Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you classic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. Today we feature 1989’s “End of the Line” by the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup composed of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. The hopeful, upbeat song about how everything
Cut from a 240-carat rough stone found in 1951 at the Premier Mine in Transvaal, South Africa, the "Victoria-Transvaal Diamond" is one of the most prized possessions in the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection. Today’s virtual tour of the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals takes you right to the case where the
Russian mining giant Alrosa recently unearthed a massive 236-carat fancy intense yellow-brown diamond at its Ebelyakh mine in Yakutia. It's the largest natural color rough diamond ever found in Russia. The beautiful specimen, which seems to display a surreal inner glow, measures 47mm x 24mm x 22mm (slightly wider than a golf ball). Its "fancy
Conor McGregor, one of the most feared mixed martial artists in UFC history, revealed his sensitive side Saturday when he and his longtime girlfriend, Dee Devlin, announced their engagement on McGregor's Instagram page. In a photo captioned, "What a birthday, my future wife," McGregor and Devlin are seen smiling ear-to-ear as the bride-to-be rests her
A young Long Island man got the best birthday gift he could have ever asked for when a thumbprint locket containing his brother's ashes was returned to him by a Good Samaritan with a metal detector. Fiction writer and avid metal detectorist Danny McAleese discovered the precious keepsake at Smith Point County Park beach in
Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you fun songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. Today, country star Jake Owen celebrates a sensational Southern summer in his 2013 release, “Days of Gold.” Owen reminisces about the days of yesteryear when he could hang out with good friends, drive his
Gemstone lovers rejoiced in the summer of 2016 when two leading jewelry-industry associations recognized spinel as an official birthstone for August. Best known for its rich red color — but also available in brilliant shades of pink, purple, green and blue — spinel has been called "the great imposter" because of the prevalence of "regal
Heather Rae Young told her 932,000 Instagram followers that she is "absolutely obsessed" with her new 8.08-carat emerald-cut diamond and that she can't stop staring at it. The 32-year-old former model and Selling Sunset reality TV star received the gorgeous ring during a romantic beachfront proposal orchestrated by Tarek El Moussa, who is best known
The dramatic fourth and final installment in Gemfields' short-film series paints a vivid picture of how rubies — "the rarest of all colored gemstones" — are born deep within the Earth. The 78-second film opens with the narrator describing an ominous place, where atoms become minerals under intense heat and pressure. We learn that when
Here's a birthstone riddle for the month of August: What do the world's largest faceted peridot and the Brooklyn Bridge have in common? If you're stumped, a little background may help… About the Peridot The 311-carat faceted peridot (shown in the grouping, above) is currently part of the Smithsonian's National Gem Collection in Washington, DC,