The Diamond Studio Daily 11/11/2013

The story of gold is as rich and complex as the metal itself, Wars have been fought for it love has been declared with it. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs portray gold as the brilliance of the sun; modern astronomers use mirrors coated with gold to capture images of the heavens. By 325 BC the Greeks had mined for gold from Gibraltar to Asia Minor. In 1848 AD James Marshall found flakes of gold whilst building a sawmill near Sacramento and so triggered the gold rush in California. Held securely in national vaults as a reserve asset, gold has an irrefutable logic; released from the tombs of pharaohs and emperors alike, gold has an undeniable magic. This week we will teach you everything you need to know about gold as an investment as a luxury and everything in between so lets start with the basic facts.

79 - The atomic number of gold, which means there are 79 protons in the nucleus of every atom of gold.
49 - The 40,000 miners who joined the California Gold Rush in 1849 were called “49ers”. Only a very few ever got rich
1064 - Gold melts at 1064 degrees centigrade.
174,100 - This is the total number of tonnes of gold mined since the beginning of civilisation.
90 - Over 90 percent of the world’s gold has been mined since the California Gold Rush.
31.103 - The number of grams in a troy ounce of gold.
4,600 -Fort Knox holds 4,600 tonnes of gold.
1 - It is rarer to find a one ounce nugget of gold than a five carat diamond.
60 - The percentage of gold mined today that becomes jewellery.
482 - The % increase in the price of gold from Dec 2000 to March 2013.
750 - The number of parts per thousand of pure gold in 18 carat gold.
15,000 - Even at only 10 parts of gold per quadrillion, the world’s oceans are estimated to hold up to 15,000 tonnes of gold.
100,000,000 -100 million people across the world depend on gold mining for their livelihood.
99.5 - "Fineness" is a measure of gold purity, usually expressed in parts per thousand e.g. 995/1000 or 99.5% pure.

Today's Diamond of the Day is the Chloe Diamond
Largest round brilliant-cut diamond ever put on auction. 








In at number 45 in the countdown of Celebrity Engagement rings is Reese Witherspoon. Jim Toth presented the Water for Elephants actress with a 4-carat Ashoka cut diamond ring set on a pave diamond-and-platinum band, created by jeweler William Goldberg in December.