The Amora Blog...the Amora Gem Chapter
- Thread starter talk-admin
- Start date
Hi all,
Very Happy Friday! We've got another action packed monthly update for you so please grab a drink, get comfortable and let's get underway!
BTD (Amora) sales up+ 22% vs previous month: First I'm happy to note that with our increasing production, sales have jumped and we are up over 22% for Sept vs. August!
Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A updates:
Jonathan's full review of the Amora Super Ideal Eternity: Last month we showed some excerpts of the Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A compared with a top H&A diamond. This month, we're happy to show the full review for you. A big thanks to Jonathan for taking the time to do this review!
Customer feedback on the Amora Eternity : We received a really nice customer review as well and happy to share that with you. Most notable to me was their quote about their sister planning to sell her diamond to upgade to the Amora Eternity
Thanks very much to this customer for writing!
Perfect
"I have never had such a great experience purchasing something so special online. My Amora gem is absolutely gorgeous and I am so in love with it!
Also, one thing that has to be said is that Better Than Diamond's customer service is amazing. They are always quick to respond, super helpful, and truly have the customers' best interest at heart which is very reassuring, especially when purchasing something as significant as a stone for an engagement ring!
So it is obvious to say that I love BTD, and I am ecstatic about my new Amora gem! I can't wait to be wearing it for the rest of my life!
Also, after seeing mine, my sister who has a real diamond is going to sell hers and buy an Amora gem. Perfection all the way around."
Forever One Moissanite "H&A" vs Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A: The Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A was designed and is produced to be the true Ultimate Gem. Thus, we're continuing our comparisons against other competitors beyond just the usual diamond and H&A diamond comparisons. On that front, here's the first part of a comparison between an Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A vs the Forever One Moissanite "H&A".
Let me start by saying that the Forever One is not at all an H&A. It's a "sort of H&A" - they are cutting in a manner to save rough rather than for maximum beauty. In cut grading, the Forever One Moissanite "H&A" is a grade 4. To be H&A, you have to be AGS cut grade 0. Amora Super Ideal Eternity of course, is a true AGS cut grade 0.
Both the Amora and the Forever One gems below were graded using SarinHD and DiamCalc software to derive their AGS cut grades.
Anyway, since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is the IdealScope of two actual gems and some notes about a number of false advertising issues.
(Note the large center hole in the center of the Forever One - that disqualifies it from H&A as it is cut to save rough rather than beauty and greatly exceeds the max allowed table size):
I've previously noted that Moissanite is routinely sold with inflated "diamond equivalent weights" and this one was no exception. Sold as "3.00ct", it was in fact a 2.70ct - thus netting an extra 10+% profit to the seller by inflating the diamond equivalent weight.
If you wonder why Moissanite is cheaper than Amora Super Ideal Eternity, well there's one reason - we don't inflate carat weights. That's beyond the fact that we are cutting for maximum beauty and selling true H&A and not fake H&A.
For reference, no 9mm is going to make 3ct. You basically need 9.3mm or so to hit a true 3cts. You can check BlueNile or any diamond seller with H&A to verify this.
Here's how this Forever One fake H&A Moissanite was sold:
Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A "real life" video - evening sunlight via window, and kitchen LED lighting: One project that we've been planning to do and are now doing, was to film the Amora Eternity in various "real life" scenarios to help give you a fuller viewpoint of how it performs in various lighting. (On a personal note, I recently upgraded my wife's ring from a previous version Amora to the Eternity Super Ideal and I can say the difference and performance is incredible in every lighting).
Hopefully you can get a feel for it via this first chapter of the real life lighting scenarios. First up, evening sunlight via window and Kitchen LED lighting:
We'll continue trying to video all kinds of lighting - from restaurant lighting, rainy day, fluorescent, etc. Ideally I'd like to put an H&A diamond in with it but for now we'll focus on just capturing various lighting and then produce a short video of 10 seconds each of various lighting.
<<Max post length exceeded - continues next post! >>
Very Happy Friday! We've got another action packed monthly update for you so please grab a drink, get comfortable and let's get underway!
