Expensive Diamond Rings

Most Expensive Ring

If you’re an aging bachelor and billionaire looking to wed someone half your age, you may want to look into expensive engagement rings. One such individual’s proposal to an ex-model involved a $1.5 million engagement ring. That may seem way out there, but it’s not even close to the most expensive ring in the world.The Chopard Blue Diamond Ring is the ring that makes any other diamond ring look bad. Set with an enormous, oval-shaped blue diamond, the expensive ring also has diamond shoulders and an 18k white gold band paved with diamonds.Blue diamond is among the most expensive diamonds in the world. It is found among boron deposits, from whence it derives its shade. This particular gem weighs in at nine carats.The world’s most expensive ring is valued at $16.26 million, enough to put a dent in the wallets of even the wealthiest individuals.

Diamond jewelry has always been a source of fascination for the ladies, especially diamond rings, which are so often associated with deep love. Every time  a perfect gentleman places a diamond ring on his lady’s hand and makes a dreamy proposal, she knows that fairy tales do exists. But making fairy tales come true always comes with a price.Find out here which are some of the most expensive diamond rings in the world.


Expensive Pink Diamond Ring

Sold by Christie’s at a Hong Kong auction for a record $10.8 million, this is the most expensive diamond ring in the world. It is adorned with a five carat vivid pink diamond and two white diamonds flanking it on each side


Vivid Blue Diamond Ring

This dazzling ring was sold by Sotheby’s for a whopping $7.9 million. The beautiful blue diamond weighs six carats and the ring is made of platinum. Emerald cut diamonds complete the picture on each side of the central gem.


Oval-Cut Diamond Ring

Priced at $4.2 million, This pure white diamond ring was sold by Christie’s at one of its Important Jewels Sale in New York. It boasts an oval-cut VVS2 diamond with E color clarity, weighing 46.51 carats. The ring itself is made of platinum.


De Beers Platinum Diamond Ring

Absolutely gorgeous, the De Beers Platinum Diamond Ring boasts a nine-carat gem placed on a perfectly polished platinum ring. It is priced at $1.83 million.


Novo Yellow Diamond Ring

At 1.35 million, this piece is different from most diamond rings due to its special color. The Novo Yellow diamond ring weighs 25.27 carats and is also set in a platinum ring. The superb piece was sold by Tiffany’s.

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Most Expensive Diamond Cell Phones

Most people enjoy having a quality cell phone, but they also recognize that cellular phones are a consumable good and will have to be replaced within in a few years. For this reason, people often do not purchase the most expensive cell phone when they purchase their mobile. Some, though, must have a costly mobile phone. The world’s most expensive cell phones were made to satisfy just that type of person. 
                                      Ulysse Nardin’s The Chairman – up to $49,500

The Chairman by Ulysse Nardin is theWorld’s Most Expensive Android Smartphone smartphone, and includes both a touch screen and a physical number pad. The Ulysses Nardin name is most often associated with luxury watches and that fact shows in the Chairman’s sophisticated design. The volume controls look like watch buttons and the crown between them can actually be wound to generate power for the device. In fact, the phone features a kinetic rotor power system visible through the backplate.


   Nokia 8800 Arte with pink diamonds
   $134,000


Designed by Peter Aloisson, this solid 18k white gold phone features over 680 pink and white brilliant cut diamonds totaling over 21.5 carats. Some of the phone’s features are a 3.15 MP camera with autofocus and video, a music player, Bluetooth and voice memo.








Peter Aloisson’s iPhone Princess Plus
$176,400

The Princess Plus got its name from the Princess cut used on 138 of the 318 diamonds on its surface. The other 180 diamonds on the phone were brilliant-cut. In total, the phone has 17.75 carats of diamonds set in 18k white gold around its rim. The iPhone Princess Plus is worth $176,400 while the somewhat more pedestrian “Brilliants only” version sold for $66,150.


Sony Ericsson Black Diamond – $300,000

The price of this phone comes from actual state of the art technology instead of a bunch of shiny rocks—but that doesn’t mean it lacks visual appeal. OLED technology underneath the polycarbonate skin that covers the phones entire face gives the 4 megapixel screen a borderless look. The mirror finish gives the phone a sleek, futuristic look.


Vertu Signature Cobra
$310,000

This gaudy phone is so exclusive that only eight will ever be made. Designed by French jeweler Boucheron, the Signature Cobra is made with two diamonds, two emeralds and 439 rubies. For buyers who are only filthy rich, rather than obscenely rich, twenty-six of the less flashy (read: no rubies) Signature Python phones will be available for a mere $115,000. Both phones will feature the real draw—they have frikkin’ snakes on them. Awesome.




