carbon dioxide, up to 40 to 45 percent by weight," said study leader James "Kelly" Russell, a petrologist from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Previous models had suggested that gases in the magma would increase its buoyancy, helping to push the diamond-laden melt closer to the surface without destroying the precious gems.

The new lab experiments now show how molten carbonate reacts with other chemicals in Earth's lithosphere to release the gas, offering a likely mechanism for speeding up the dense magma.

"Let There Be a Gas Phase"
Natural diamond production begins deep beneath the planet's oldest continents, where Earth's lithosphere can extend to depths of 75 miles (120 kilometers), Russell said.

There, a type of material called kimberlite magma forces its way up from deeper in Earth's mantle, cracking the solid rock.

As it rises, the magma collects fragments of rocks, like floodwaters picking up silt and gravel. Some of these fragments contain diamonds.

But the diamond-containing rocks are heavy, and the magma picks up enough of them that its progress should be substantially slowed, Russell said.

Diamonds, however, have to rise quickly, or they will be destroyed as they pass through zones of intermediate pressure, where the gems can be rapidly consumed by high-temperature oxidation.

The best estimates are that, in order for the diamonds to make it, the magma must travel all the way to the surface in about 10 to 45 hours—moving at about 3 to 13 feet (1 to 4 meters) a second.

The only way for magma to rise so quickly, Russell and others have long believed, is if the melt is supercharged with gas—but nobody knew where such gas might come from.

"Prior models have been [rather] deus ex machina—let there be a gas phase," he said.

Diamonds Caught in Volcano Plumbing
In the new paper, Russell and colleagues found that as carbonate-rich magma passes through overlying rocks on its way toward the surface, it quickly dissolves those rocks' silica-rich minerals.

In high-temperature and high-pressure lab experiments, this process can start happening within tens of minutes.

The resulting mixture of molten silica and carbonate can't carry as much dissolved carbon dioxide as the original magma.

Large quantities of gas therefore bubble out, causing the magma to rise even quicker, until it reaches the surface in an explosive eruption.

More importantly for miners, long after the resulting volcano has been eroded into invisibility on the surface, its interior plumbing remains, leaving behind kimberlite "pipes" that may be rich in diamonds.

Diamond Earrings

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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Graff Diamonds Sues Hong Kong Pawn Shop Over Diamond Stolen in 2007 Heist


Graff Diamonds Ltd. sued a Hong Kong pawn shop seeking the return of a yellow diamond that the jewelry retailer says was stolen from a London store in 2007.

The 16.64 carat diamond was part of more than $20 million in jewelry stolen from Graff’s store on Sloane Street in London on July 5, 2007, according to the complaint in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The pawn shop, Yau On Co., submitted a stone to the Gemological Institute of America, a non-profit group based in Carlsbad, California, that sets standards for gemstone quality, analysis, grading and certification, according to the complaint.

The institute determined that the stone submitted by Yau was the yellow diamond stolen in the robbery, which had at some point been recut and reconstituted as a 16.28 carat modified cushion cut diamond, according to the Jan. 6 complaint. Yau has refused to agree to allow the institute to return the stone, which is being held in a lab in New York pending resolution of the dispute, according to the complaint.

Graff is asking a judge to declare that it’s the true owner of the diamond and to order the jewel immediately returned to the company. It also seeks the costs of the lawsuit and attorney fees.

Pawn Shop Spokesman

Danny Hung, a spokesman for Yau On and the son of the owner, said in a phone interview that he wouldn’t have bought the stone had he known its history.

Hung said he took in the diamond from someone who he didn’t identify and that it was once owned by someone wealthy in mainland China. Hung said he had a certificate for the stone that wasn’t issued by the owner’s company and that he later found out it was a stolen item from London.

Graff is preparing to raise $1 billion in an IPO in Hong Kong next year, a person familiar with the matter said in November. The company’s founder and chairman, Laurence Graff, 73, who was listed at 459 on Forbes magazine’s list of worldwide billionaires in March with a net worth of $2.5 billion, has twice set records buying gems at auction.

Diamond Earrings

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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Explore more about wine through San Francisco wine tours

A northern part of San Francisco is the place for wine tours and most predominately Napa Valley and Sonoma. Usually tourists are picked up from their respective hotels or any given landmarks and the tourist guides used to show them through the wine tour. Wine Tours might vary las some may be a day trip while others are overnight tours.


Napa Valley Wine Country Tour with Lunch


The Napa Experience Tour by the Wine Country Tour Shuttle is the Most Comprehensive Napa Valley Winery Tour from San Francisco! This tour provides many great unique features such as 4 Premium Napa Winery Stops, Goes into the heart of Napa Valley not just nearby, Picnic Lunch, Winery Tours and the best part a 50 minute relaxing Ferry/Bay Cruise from Napa area back to San Francisco (which totally avoids traffic coming home). This tour is truly unbelievable from the expert narration from their Wine Country Guides to the great wineries they visit. At only $99 per person, plus tasting fees (we highly recommend this unique tour). Tour Highlights include: Andretti Winery,V. Sattui Winery (Picnic Lunch Included), Franciscan Estate Winery and White Hall Lane (Winery Tour included) and a unique Ferry/Bay Cruise to the San Francisco that completely avoids going home traffic.


Redwoods and Wine Country tours


Redwoods and Wine Country tours is a one day trip that is accompanied along with hotel pick up and drop facility. This tour makes you travel through the wine country where you get to enjoy the wine samples and also get to learn more about winery. The tour usually takes passenger through the Muir Woods National Monument and over the Golden Gate Bridge. The tour package usually includes three wineries and halts at a winery wind cave.


Wine Country Tour


The Wine Country Redwoods Combo tour combines nature and culture. Heading over San Francisco after you are picked up at your hotel our guide takes you over the Marin headlands down into Muir Woods Valley. In Muir Woods you'll spend around an hour, strolling under the Coastal Redwood Sequoia trees. Then as we head over the headlands again you will see the magnificent views of the valley and learn about historic Wine Country on your way to Sonoma


For more information's visit our site: San Francisco Tours

Friday, January 6, 2012

Most luxurious blue diamond sold by petra diamond Ltd


Petra Diamond Ltd recognized by its largest Cullinan diamond (507 carats) ever mined in the world, added yet another record to its list of attainments by selling a 4.8-carat blue diamond for a record price ever offered for a raw stone – $1.45 million.

As you may already be aware, blue diamonds are very rear due to the process of their structure. Blue diamonds are not that large as white or yellow and the largest representative of blues is the world-known The Hope Diamond (45.52 carats), which has been recently seen in a new stylish embrace. But a record-holder among blue diamond’s is a smaller gem of just 7.03 carats in size, which has been sold for an dreadful great sum of money - $9.49 million, making $1.3 million per carat.

Such high price tags for fancy colored diamonds are determined mostly by their insufficiency in number, size and of course due to high demand. Indeed, whatever the price is the celebrities are always ready to liberally spare money just to cater for their whims.

But as far as this blog is dedicated to man made diamonds, we are revolving around reasonably priced (yet not very cheap) another for mined diamond – these are man made diamonds. They can be of any color including blue, but not of any size so far. If you like diamonds and blue stone is your dream but the only difficulty on your way to buying it is its high price, then you can view lab grown diamonds as an option that can make your dream come true. With lifetime assurance and pay back, with GIA certificate confirming the 'realness' of man made diamonds, you can be sure your diamond is real.