BTD (Amora) sales up+ 22% vs previous month: First I'm happy to note that with our increasing production, sales have jumped and we are up over 22% for Sept vs. August!
Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A updates:
Jonathan's full review of the Amora Super Ideal Eternity: Last month we showed some excerpts of the Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A compared with a top H&A diamond. This month, we're happy to show the full review for you. A big thanks to Jonathan for taking the time to do this review!
Customer feedback on the Amora Eternity : We received a really nice customer review as well and happy to share that with you. Most notable to me was their quote about their sister planning to sell her diamond to upgade to the Amora Eternity
Thanks very much to this customer for writing!Perfect
"I have never had such a great experience purchasing something so special online. My Amora gem is absolutely gorgeous and I am so in love with it!
Also, one thing that has to be said is that Better Than Diamond's customer service is amazing. They are always quick to respond, super helpful, and truly have the customers' best interest at heart which is very reassuring, especially when purchasing something as significant as a stone for an engagement ring!
So it is obvious to say that I love BTD, and I am ecstatic about my new Amora gem! I can't wait to be wearing it for the rest of my life!
Also, after seeing mine, my sister who has a real diamond is going to sell hers and buy an Amora gem. Perfection all the way around."
Forever One Moissanite "H&A" vs Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A: The Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A was designed and is produced to be the true Ultimate Gem. Thus, we're continuing our comparisons against other competitors beyond just the usual diamond and H&A diamond comparisons. On that front, here's the first part of a comparison between an Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A vs the Forever One Moissanite "H&A".
Let me start by saying that the Forever One is not at all an H&A. It's a "sort of H&A" - they are cutting in a manner to save rough rather than for maximum beauty. In cut grading, the Forever One Moissanite "H&A" is a grade 4. To be H&A, you have to be AGS cut grade 0. Amora Super Ideal Eternity of course, is a true AGS cut grade 0.
Both the Amora and the Forever One gems below were graded using SarinHD and DiamCalc software to derive their AGS cut grades.
Anyway, since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is the IdealScope of two actual gems and some notes about a number of false advertising issues.
(Note the large center hole in the center of the Forever One - that disqualifies it from H&A as it is cut to save rough rather than beauty and greatly exceeds the max allowed table size):
I've previously noted that Moissanite is routinely sold with inflated "diamond equivalent weights" and this one was no exception. Sold as "3.00ct", it was in fact a 2.70ct - thus netting an extra 10+% profit to the seller by inflating the diamond equivalent weight.
If you wonder why Moissanite is cheaper than Amora Super Ideal Eternity, well there's one reason - we don't inflate carat weights. That's beyond the fact that we are cutting for maximum beauty and selling true H&A and not fake H&A.
For reference, no 9mm is going to make 3ct. You basically need 9.3mm or so to hit a true 3cts. You can check BlueNile or any diamond seller with H&A to verify this.
Here's how this Forever One fake H&A Moissanite was sold:
Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A "real life" video - evening sunlight via window, and kitchen LED lighting: One project that we've been planning to do and are now doing, was to film the Amora Eternity in various "real life" scenarios to help give you a fuller viewpoint of how it performs in various lighting. (On a personal note, I recently upgraded my wife's ring from a previous version Amora to the Eternity Super Ideal and I can say the difference and performance is incredible in every lighting).
Hopefully you can get a feel for it via this first chapter of the real life lighting scenarios. First up, evening sunlight via window and Kitchen LED lighting:
We'll continue trying to video all kinds of lighting - from restaurant lighting, rainy day, fluorescent, etc. Ideally I'd like to put an H&A diamond in with it but for now we'll focus on just capturing various lighting and then produce a short video of 10 seconds each of various lighting.
<<Max post length exceeded - continues next post! >>
Amora stud earrings available via our Overnight Earrings: Now that we have a healthy inventory of Super Ideal Eternity's, I'm pleased to note that we now have Amora Eternity 4 prong stud Martini earrings available via our Overnight Earrings option. This means they are prestocked and available with free overnight shipping. Thus, order before 1PM PST Mon-Thurs and you'll have them in your hands next day (for US addresses).
Here's the studio video to show your our Overnight Eternity Stud earrings:
[Media]
[/Media]
and their studio photo shot:
and a link to our Overnight Eternity stud earring selection:
Overnight Earrings - Amora Eternity Stud Earrings
Lot's of large Amora Super Ideal Eternity's in progress: We'll have a large amount of 9.3mm (true 3ct) up to 14mm (10ct!!) completing and out for sale this month. Interestingly demand for large Eternity's has really skyrocketed so we're very focused on delivering these for sale in October.
You can sign up for notification of these here:
Notify Me!
Amora Krupps - first video! At long last, we had our first few Amora Krupps cut complete cutting! We haven't shot a studio video but I grabbed one and shot a quick video of it in the sunshine in a window at our office so we'd be able to give you a first look at a real Amora Krupps! We have more rough that finished lasering for larger size Krupps and will have more ready for sale shortly.
Elongated AVC: Jonathan has designed a really stunning elongated version of the AVC, and we're going to offer these in the Amora. The first few rough have finished lasering and are waiting their queue to start cutting. For now, here's a computer model video to show you the elongated AVC:
If you are interested, you can sign up on our notification list and just select AVC but put "elongaged"in the comments:
Notify Me!
Cushion H&A and AVC updates: We produced a number of both AVC and Cushion H&A this month but all of them have quickly sold out. We have a lot more rough that has finished lasering, and will have more ready for sale in the next two weeks.
Asscher cuts update: Same as the Cushion H&A - we've produced some but all have sold out quickly. More are in production now!
BTD News:
Avarra H&A Sapphires! For whatever reason, sales of our Avarra H&A sapphires and rubies have jumped a lot lately. Thus, we're currently planning to run a small restock of these on TIGER-2 as we can squeeze them in this month in order to have more of these available. Here's a grading report of one to show you what these look like:
and a customer photo:
and customer feedback!
Pink Heaven
"This stone knocked my socks off. It's honestly the prettiest pink sapphire I've ever seen! It's a bit of a chameleon shifting from light to medium pink depending on the light. The hearts & arrows faceting really makes the stone pop. The scintillation and sparkle are nothing short of incredible. I feel very fortunate to have snapped one of these up."
Our Pink H&A sapphires are here:
Avarra H&A Round lab sapphire - Vivid Pink
Misc:
Drinking tap water with Fluoride while pregnant may lower your childs IQ (!!): Yes, you are still reading the Amora blog but after reading this just published study I decided it was worth including as a public service since we have so many female readers. It's everyone's job to ensure the best future for our children, and that's even more important than discussing brilliant gems.
The net here is a recent study showed that exposure to higher levels of fluoride while pregnant lowered the IQ of those children compared to children not exposed.
"results continually showed that higher prenatal fluoride exposure was linked to lower scores on tests of cognitive function in children at age 4 and then again between 6 and 12."
With 2/3 of the tap water in the US containing fluoride, a reverse osmosis filter or distiller may be in order if you are pregnant or working on it. Basically flouride, which is already known to be more toxic than lead, is damaging to baby's neural development. Here's the link:
Fluoride Can Harm Children’s Intelligence, Mexican Study Finds
World's Second largest diamond ever found has sold for $53 Million: Weighing in at 1,109cts, the world's second largest diamond ever mined has recently been sold for $53 Million. I thought you might enjoy seeing a picture of it, especially given the surge in demand for larger Amora Eternitys. Makes even a 10ct Amora seem very tiny
Here's the link with video:
World's second biggest diamond sells for $53 million
That's it for this month's blog! Hope you have a great weekend and a great month and hope to see you end of October for our next update!
Less
Here's the studio video to show your our Overnight Eternity Stud earrings:
[Media]
and their studio photo shot:
and a link to our Overnight Eternity stud earring selection:
Overnight Earrings - Amora Eternity Stud Earrings
Lot's of large Amora Super Ideal Eternity's in progress: We'll have a large amount of 9.3mm (true 3ct) up to 14mm (10ct!!) completing and out for sale this month. Interestingly demand for large Eternity's has really skyrocketed so we're very focused on delivering these for sale in October.