Gresso Luxor Las Vegas Jackpot – $1 million

This ultra-exclusive phone, limited to only three units, truly lives up to its name. Not only is it extraordinarily expensive, but its Egypt-inspired design will look right at home in the hands of a Vegas high-roller. The phone features 45.5 carats of black diamonds decorating the bezel and a back panel made from 200-year-old African blackwood—the most expensive wood in the world. As if that weren’t enough to ensure the Jackpot a place among the world’s most expensive mobile phones, each key is cut from a hand-polished sapphire crystal. All of these luxurious materials are set in a 180-gram solid gold frame.


The Diamond Crypto Smartphone – $1.3 million

Created by luxury accessory producer Peter Aloisson of Moscow-based JSC Ancort, this luxury smartphone’s price stems from the platinum body, the cover adorned with 50 diamonds—including eight that are rare blue diamonds. Additionally, the Ancort logo and the navigation key are made of 18k rose gold. Built on the Windows CE, this expensive cell also features a high-resolution color TFT display and a 256 bit cryptographic algorithm. This expensive mobile phone features SMS, MMS, E-mail and Internet capability, WAP, JAVA support and even a media player.


GoldVish ‘Le Million’ Piece Unique
$1.3 million

Guinness World Records certified GoldVish SA’s ‘Le Million’ Piece Unique on January 29th, 2008. The Geneva-based luxury communications company’s expensive mobile phone was designed by Emmanuel Gueit as an addition to the Illusion Collection. The phone is made of 18k white gold and set with 20 carats of VVS1 (only microscopically flawed) diamonds. The phone also features Bluetooth, 2 GB of storage, FM radio, a digital camera and MP3 playback. This expensive cell phone is available only by special order.


Peter Aloisson’s Kings Button iPhone
$2.4 million


The Kings Button iPhone is, surprisingly, a jewel-bedecked iPhone. This time, however, Aloisson had the iPhone 3G to play with—and, apparently, a bit of a bigger budget. One hundred and thirty-eight brilliant-cut diamonds line the sides of the phone, but the real prize is the home button—a rare 6.6 carat white diamond.

Goldstriker iPhone 3GS Supreme – $3.2 million

Stuart Hughes of Goldstriker International is known for giving luxury devices such as phones and video game consoles the “Supreme” treatment—covering them with gold and diamonds—and the iPhone is no exception. The iPhone 3GS Supreme features a casing made from 271 grams of solid 22k gold and a screen trimmed with fifty-three 1-carat diamonds. The home button is covered with a single rare 7.1-carat diamond. That’s not all, though—the iPhone 3GS Supreme comes in a chest carved from a single block of granite and sports Kashmir gold and an interior lining made with Nubuck top grain leather.

Stuart Hughes iPhone 4 Diamond Rose Edition – $8 million

If you thought his iPhone 3GS Supreme was impressive, check out the latest iPhone from Stuart Hughes–the iPhone 4 Diamond Rose Edition. Hughes has recreated the infamous antenna band that wraps around the sides of the latest iPhone, as well as the backplate, using rose gold. The band is adorned with 100 carats of flawless diamonds, and the Apple logo is formed with fifty-three more diamonds. Once again, the home button gets the most love–it’s made of platinum and features a rare 7.4-carat pink diamond.The phone comes in an imperial pink 7-kilogram chest cut from a single block of granite and lined with nubuck top-grain leather. It also comes with an 8-carat flawless diamond that can be used in place of the pink one.

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World’s Most Expensive Diamonds

Carat for carat, rubies and emeralds generally outprice the common diamond. Certain rare specimens of diamond, however, will eclipse even the priciest examples of those other gemstones. While some priceless gems exist, such as the world famous Hope Diamond, these are the most expensive diamonds ever sold.


                                 The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond – $23.4 million   
The Wittelsbach-Graff diamond is a 35.56-carat blue diamond mined in India. The historic diamond was chosen by King Philip IV of Spain as part of the dowry for his daughter, the Infanta Margarita Teresa. Her suitor, Leopold I, later became Holy Roman Emperor and passed the diamond on to his heirs after she died in 1673. When the Archduchess of Austria married Bavaria’s Crown Prince in 1722, the diamond became known as “Der Blaue Wittelsbacher” (The Blue Wittelsbach) after the Crown Prince’s family. This diamond became the most expensive diamond in the world after being sold to London-based jeweller Laurence Graff in 2008. Graff immediately had the gem altered in order to enhance its colour and remove some damage to its girdle, an action decried by some gemstone experts.


The Graff Pink – $46 million

Before this 24.78-carat “fancy intense pink” diamond was sold in 2010 to Mr. Graff at a Sotheby’s in London auction, it had last been sold by renowned jeweler Harry Winston. Pink diamonds are extremely valuable and only the rarest weigh more than 20 carats. It is unknown whether or not Graff plans to alter the Graff Pink. Sotheby’s made an additional $60 million on diamonds at the same auction.

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top diamonds

                                                The Ocean Dream diamond

The Ocean Dream diamond is a natural diamond with an unusual and fancy deep blue green color just as the color of the ocean. This is a trust worthy information given by Gemological Institute of America that its distinct hue is a result of millions of years of exposure to natural radiation or due to the flaws in the atomic structure of the stone.

It is a one of the rarest diamond which weighs 5.51 carats enriched with rich blue – green hue.

The Ocean Dream diamond originated in Central Africa, and is currently owned by the Cora Diamond Corporation.

For the very first time, in the year 2003, the rare Ocean Dream diamond had been displayed in the collections of the “The Splendor of Diamonds” held in the Smithsonian Museum, Washington along with other various rich and rare diamonds.

Its color is so distinct that that many gemologists thought that it was synthetically colored in the laboratory and the most distinguished factor about Ocean American diamond is that no diamond has been found of this color and shape, till date.


                                          The Cullinan Diamond

The Cullinan diamond is the largest rough gem-quality pear shaped diamond ever found with a weight of 3,106.75 carats. It color is white crystal like glass.

The credit of the discovery of Cullinan Diamond goes to Frederick Wells, surface manager of the Premier Diamond Mining Company in Cullinan, which was excavated on January 26, 1905.

Frederick Wells was walking through the mine when he discovered the Cullinan diamond which looked like a big piece of glass, as being embedded in one side of the mine wall.

An amount of $10,000 was rewarded to him for his discovery. This stone was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, the owner of the diamond mine.

After its discovery, this precious diamond was purchased for $800,000 as a souvenir for King Edward VII for the occasion of his 66th birthday.

Cullinan is now mounted in the head of the Scepter with the Cross.

The special touch about this diamond is that it is renowned as the largest cut diamond was cut into three large parts by Asscher Brothers of Amsterdam, and eventually into 9 large gem-quality stones and a number of smaller fragments. 
  

                                                     The Hope Diamond 

The Hope Diamond is a large superfine deep-blue diamond which weighs 45.52 carats, housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C.

It is believed to have been excavated from the Kollur mine in Golconda, India. Gemological Institute of America describes its color as “fancy dark greyish-blue.” It refuses to highlight its name, as the diamond is believed to bestow a curse to its owners.

A distinct feature about this stone is that it exhibits an unusually intense and strongly-colored type of luminescence which after exposure to short-wave ultraviolet light, the diamond produces a brilliant red glow-in-the-dark effect that persists for some time after the light source has been switched off.

The Hope Diamond is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure. Its estimated value is $300–$350 million USD £150-£175 million GBP. It got its name in 1830 after the king Henry Philip Hope of London.

The Earth Star Diamond

The Earth Star Diamond was found on May 16, 1967 at South African mine of De Beers, the Jagersfontein Mine.

The name of the diamond seems to have been inspired by two of the unique characters of the stone, viz. the strong brown color, and its extraordinary brilliance, which led the owner of the diamond, Mr. Joseph Baumgold, of New York, to name it the “Earth Star”.

The emergence of Earth Star diamond came from the 2,500-foot level of the volcanic diamond-bearing pipe.

The rough gem weighed 248.9 carats and was cut into a 111.59 carats pear-shaped gem with a strong brown color and extraordinary brilliance.

The diamond was bought in 1983 for $900,000.

The diamond was found to have a greater degree of brilliance than is usually seen in a gem of such a strong color.

The combination of color and brilliance forced Joseph Baum gold to name it as the Earth Star.

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Hardness

Diamond is the hardest known natural material on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, where hardness is defined as resistance to scratching and is graded between 1 (softest) and 10 (hardest). Diamond has a hardness of 10 (hardest) on this scale. Diamond's hardness has been known since antiquity, and is the source of its name.

Diamond hardness depends on its purity, crystalline perfection and orientation: hardness is higher for flawless, pure crystals oriented to the <111> direction (along the longest diagonal of the cubic diamond lattice).Therefore, whereas it might be possible to scratch some diamonds with other materials, such as boron nitride, the hardest diamonds can only be scratched by other diamonds andnanocrystalline diamond aggregates.

The hardness of diamond contributes to its suitability as a gemstone. Because it can only be scratched by other diamonds, it maintains its polish extremely well. Unlike many other gems, it is well-suited to daily wear because of its resistance to scratching—perhaps contributing to its popularity as the preferred gem in engagement or wedding rings, which are often worn every day.

The hardest natural diamonds mostly originate from the Copeton and Bingara fields located in the New England area in New South Wales, Australia. These diamonds are generally small, perfect to semiperfect octahedra, and are used to polish other diamonds. Their hardness is associated with the crystal growth form, which is single-stage crystal growth. Most other diamonds show more evidence of multiple growth stages, which produce inclusions, flaws, and defect planes in the crystal lattice, all of which affect their hardness. It is possible to treat regular diamonds under a combination of high pressure and high temperature to produce diamonds that are harder than the diamonds used in hardness gauges.

Somewhat related to hardness is another mechanical property toughness, which is a material's ability to resist breakage from forceful impact. The toughness of natural diamond has been measured as 7.5–10 MPa·m^1/2. This value is good compared to other gemstones, but poor compared to most engineering materials. As with any material, the macroscopic geometry of a diamond contributes to its resistance to breakage. Diamond has a cleavage plane and is therefore more fragile in some orientations than others. Diamond cutters use this attribute to cleave some stones, prior to faceting. "Impact toughness" is one of the main indexes to measure the quality of synthetic industrial diamonds.

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Material properties

Material Properties

                           A diamond is a transparent crystal of tetrahedrally bonded carbon atoms (sp³) that crystallizes into the diamond lattice which is a variation of the face centered cubic structure. Diamonds have been adapted for many uses because of the material's exceptional physical characteristics. Most notable are its extreme hardness and thermal conductivity (900–2,320 W·m⁻¹·K⁻¹), as well as wide band gap and high optical dispersion. Above1,700 °C (1,973 K / 3,583 °F) in vacuum or oxygen-free atmosphere, diamond converts to graphite; in air, transformation starts at ~700 °C. Diamond's ignition point is 720 - 800 °C in oxygen and 850 - 1,000 °C in air. Naturally occurring diamonds have a density ranging from 3.15–3.53 g/cm³, with pure diamond close to3.52 g/cm³. The chemical bonds that hold the carbon atoms in diamonds together are weaker than those in graphite. In diamonds, the bonds form an inflexible three-dimensional lattice, whereas in graphite, the atoms are tightly bonded into sheets, which can slide easily over one another, making the overall structure weaker.

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History of Diamond

History  

              The name diamond is derived from the ancient Greek αδάμας (adámas), "proper", "unalterable", "unbreakable", "untamed", from ἀ- (a-), "un-" + δαμάω(damáō), "I overpower", "I tame". Diamonds are thought to have been first recognized and mined in India, where significant alluvial deposits of the stone could be found many centuries ago along the rivers Penner, Krishna and Godavari. Diamonds have been known in India for at least 3,000 years but most likely 6,000 years.

Diamonds have been treasured as gemstones since their use as religious icons in ancient India. Their usage in engraving tools also dates to early human history. The popularity of diamonds has risen since the 19th century because of increased supply, improved cutting and polishing techniques, growth in the world economy, and innovative and successful advertising campaigns.

In 1772, Antoine Lavoisier used a lens to concentrate the rays of the sun on a diamond in an atmosphere of oxygen, and showed that the only product of the combustion was carbon dioxide, proving that diamond is composed of carbon. Later in 1797, Smithson Tennant repeated and expanded that experiment. By demonstrating that burning diamond and graphite releases the same amount of gas he established the chemical equivalence of these substances.

The most familiar use of diamonds today is as gemstones used for adornment, a use which dates back into antiquity. The dispersion of white light into spectral colours is the primary gemological characteristic of gem diamonds. In the 20th century, experts in gemology have developed methods of grading diamonds and other gemstones based on the characteristics most important to their value as a gem. Four characteristics, known informally as the four Cs, are now commonly used as the basic descriptors of diamonds: these are carat, cut, color, and clarity. A large, flawless diamond is known as a paragon.

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