http://www.ingleandrhode.com/blog Precious Metals & Gemstones, Socially and Environmentally Responsible Jeweller en tim.ingle@ingleandrhode.com Copyright Ingle & Rhode,2009 2009-04-02T12:36:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/diamond-dogs/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/diamond-dogs/#When:12:36:00Z Italian jeweller Nino Monzeglio was counting his blessings this week. Italian jeweller Nino Monzeglio was counting his blessings this week. After losing his jacket, he was lucky enough to have it returned to him by a lady who had found it while walking her dog. In its pockets were diamonds worth £40,000. The dog walker collected a £4,000 reward. 2009-04-02T12:36:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/new-bespoke-jewellery-brochure/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/new-bespoke-jewellery-brochure/#When:17:28:00Z In response to the strong demand for our bespoke jewellery service, and in particular for our custom made ethical engagement rings, we are please to announce that we have produced a short brochure which describes how our bespoke jewellery service works - from developing a unique design to your specifications, to producing the finished piece of jewellery.In response to the strong demand for our bespoke jewellery service, and in particular our custom made engagement rings, we have produced a new brochure which describes the details of our bespoke jewellery service to potential clients. To download a copy of the new brochure, please visit our bespoke jewellery page.  2009-03-02T17:28:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/survival-targets-graff-diamonds/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/survival-targets-graff-diamonds/#When:15:02:00Z Human rights group Survival International held a protest last week outside Graff Diamonds flagship London store, to demand that Laurence Graff pulls out of a controversial diamond mine planned on the land of the Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana.Human rights group Survival International held a protest last week outside Graff Diamonds flagship London store, to demand that Laurence Graff pulls out of a controversial diamond mine planned on the land of the Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana.Survival also wrote to celebrities who wear Graff diamonds, including Victoria Beckham, Naomi Campbell and Elizabeth Hurley, asking them to stop wearing the jewels, and is targeting the Oscars to prevent celebrities wearing Graff diamonds.Rival diamond company De Beers pulled out of the Kalahari reserve after models Iman and Lily Cole refused to continue working with the company.Laurence Graff owns a 9% share in Gem Diamonds, which plans to mine on the Bushmen’s land. According to Survival International, the Bushmen face severe water shortages, and one has died of thirst, since the government closed their borehole. Yet the Botswana government, which is in the process of approving Gem’s mine, has said that the Bushmen will not be allowed to use any water boreholes drilled for the mine.Gem Diamonds claims that the Bushmen are in favour of the mine, but the Bushmen have had no independent advice on its probable impact.The Botswana government evicted the Bushmen from their land in 2002; many believe this was to make way for future diamond mining. The Botswana High Court affirmed in 2006 the Bushmen’s rights to live on their land, but the government has tried to prevent them from returning by denying them water and hunting rights. Many Bushmen remain in government resettlement camps, unable to go home.Survival’s director Stephen Corry said “Having watched the storm of negative publicity surrounding De Beers, Graff should have known better than to buy into this mine. Does it really want to be known as the company that mined its diamonds while the Bushmen died of thirst?” 2009-02-16T15:02:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/illegal_mining_crisis/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/illegal_mining_crisis/#When:17:01:00Z A recent report from Reuters suggests that the soaring price of gold has led to a highly dangerous rise in illegal mining. A recent report from Reuters suggests that the soaring price of gold has led to a highly dangerous rise in illegal mining. Gold prices have trebled over the last five years. As a result, mining corporations have found it worth moving into remote and sometimes unstable parts of the world. Sometimes, this leads to them encroaching onto the territory of artisanal miners, while other times local people are attracted into an area by the activity of the big company. “Companies have realised this is their biggest social problem ... and it is growing all the time ... there are mines that are getting 6,000 people (illegal miners) on their sites a week,” said Kevin D’Souza, mining engineer and technical director at the consultancy Wardell Armstrong. The result can be violent confrontations between mine security and illegal miners. Moreover, since illegal mining is unregulated, it is often carried out in extremely dangerous conditions – fatalities are not uncommon. At least six illegal miners, aged between 14 and 20, died at AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi mine in Ghana in the last month, officials have said. In the long run, the solution will have to come through land sharing programmes in conjunction with regulation of small-scale miners. But how exactly this will be implemented is far from clear. Ethical Issues 2008-07-29T17:01:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/change_of_location/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/change_of_location/#When:16:49:00Z We are pleased to announce that Ingle & Rhode will be moving into new offices just off Bond Street. We are pleased to announce that Ingle & Rhode will be moving into new offices just off Bond Street. From the 30th of July, our address will be 35 Bruton Street, London, W1J 6QY. We will continue to see clients by appointment – please call or email us for a reservation. IR News 2008-07-23T16:49:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/gold_and_diamond_accessories/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/gold_and_diamond_accessories/#When:11:37:00Z At a time when the jewellery industry is troubled by serious ethical problems, there seems to be no limit to some consumers’ appetite for bling. More and more designers use precious stones and metals to add a sense of luxury to what used to look like sensible, everyday items. At a time when the jewellery industry is troubled by serious ethical problems, there seems to be no limit to some consumers’ appetite for bling. More and more designers use precious stones and metals to add a sense of luxury to what used to look like sensible, everyday items.  iPod The iDiamond iPod was made recently by Norwegian Jeweller Thomas Heyerdahl and consists of a modified iPod Shuffle with matching headphones. The iPod itself is home to 312 diamonds, the headphones holding another 118 and underneath those stones lies a casing made of 18 carat gold. The estimated value of this suped up MP3 player? US$41,000. More Information Here Cellphone The solid white-gold, diamond-studded phone on the left is apparently the world’s most expensive with a pricetag of US$1,300,000. The deal clincher? It comes with a 2GB memory card so you won’t need to splash any more cash for storage space. If you’ve forgotten your wallet and only have US$25,000 in your back pocket, the phone on the right could be yours. More Information Here Television When released back in 2006, Keymat Industrie claimed this dispicably extravagant television to be the most expensive LCD TV on earth. This wasn’t due to incredible technology but the 160 diamonds attached to its gold plated frame, all of which boosted the gadget’s value to US$130,000. More Information Here Laptop On the left is a 24 carat gold plated Macbook Pro, the Apple logo encrusted with diamonds. If this kind of laptop modification is up your alley and you have at least a few thousand dollars to spare, head on over to Computer Choppers, a company dedicated to beautifying the most plain of gadgets. There is no listed price for the Gold Macbook, but you can be sure that with the insurance on top it’s going to burn a hole in your possibly diamond-lined pocket. More Information Here Computer Mouse It’s a mouse. It’s home to 59 diamonds. It’s US$24,180. The website claims it to be ‘the perfect gift for a 60th Wedding Anniversary’ but it doesn’t say whose wedding anniversary. Obviously the mouse is also cast from 18 carat white gold. More Information Here Purse The next time your wife asks for a handbag for Christmas, just be grateful she hasn’t seen the one above. It was made by ‘Superstar Jeweller’ Ginza Tanaka, is fashioned from pure platinum, is adorned with 2,182 diamonds totalling 208 carats and will set you back a wallet-obliterating US$1.63 million. Just for the record, Ginza is the man responsible for creating a US$850,000 Christmas tree made from 28kg of gold in 2006. More Information Here Wheel Rims You know how annoying it is when your wheel rims get covered in dirt after a long drive? Now imagine each of those rims cost US$250,000 and the pain should be multiplied by a few thousand. Rim-manufacturers Asanti are apparently the only company to offer this kind of service and presumably they aren’t swamped with enquiries from serious buyers. Their Diamond range rims each contain 12,000 diamonds and 800 sapphires, hopefully glued on excessively. More Information Here Gearstick So you’ve got the diamond rims and some spare change… It now makes complete sense to start on the interior, and why not go for the ‘Most Expensive Bentley Shift Knob’ in history? Handcrafted with 30 carats of diamond set on 18 carat white gold, the knob is yours for US$150,000. As the website points out, ‘For all you Ballers out there…”What is your braggin’ right?” Wow. More Information Here Lavatory This sparkling lavatory, part of Jemal Wright’s Isis collection, could be yours for just US$75,000. Before you rush for your credit card details though: they aren’t diamonds deliciously wrapped around the cistern but 50,000 Swarovski Crystals. Maybe a diamond-studded lavatory would’ve looked silly. More Information Here Child’s Dummy / Pacifier This little item is truly remarkable. It’s a dummy/pacifier, made