Gemstones are rare and highly-coveted; this can sometimes result in theft and other crimes. More than $1.5 billion-worth of jewelry and precious metals were stolen in the US in 2010, with a recovery rate of only 4.2%. In order to better serve the public, law enforcement turned to GIA for assistance. GIA developed a seminar to better train them in successfully identifying stolen gems and jewelry.

All of the peer-reviewed research on diamonds, colored stones and pearls presented in Gems & Gemology (G&G), the leading journal in its field, is now available, for free, on the iPad. The new G&G app complements GIA’s (Gemological Institute of America) award-winning quarterly journal with enhanced digital content and is downloadable for free on iTunes.

When it’s time to buy a diamond, many people spend a lot of time educating themselves on the 4Cs of diamond quality, and then determining what the personal trade-offs between those various quality characteristics will be.

GIA will be included in a story about modern-day treasure hunting this Sunday, April 22, at 7 p.m. on CBS’s 60 Minutes, the long-running weekly news program. 

Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels auction is coming to Geneva, May 17, 2011, and includes this beauty: