To protect it from the Nazis, the 140.5 carat Regent Diamond was taken from the Louvre and hidden behind a stone panel at the Château de Chambord during WWII.
The word jewelry comes from the ancient French, "joaillerie", meaning joy and gladness.
Platinum was introduced to jewelry in 1896 by Cartier.
Pope Nicholas I in 860 AD declared engagement rings to be a necessary statement of intent.
The famous Tiffany Yellow Diamond weighs 128.54 carats and has 90 facets. The rough weighed 287.42 carats upon its discovery in South Africa in 1877 or '78. Also called the Canary Diamond, the stone has been on near continuous display for the past 70 years and is so linked with the jeweler that when asked by an overeager salesman what the salesman would get for selling the diamond, Tiffany lore is that the head of the jewelry firm immediately replied, "Fired."
The largest diamond ever found was the Cullinan Diamond, discovered in South Africa in 1905. It weighed approximately 1 and 1/3 pounds in the rough and when cut for 5 stones, inadvertently yielded 9, including the Cullinan I, the Great Star of Africa. The Great Star of Africa is, itself, the largest cut diamond in existence, weighing 530.20 carats. The pear-shaped stone is set in the Imperial Scepte and is on permanent display in the Tower of London. Its sister stone, the Cullinan II, weighs 317.4 carats and is set in the Imperial State Crown, also housed in the Tower of London.
The British monarchy's Imperial State Crown stands 12.4 inches tall and weighs more than two pounds. In addition to the Cullinan II, it is set with more than 3,000 precious stones.
When Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958, he sent the 451/2 carat stone to the museum in a plain brown wrapper by registered mail. The postage cost him $145; $2.44 in postage stamps and $142.56 to cover the cost of insuring the item for $100,000,000.
The jewelry industry uses about 1,000 tons of gold per year.