Thirty years ago, a woman from west London scooped up a showy ring for £10 ($13) at a car boot sale. Convinced that it was costume jewelry due to its inexpensive price, oversized center stone and filthy mounting, the woman cleaned it up and made it part of her day-to-day fashion wardrobe. (For Brits, a car boot sale is akin to a flea …

Two of world’s finest opals — the Virgin Rainbow and the Fire of Australia — are jetting 7,000 miles from Adelaide to Doha to headline a three-week special exhibition at the Australian Embassy in Qatar. This will be the first time the gems have been seen outside of Australia. Valued at more than $1 million combined, the famous pair will …

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you classic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today’s featured track is “For Your Love” by the British-invasion band The Yardbirds. The 1965 hit, which features key “diamond” references, was the group’s biggest commercial success, but also triggered the departure of future superstar Eric Clapton. The song …

A non-matching pair of fancy-color diamond earrings named after the twin deities Apollo and Artemis set an auction record at Sotheby’s Geneva yesterday when they sold for a combined $57.4 million. The pink and blue pear-shaped duo now hold the title of the most valuable pair of earrings ever sold at auction. Sotheby’s had promoted the earrings as a pair, …

Described as a “miracle that came out of tragedy,” Texas newlyweds Ariel and Justin Duke were reunited with Ariel’s engagement ring and wedding band eight days after a deadly tornado flattened their home and scattered debris for miles. Having learned of the couple’s plight on Facebook, amateur metal-detector enthusiast and Good Samaritan Nathan Wright meticulously scanned the Dukes’ devastated property for five …

A 373.72-carat chip off the old block recently sold for $17.5 million at Lucara Diamond Corp.’s “Exceptional Stone Tender” in Botswana’s capital city of Gabarone. Immense by most standards, the rough gem is actually a broken shard from the second-largest diamond ever discovered — the 1,109-carat Lesedi la Rona. Discovered in 2015, that diamond is about the size of a …

An Australian woman named Anna wore her engagement ring around her neck for 18 months without realizing it. Anna’s boyfriend, Terry, had given her a hand-carved necklace made out of Huon pine — a variety native to Tasmania — for their one-year anniversary in 2015. Little did she know that hidden in the center of the unique keepsake was a …

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, the sensational Ed Sheeran sings about how his struggling grandfather made a wedding ring from dental gold in his 2017 hit, “Nancy Mulligan.” The song details the wartime love story of his grandparents and how their relationship flourished …

At first glance, these two gorgeous sapphires seem to be nearly identical. They both weigh approximately 10 carats and boast a comparable cut and hue. However, when offered for sale at Christie’s New York, one fetched $50,000, while the other commanded $305,000. Why the big difference? Christie’s jewelry specialist Jessica Peshall shed light on the seemingly subtle differences in the stones that …

Four thousand light years away in the constellation of Serpens, a priceless planet five times the size of our Earth races around a tiny neutron star in an orbit that takes barely 130 minutes. Comprised mainly of carbon and oxygen, the planet is so incredibly dense that astronomers believe that the carbon has taken on a crystalline structure — and …