Jewellery News

Are Jamie Hince and Kate Moss engaged? There’s a giant rock that’s dazzling on Kate’s ring finger and the world wants to know if the rumours of an engagement are true. No, she hasn’t said anything as yet but the pair was spotted at La Maison du Caviar in Paris and it looked like such a romantic lunch in the city made for love.

Kate is 35 and she and Jamie have been together for over two years now. Jamie is a musician with the rock group The Kills and he and the supermodel seem to be a great couple. So a diamond ring at this stage could probably mean just one thing – it is an engagement ring and they are not telling yet!

The stunning ruby and diamond ring in the shape of a mosquito created quite a stir when it was seen on Posh’s finger – well, her thumb actually. It’s been designed by Stephen Webster and it’s a statement that tells the world how important it is to give for malaria and eradicating it. For a jeweller to support a cause with a beautiful £15,000 is really laudable. The ring is made of white gold and it is rhodium-plated. It has a band made of black diamonds, with diamond wings and tail and a head of rubies. The ring will be auctioned to give to the cause.

Posh has been telling the world how malaria needs to be tackled considering that it is one of the prime causes of death of little children below five in Africa. In fact, there is a malaria death every thirty seconds. Every bit that can be donated counts and this gesture is truly commendable. An organisation called Malaria No More was formed to try and eradicate this ailment and they are doing a lot to get there. So the sale of this ring is going to be a great deal. There will also be 300 replica rings in a limited edition.

Benjamin Murphy from Manchester made off with trays of diamond rings as well as watches from a jewellery raid in Sheffield. The police caught him and took away his travel documents. However, when he was granted bail a few days after he was arrested, he just walked out, applied for a replacement passport and hurriedly left the country. Unfortunately, he has just joined the ranks of a number of criminals who have done the same thing. Pictures of all of them are released in the press with the hope that people who holiday abroad might chance upon them and recognise them.

Benjamin is alleged to have stolen £1.6 million worth of jewellery in this heist. He is 29 and one wonders where he is right now. There are countries in Europe where these criminals feel safe and away from being detected and caught. The list goes beyond just thieves to rapists and drug dealers too and they revel in the anonymity that the Continent offers them.

At the River Falls police station in America, there is a bag of jewellery that has been lying unclaimed for a few years. The police investigator in the case is holding on to them without auctioning them because he feels that many of them must hold sentimental value to someone as they include diamond engagement rings and wedding rings. There are also watches and necklaces in the collection.

How did it come to be in police possession? Three years ago, the police had recovered it from a man who said that a hitchhiker had given it to him. Did this girl steal from one house or maybe more? Why did she hand over the bag to a stranger? Was she stricken with conscience after she committed the crime? Whatever the motives, the fact remains that these rings and other jewellery are lying there, unclaimed, when no doubt there are people out there who are missing them. All in a bag from a store that has shut down. The police investigator is hoping that he will be able to trace the rightful owners.

The Cullinan mine near Pretoria, South Africa has once again produced a diamond that is beyond compare. This time around, it’s over 507 carats – that’s about the size of a hen’s egg! This is the same mine that produced the over-3000 carat Cullinan Diamond over a hundred years ago which is now a part of the British Crown Jewels. At that time, the dazzling diamond had been a gift to King Edward VII. Then in 1985, another diamond was found in the same mine and it was larger than the Cullinan Diamond – it was christened the Golden Jubilee Diamond.

We wonder what this whopper of a diamond is going to be called. The Cullinan mine is partly owned by Petra Diamonds, a British mining company and it was their CEO who showed off the diamond to the press recently. Finding huge diamonds seems to be becoming a habit at the Cullinan mine!

More and more women in the US are adding their engagement rings to their homeowners’ insurance policies. When, very often, so much is spent on the engagement ring – especially when it might have a big rock of a diamond in it – why not rest easy knowing that it is insured? You hear of so many news stories about engagement rings worth so much getting stolen or getting lost. Much as it hurts you to lose something of such great sentimental value, shouldn’t you at least make sure that you are comforted a bit by getting a large part of the value back?

It might be a good thing for couples here in the UK too to find out how much an engagement ring rider to your home insurance policy will cost. If you have expensive wedding rings and wedding gifts, then adding those on too would be the sensible way to go. While insuring, it might also be a good thing to find out exactly how much the ring is being insured for. Should it be for the full value or just a part of the value? Will a ring of the equal value be given or will the money be given? Are there any clauses or restrictions where the policy is concerned? Once you’ve figured these out and decided which one you want, go ahead and insure that ring!

Even if you could afford it, when it comes to rings that you need to wear on your fingers for a long time – hopefully till the day you die, it might be a good thing to think practically and look for a bit of balance. For example, a huge rock for an engagement ring might not go too well with a wedding ring that is very large and showy too. One might detract from the other or worse, it might clash and the whole effect could just be an eyesore.

A balance could be sought for with size, the metal used and the design. The ideal way would be to pick up an engagement ring and a wedding ring as a set. However, for many, the wedding day might not even be on the horizon when they get engaged so it might be worth it to go to the store and try on wedding rings with the engagement ring to see if it looks good. Not just that – to see if they’re a comfortable fit as well. The metal used is important too – yellow gold and platinum might not be a good match – it might be a good idea to get both rings in the same metal. It would be perfect if the two rings had a design where one fits perfectly into the other. Then, it would seem like a whole and not two separate and discordant parts.