You can sign up for notification of these here:
Notify Me!
Amora Krupps - first video! At long last, we had our first few Amora Krupps cut complete cutting! We haven't shot a studio video but I grabbed one and shot a quick video of it in the sunshine in a window at our office so we'd be able to give you a first look at a real Amora Krupps! We have more rough that finished lasering for larger size Krupps and will have more ready for sale shortly.
Elongated AVC: Jonathan has designed a really stunning elongated version of the AVC, and we're going to offer these in the Amora. The first few rough have finished lasering and are waiting their queue to start cutting. For now, here's a computer model video to show you the elongated AVC:
If you are interested, you can sign up on our notification list and just select AVC but put "elongaged"in the comments:
Notify Me!
Cushion H&A and AVC updates: We produced a number of both AVC and Cushion H&A this month but all of them have quickly sold out. We have a lot more rough that has finished lasering, and will have more ready for sale in the next two weeks.
Asscher cuts update: Same as the Cushion H&A - we've produced some but all have sold out quickly. More are in production now!
BTD News:
Avarra H&A Sapphires! For whatever reason, sales of our Avarra H&A sapphires and rubies have jumped a lot lately. Thus, we're currently planning to run a small restock of these on TIGER-2 as we can squeeze them in this month in order to have more of these available. Here's a grading report of one to show you what these look like:
and a customer photo:
and customer feedback!
Pink Heaven
"This stone knocked my socks off. It's honestly the prettiest pink sapphire I've ever seen! It's a bit of a chameleon shifting from light to medium pink depending on the light. The hearts & arrows faceting really makes the stone pop. The scintillation and sparkle are nothing short of incredible. I feel very fortunate to have snapped one of these up."
Our Pink H&A sapphires are here:
Avarra H&A Round lab sapphire - Vivid Pink
Misc:
Drinking tap water with Fluoride while pregnant may lower your childs IQ (!!): Yes, you are still reading the Amora blog but after reading this just published study I decided it was worth including as a public service since we have so many female readers. It's everyone's job to ensure the best future for our children, and that's even more important than discussing brilliant gems.
The net here is a recent study showed that exposure to higher levels of fluoride while pregnant lowered the IQ of those children compared to children not exposed.
"results continually showed that higher prenatal fluoride exposure was linked to lower scores on tests of cognitive function in children at age 4 and then again between 6 and 12."
With 2/3 of the tap water in the US containing fluoride, a reverse osmosis filter or distiller may be in order if you are pregnant or working on it. Basically flouride, which is already known to be more toxic than lead, is damaging to baby's neural development. Here's the link:
Fluoride Can Harm Children’s Intelligence, Mexican Study Finds
World's Second largest diamond ever found has sold for $53 Million: Weighing in at 1,109cts, the world's second largest diamond ever mined has recently been sold for $53 Million. I thought you might enjoy seeing a picture of it, especially given the surge in demand for larger Amora Eternitys. Makes even a 10ct Amora seem very tiny
Here's the link with video:
World's second biggest diamond sells for $53 million
That's it for this month's blog! Hope you have a great weekend and a great month and hope to see you end of October for our next update!
Less
Hi Less,
Appreciate all the updates and sorry if this has been answered before, I went back through the pages on this blog and couldn't find an explanation that the name changed from Amora Eternity H&A to Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A (or maybe I missed it?), or is it a different cut than the 8 series certificates aka Amora Eternity H&A sold from earlier to mid this year? Thanks!
Appreciate all the updates and sorry if this has been answered before, I went back through the pages on this blog and couldn't find an explanation that the name changed from Amora Eternity H&A to Amora Eternity Super Ideal H&A (or maybe I missed it?), or is it a different cut than the 8 series certificates aka Amora Eternity H&A sold from earlier to mid this year? Thanks!
Hi ChocoTaco,
We don't have an automated system for that but we will have another restock of these in the next two weeks.
Feel free to email us ([email protected] - remove the ...) to let us know what you are after and we can email you directly when ready!
Hope that helps,
Less
We don't have an automated system for that but we will have another restock of these in the next two weeks.
Feel free to email us ([email protected] - remove the ...) to let us know what you are after and we can email you directly when ready!
Hope that helps,
Less
Hi All,
Happy Friday! This blog marks a very important six year anniversary for the Amora Gem - so lots to discuss. Please grab a drink, get comfortable and let's get underway!
Happy Six Years since Amora Gem was introduced to the world! On 11/11/11, we introduced the Amora Gem to the world right here on this same blog! That was timed to both do it on a momentous date (11/11/11!) and to coincide with Amora being displayed at the Hungarian Natural History Museum in a display titled "The oldest and the newest crystals on Planet Earth"!
Thus we've had a long, winding six year journey with the Amora Gem.
With our Super Ideal Eternity H&A cut, I can truly say that the vision I had of bringing the Ultimate Gem into reality has at last been achieved. I've seen it in every kind of lighting, next to every type of gem (including H&A diamond, etc) and am confident it is the world's most stunning gem.
I do wish of course we could have gotten to this point faster, sooner and with less financial cost (R&D and more R&D costs), but ultimately no matter what, the biggest point is I am confident that Amora Eternity takes it place as the world's ultimate gem!
Going forward, the focus is no longer on R&D given the level of perfection that I had always envisioned, has been achieved. We now have to focus on continuing to expand production to make this level of beauty more available for our customers...so let's move into production updates next.
Amora Eternity Production: We have a lot of 9mm - 14mm Amora Eternity's in progress and these will be ready for sale over the next three to four weeks.
Of interest, the whole demand for larger size is something being seen in the mined diamond market as well. Basically for Amora - 2ct used to be the best selling size. Due to inflation or unknown reasons, the demand has now shifted to 9mm - 10mm (2.75ct - 4ct) being the highest demand!
So we are moving to meet that and will have a lot more larger Amora Eternity's ready for sale each week now.
Eternity beauty and value vs mined diamonds - large sizes:
Of interest is seeing the value and beauty difference with the larger size Eternitys. These stunning 8ct and 9ct+ Eternity's offer superior fire, cut, lustre, brilliance (and passion!) vs. their mined diamond equivalents at far better value.
In this size, $800k - $1,100,000+ price tags are the norm for Ideal cut (and basically no H&A cut's at this size either), colorless mined diamond.
The 8.32ct Eternity below sold for $4,375.
Fancy cut production - updates: We had a lull in production of fancy cuts this past month as we determined that it would be far more efficient longer term to go ahead and make custom 'fingers' for each specific fancy cut.
Those parts have been streaming in and thus early next week we'll have the first Cushion H&A's ready for sale. After that, AVC production kicks in and then Krupps, E-AVC, Princess, Asscher will all follow each week thereafter.
(AV OEC will be starting next week as well btw).
What will happen going forward is that we'll have consistent restocks of each of the fancy cuts every week. That's the payoff for the investment in the new fingers vs. the 'clumpiness' of having to stop and restart using the generic 'fingers'.
I should add that we have a huge amount (~300) pieces of blocked/lasered rough ready for Fancy cuts! So you'll see a rapid uptick in availability shortly and while it was no fun waiting for the new parts it will be worth the wait.
Amora Eternity overnight earrings expansion: Going along with the demand for larger sizes, we'll soon start having as large as 2ct *each ear* overnight earrings in stock!
Overnight Earrings - Amora Eternity Stud Earrings
BTD Updates:
Pink Takara lab grown diamonds! I'm extremely happy to let you know that as another surprise for our six year anniversary blog - we now have stunning Pink lab grown Takara diamonds underway! The first set of 23 just completed grading yesterday and they'll be available for sale tomorrow (Friday, 11/10).
<post word limit exceeded - continued below!>
Happy Friday! This blog marks a very important six year anniversary for the Amora Gem - so lots to discuss. Please grab a drink, get comfortable and let's get underway!
Happy Six Years since Amora Gem was introduced to the world! On 11/11/11, we introduced the Amora Gem to the world right here on this same blog! That was timed to both do it on a momentous date (11/11/11!) and to coincide with Amora being displayed at the Hungarian Natural History Museum in a display titled "The oldest and the newest crystals on Planet Earth"!
Thus we've had a long, winding six year journey with the Amora Gem.
With our Super Ideal Eternity H&A cut, I can truly say that the vision I had of bringing the Ultimate Gem into reality has at last been achieved. I've seen it in every kind of lighting, next to every type of gem (including H&A diamond, etc) and am confident it is the world's most stunning gem.
I do wish of course we could have gotten to this point faster, sooner and with less financial cost (R&D and more R&D costs), but ultimately no matter what, the biggest point is I am confident that Amora Eternity takes it place as the world's ultimate gem!
Going forward, the focus is no longer on R&D given the level of perfection that I had always envisioned, has been achieved. We now have to focus on continuing to expand production to make this level of beauty more available for our customers...so let's move into production updates next.
Amora Eternity Production: We have a lot of 9mm - 14mm Amora Eternity's in progress and these will be ready for sale over the next three to four weeks.
Of interest, the whole demand for larger size is something being seen in the mined diamond market as well. Basically for Amora - 2ct used to be the best selling size. Due to inflation or unknown reasons, the demand has now shifted to 9mm - 10mm (2.75ct - 4ct) being the highest demand!
So we are moving to meet that and will have a lot more larger Amora Eternity's ready for sale each week now.
Eternity beauty and value vs mined diamonds - large sizes:
Of interest is seeing the value and beauty difference with the larger size Eternitys. These stunning 8ct and 9ct+ Eternity's offer superior fire, cut, lustre, brilliance (and passion!) vs. their mined diamond equivalents at far better value.
In this size, $800k - $1,100,000+ price tags are the norm for Ideal cut (and basically no H&A cut's at this size either), colorless mined diamond.
The 8.32ct Eternity below sold for $4,375.
Fancy cut production - updates: We had a lull in production of fancy cuts this past month as we determined that it would be far more efficient longer term to go ahead and make custom 'fingers' for each specific fancy cut.
Those parts have been streaming in and thus early next week we'll have the first Cushion H&A's ready for sale. After that, AVC production kicks in and then Krupps, E-AVC, Princess, Asscher will all follow each week thereafter.
(AV OEC will be starting next week as well btw).
What will happen going forward is that we'll have consistent restocks of each of the fancy cuts every week. That's the payoff for the investment in the new fingers vs. the 'clumpiness' of having to stop and restart using the generic 'fingers'.
I should add that we have a huge amount (~300) pieces of blocked/lasered rough ready for Fancy cuts! So you'll see a rapid uptick in availability shortly and while it was no fun waiting for the new parts it will be worth the wait.
Amora Eternity overnight earrings expansion: Going along with the demand for larger sizes, we'll soon start having as large as 2ct *each ear* overnight earrings in stock!
Overnight Earrings - Amora Eternity Stud Earrings
BTD Updates:
Pink Takara lab grown diamonds! I'm extremely happy to let you know that as another surprise for our six year anniversary blog - we now have stunning Pink lab grown Takara diamonds underway! The first set of 23 just completed grading yesterday and they'll be available for sale tomorrow (Friday, 11/10).
<post word limit exceeded - continued below!>
<continued>
Takara Pink diamond, zoom photo:
A group photo of Takara pinks:
And here's a first cert!
[image]https://betterthandiamond.com/newstore/product_images/c/642/Takara-pink-diamond-cert__07239_zoom.jpg[/image]
Sizes in this first set range from .31ct to .72ct. Most of these are already pairs and would be ideal for earrings or as side stones in three stone rings.
Color is almost entirely Fancy Intense pink, with just a few Fancy Intense Purplish pink. Clarity ranges from SI1 to as high as ... Internally Flawless.
Cut is mostly Excellent cut with some Very Good. For reference, we do not cut these to H&A in order to maximize the pink color.
We'll have studio photos and videos available late next week.
Pricing varies from $2000/ct to $3600/ct, so for example a .31ct would average $650sh. By way of contrast - mined pinks with this level of rich, sumptuous pink color can run over $200,000/ct.
Here's a .28ct Fancy Vivid Pink, SI2 mined - $57,730:
630304 loose diamonds, fancy color, pink, radiant cut, 0.28 carat si2 clarity
You can see more info at our new pink diamond page here:
Takara Pink Diamonds Lab Grown
and browse inventory tomorrow here:
Takara Lab Grown Diamond Inventory
We are now working on increasing sizes to have over 1ct+ size available as early as late November!
[Misc:[/b]
First ever observation of gold and platinum being made - from two neutron stars! Recently astronomers were able to witness, for the first time ever, the creation of gold in outer space! There had been theories as to how gold, platinum and the denser metals were created, but now it's been confirmed. The answer is via the collision of two neutron stars!
As a bit of humour, imagine that alchemists in the middle ages hoped to convert lead to gold. But the immense power needed to actually create gold or platinum is staggering. Consider that one teaspoon of a neutron stars matter weighs..10 Million tons! It's so dense the electrons and protons don't exist separately but are fused together into neutrons. When two of these collide, they smash together creating a variety of dense elements including lead, gold and platinum.
For reference, the observed collision created 200 Earths worth of gold! This is how the gold on your finger or the platinum in your jewelry came to be. After decades of theory, the mechanism behind it is now known and pretty wild to realize that the universe just became even richer in terms of gold and platinum and to know how the metals we work with and treasure came about.
"Spectroscopic observations from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the wake of the LIGO detection confirmed that heavy metals like platinum, lead and gold were created in the collision of the two neutron stars.
When stars smash into each other at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, the collision fuses atoms together and creates the elements that fill the bottom rows of the periodic table.
“These elements — platinum, gold, many other less valuable ones that are high up on the periodic table — they have more neutrons than protons in their nuclei,” Goodman said. “You can’t get to those nuclei in the same way that we understand elements up to iron being produced, by effectively adding one neutron at a time. The problem is that you have to add a lot of neutrons very quickly.” This rapid process is known to physicists as the r-process.
For a long time, scientists thought that r-process elements were created in supernovae, but the numbers didn’t add up, Goodman said. “But neutron stars are mostly neutrons, and if you smash two of them together, it’s reasonable to expect that some of the neutrons will splash out.”
"In fact, scientists estimate the recently discovered neutron star collision spewed out 200 times the mass of Earth — just in gold. But collectors, fear not: The metal is still precious, as is the event that made it. “In a galaxy like our own, these collisions maybe happen a dozen times, maybe a few dozen times per millions of years,” Kalogera says.
Likewise, take a hard look at any jewelry you’re wearing and consider that for a long time, we haven’t had a good explanation for where heavy metals like gold and platinum come from. According to Holz, the Big Bang explains the creation of some lighter elements like hydrogen and helium. “And then those elements form stars, and the stars burn and produce heavier elements, and that story works all the way to iron … but not past iron,” he says."
Here's a video from NASA showing (via animation) the basic process:
And article link:
Neutron star merger confirms decades of predictions by Princeton researchers
That's it for this month's blog update! With the holidays coming, we won't have one in December but will have the next on in January, and we can review the new bevy of fancy cuts available
For now have a great weekend and Happy Holidays - see you next year!
Less
Takara Pink diamond, zoom photo:
A group photo of Takara pinks:
And here's a first cert!
[image]https://betterthandiamond.com/newstore/product_images/c/642/Takara-pink-diamond-cert__07239_zoom.jpg[/image]
Sizes in this first set range from .31ct to .72ct. Most of these are already pairs and would be ideal for earrings or as side stones in three stone rings.
Color is almost entirely Fancy Intense pink, with just a few Fancy Intense Purplish pink. Clarity ranges from SI1 to as high as ... Internally Flawless.
Cut is mostly Excellent cut with some Very Good. For reference, we do not cut these to H&A in order to maximize the pink color.
We'll have studio photos and videos available late next week.
Pricing varies from $2000/ct to $3600/ct, so for example a .31ct would average $650sh. By way of contrast - mined pinks with this level of rich, sumptuous pink color can run over $200,000/ct.
