The news delighted insiders earlier this month: Tiffany & Co. got their hands on a lot of 35 pink diamonds.
Their weight is not spectacular, oscillating between 0.35 and 1.52 carats (ie, for the largest, the size of a small coffee bean) but their value is inestimable.
For what ?
Because they come from the Argyle mine in Australia, the only source in the world to give this type of stone, of this quality and this color, whose annual production fits in a glass of champagne!
What makes this lot even more precious is that the mine will never yield any more, since it closed its doors for good in November 2020, its resources having dried up after almost forty years of exploitation.
Tiffany & Co. has therefore succeeded in pocketing what the
If ordinary mortals will never have the chance to admire one of these specimens, another pink stone, prestigious and of a much more intense hue, is popular at the moment: spinel.
The finest rough of this gem long confused with the noble ruby are extracted in Burma, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
If they can reflect all colors, from blue to yellow, but reds and pinks (which also undergo very little treatment) are the most sought after.
Their price has skyrocketed in recent years.
Cartier, in its Beautés du monde collection presented at the beginning of January, mounted a dazzling gradation of fuchsia stones, cascading down the bust.
The big houses are also very fond of pink sapphires (from delicate lilac to almost fluo via salmon), notably offered to engaged couples at Mellerio, a historic jeweler on rue de la Paix which, this month, is including it in its Les Muses collection, more accessible, on a series of rings, necklaces and bracelets.
Put some pink in the cheeks
The hegemony of the four precious stones in their “classic” color of white diamond, red ruby, green emerald and blue sapphire has fizzled out.
Now, the colors are multiplying and the palette of stones used has expanded for creative reasons, but also economic and technical.
Jewelery wants to reach the greatest number of people with an increased choice, thanks to a more efficient exploration of the riches of the earth, although dependent on natural resources.
Thus quartz, opal, chalcedony stir up gluttony, as in the versions of the Les Berlingots de Cartier collection.
Rhodolites and rubellites take on new colors in the Link to Love line by Gucci.
Pink tourmaline, precious but accessible,
And since the charm of jewelry also lies in the stories it tells, morganite and kunzite, which have been very fashionable in recent years, know how to seduce the souls of adventurers, and can put rosy cheeks in the loved one. for this Valentine's Day.
They are among the stones listed more recently by George Frederick Kunz, a passionate and tireless globetrotter.
This gemologist made history by being interested in specimens other than the well-known sapphires and diamonds.
In 1902, he thus discovered in California a pastel pink silicate to which he gave his name, kunzite, used for a long time by American jewelers, such as Tiffany & Co. for which he worked.
Kunz is also at the origin of the interest carried today
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