from 14 carat white gold and finished off with 278 pave cut white diamonds. If you really want to spend the required US$17,000.00 for diamonds, is your child’s mouth really the best place to put them? From the website: ‘We don’t recommend actual use’. Useful. More Information Here Hearing Aid With a retail value of US$42,590, this horrendous addition to any hearing-impaired person’s wishlist is cast in solid 24 carat gold, additional sparkle coming in the form of 220 diamonds. What’s more disturbing than the earpiece itself is the discreet remote control, emblazoned with a diamond-encrusted company logo larger than a normal person’s entire head. More Information Here 2008-03-25T11:37:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/the_worlds_most_famous_engagement_rings/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/the_worlds_most_famous_engagement_rings/#When:12:54:00Z It is more than five centuries since Archduke Maximilian I of Austria gave the first recorded diamond engagement ring to Mary of Burgundy, and since then rich and famous men have indulged their fiancés with some quite incredible gifts. It is more than five centuries since Archduke Maximilian I of Austria gave the first recorded diamond engagement ring to Mary of Burgundy, and since then rich and famous men have indulged their fiancés with some quite incredible gifts. It’s ironic that perhaps the most famous ‘engagement ring’ in history may not actually have commemorated an engagement at all. There has been a deluge of speculation recently about the ring given by Dodi Fayed to Princess Diana. Though Mohammed Al-Fayed insists that the ring proves that Diana had agreed to marry his son, sources close to the Princess claim it was merely a ‘friendship ring’. Princess Diana’s ‘other’ engagement ring, given to her by Prince Charles, caused a stir at the time. This was made not with a classic central diamond, but with an eighteen-carat blue oval sapphire, circled by fourteen diamonds. Twenty years later, Prince Charles would buy another amazing engagement ring, an art deco antique-style platinum emerald ring with baguette diamonds, which he presented to Camilla Parker Bowles. Prince Charles’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was given an engagement ring by Prince Phillip made out of diamonds from Phillip’s mother’s tiara. When Prince Rainier of Monaco proposed to Grace Kelly, he presented her with a twelve-carat emerald-cut diamond. Hollywood royalty have also traditionally bought lavish and extravagant engagement rings. When Elvis Presley proposed to his girlfriend Priscilla, the central diamond in her ring weighed three Michael Douglas marked his engagement to Catherine Zeta-Jones’ with a ten-carat antique marquise diamond, valued at nearly one million pounds, while Ben Affleck bought Jennifer Lopez a six-carat radiant cut pink diamond. However, both were smaller than the fifteen-carat diamond given to Paris Hilton by her billionaire boyfriend Paris Latsis. And as if one ring wasn’t enough, he also handed her a twenty-four carat canary diamond. IR News 2008-03-24T12:54:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/beautiful_coloured_diamonds_now_on_display/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/beautiful_coloured_diamonds_now_on_display/#When:11:32:00Z London's Natural History Museum is currently showing some of nature's rarest treasures, including gems, crystals, and metals. Amongst them is 'The Aurora Collection', two hundred and ninety-six naturally coloured diamonds. London’s Natural History Museum is currently showing some of nature’s rarest treasures, including gems, crystals, and metals. Amongst them is ‘The Aurora Collection’, two hundred and ninety-six naturally coloured diamonds Only one in every ten thousand gem-quality diamonds is coloured. The colour comes from tiny impurities in the stone’s carbon lattice, or from minute defects in its structure. “Each coloured diamond tells its own story, giving us insight not only into its formation but also to the deep Earth processes that took place when the gem was formed,” says Alan Hart, minerals expert at the Museum. “For example, yellow diamonds are due to the presence of nitrogen in the structure, and green diamonds owe their colour to natural radiation damage. It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to display this unique collection of exceptionally rare gems at the Museum.” Due to their scarcity, coloured diamonds can be worth astronomical amounts. Five or six figure prices are not unusual. Red stones tend to be the most expensive. There are less than twenty certified red diamonds in existence, and some of these have fetched over a million dollars per carat. IR News 2008-02-15T11:32:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/good_as_green_gold/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/good_as_green_gold/#When:15:11:00Z Recently ‘Ingle & Rhode’ visited several alluvial mines in the Jujuy province of Argentina – that’s up north, close to the high Andes at 12,000 feet and light years away from the glamour of a fine jewellery showroom.  Recently ‘Ingle & Rhode’ visited several alluvial mines in the Jujuy province of Argentina – that’s up north, close to the high Andes at 12,000 feet and light years away from the glamour of a fine jewellery showroom.  This was a chance to talk to the miners directly, share their lives briefly, and meet members of the EcoAndina foundation – a United Nations and NGO-funded mining operation which uses the ‘green gold’ trade to fund sustainable villages and support the local communities of the Puna plateau. In the village of Misa Rumi (a dusty collection of houses, a church and a dirt football pitch) ‘Ingle & Rhode’ met Santo Martinez, 48, and his son Julian, 26. They had come to sell their gold to the EcoAndina Foundation.Santo and Julian work as a family group and split the proceeds. They know all about the value of their gold and have the option of selling to various traders, but they said they prefer to deal with EcoAndina. This is not just because they get a good price, it’s also due to the foundation’s involvement in several projects that are essential to the survival of their village. The village just about exists. Llamas and goats are important; jobs pretty non existent; government social security is only £30 per family per month, so the cash from gold is important to keep the village viable.  EcoAndina are also involved in providing solar power, and environmentally friendly agriculture - sustainable villages are their aim, not desolation and the human tragedy you see every night in the doorways of Buenos Aires. And so to the mines … These are a hike away in the bottom of a dried up gorge. The Martinez family workings are in a patch of river bed 6 yards wide by 30 long.  At the gold-bearing layer the dirt looks pretty unconvincing - typical river deposits, rounded stones, grit and dirt.  But a couple of shovel loads fill the pan, next they dip it in the water and start ‘gold panning’.  First the stones are separated, then the lighter material is removed until after about ten minutes they are left with a little bit of mud in the bottom of the pan and perhaps … perhaps a tiny nugget of alluvial gold. Large scale gold mining means stripping the land, crushing the ore, leaching out the gold with cyanide or mercury, and leaving behind poisoned and contaminated spoil.  But all along the gorge at Misa Rumi ‘Ingle & Rhode’ met small scale miners like the Martinez’s – proud self-employed groups of men, washing out their gold, providing for their families and their communities. Which gold would you prefer on your finger?   [PICTURED: I&R representative Ian Stoker meets the miners of Misa Rumi]   Ethical Issues 2008-01-16T15:11:00+00:00 http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/luxury_brands_failing_on_ethics_says_wwf_report/ http://www.ingleandrhode.co.uk/news/luxury_brands_failing_on_ethics_says_wwf_report/#When:13:38:00Z Of ten high-end brands surveyed in this week’s ‘Deeper Luxury’ report by the WWF, none scores higher than C+ for ethics. Of ten high-end brands surveyed in this week’s ‘Deeper Luxury’ report by the WWF, none scores higher than C+ for ethics. Singled out for special criticism are Italian jeweller Bulgari, and the accessory company Tod’s, endorsed by Sienna Miller. Companies are graded for their “environmental, social and governance performance and reputation.” The grades are based on data from the analysts Ethical Investment Research Service (EIRIS), which uses company reports followed up with questionnaires, and from Covalence, a company that tracks brand perception through news reports. The report will make ugly reading for Sienna Miller, who in the past has been quick to identify herself with environmental issues. It warns that Tod’s could be “a liability” to her reputation - according to WWF-UK senior policy adviser and report co-author Anthony Kleanthous: “The world of celebrity leads by example and generates an aspirational desire for branded products. These stars have the responsibility to make sure that the brands they are endorsing are not damaging the planet.” Within the jewellery industry, the report highlights the ongoing issues around conflict diamonds and dirty gold. It refers to a recent UK survey by Amnesty in which three quarters of retailers admitted to having no auditing process in place to combat the trade in conflict diamonds, and to which nearly a third failed to respond in spite of repeated requests. The report also focuses on the environmental damage that often results from gold mining. It praises the ‘No Dirty Gold’ campaign run by Oxfam and Earthworks, which has helped to raise awareness of this issue, but concludes that “…much remains to be done in order to clean up the production and trading of gold and other precious metals.” The report is likely to reinforce the growing demand from consumers for socially and environmentally responsible products. It should also alert the luxury brands that they can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to unethical practices. If they fail to pay attention the warning, they could face a difficult future. As Anthony Kleanthous points out, “Let’s face it, who wants to pay extra for a dirty brand?”      The Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices has strongly criticised the report. Ethical Issues 2007-11-29T13:38:00+00:00