Here's a .28ct Fancy Vivid Pink, SI2 mined - $57,730:
630304 loose diamonds, fancy color, pink, radiant cut, 0.28 carat si2 clarity
You can see more info at our new pink diamond page here:
Takara Pink Diamonds Lab Grown
and browse inventory tomorrow here:
Takara Lab Grown Diamond Inventory
We are now working on increasing sizes to have over 1ct+ size available as early as late November!
[Misc:[/b]
First ever observation of gold and platinum being made - from two neutron stars! Recently astronomers were able to witness, for the first time ever, the creation of gold in outer space! There had been theories as to how gold, platinum and the denser metals were created, but now it's been confirmed. The answer is via the collision of two neutron stars!
As a bit of humour, imagine that alchemists in the middle ages hoped to convert lead to gold. But the immense power needed to actually create gold or platinum is staggering. Consider that one teaspoon of a neutron stars matter weighs..10 Million tons! It's so dense the electrons and protons don't exist separately but are fused together into neutrons. When two of these collide, they smash together creating a variety of dense elements including lead, gold and platinum.
For reference, the observed collision created 200 Earths worth of gold! This is how the gold on your finger or the platinum in your jewelry came to be. After decades of theory, the mechanism behind it is now known and pretty wild to realize that the universe just became even richer in terms of gold and platinum and to know how the metals we work with and treasure came about.
"Spectroscopic observations from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the wake of the LIGO detection confirmed that heavy metals like platinum, lead and gold were created in the collision of the two neutron stars.
When stars smash into each other at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, the collision fuses atoms together and creates the elements that fill the bottom rows of the periodic table.
“These elements — platinum, gold, many other less valuable ones that are high up on the periodic table — they have more neutrons than protons in their nuclei,” Goodman said. “You can’t get to those nuclei in the same way that we understand elements up to iron being produced, by effectively adding one neutron at a time. The problem is that you have to add a lot of neutrons very quickly.” This rapid process is known to physicists as the r-process.
For a long time, scientists thought that r-process elements were created in supernovae, but the numbers didn’t add up, Goodman said. “But neutron stars are mostly neutrons, and if you smash two of them together, it’s reasonable to expect that some of the neutrons will splash out.”
"In fact, scientists estimate the recently discovered neutron star collision spewed out 200 times the mass of Earth — just in gold. But collectors, fear not: The metal is still precious, as is the event that made it. “In a galaxy like our own, these collisions maybe happen a dozen times, maybe a few dozen times per millions of years,” Kalogera says.
Likewise, take a hard look at any jewelry you’re wearing and consider that for a long time, we haven’t had a good explanation for where heavy metals like gold and platinum come from. According to Holz, the Big Bang explains the creation of some lighter elements like hydrogen and helium. “And then those elements form stars, and the stars burn and produce heavier elements, and that story works all the way to iron … but not past iron,” he says."
Here's a video from NASA showing (via animation) the basic process:
And article link:
Neutron star merger confirms decades of predictions by Princeton researchers
That's it for this month's blog update! With the holidays coming, we won't have one in December but will have the next on in January, and we can review the new bevy of fancy cuts available
For now have a great weekend and Happy Holidays - see you next year!
Less
Hello, I have been on this board for quite sometime and I have been growing increasingly frustrated with when I will finally get an Eternity (krupps) cut Amora Gem. My husband and I almost bought a 2 carat Eternity diamond ring this week for (13k plus the setting). But I stopped him because I keep having a hard time at the thought of spending so much on one ring. Can anyone tell me when I can finally buy a 2.5 carat Krupps cut stone??? I don't know how much longer I can wait.
Thanks!!
Thanks!!
I just saw that there are 2 of the larger sizes posted for sale on BTD.!!! The color offered is H and I want E/F. Hope the whiter stones weren’t snapped up already.If there was an announcement here, about the offering of Krupp’s cuts, I couldn’t find it . I have been on the wait list for a very long time . Sooo disappointed if the larger D, E, F stones are already gone.
Last edited: