A $171,000 Mother’s Day gift
If you have a couple thousand to drop on a Mother’s Day gift (and, really, who doesn’t?), then the Birks store on Bloor Street is the place to do it. Some of the first-ever Ontario-mined diamonds, extracted from a De Beers mine in the James Bay Lowlands, are up for grabs there starting today. According to the Star, the diamonds are of extremely high quality: the clear and colourless stones are so fantastic that they have the second-highest value per carat in the world.
There are 131 diamonds (90 polished and 41 rough-cut) available at the jeweller (a nod to the number of years Birks has been in business), and their total value is $4 million. President and CEO Tom Andruskevich told us that individual diamonds range in price from $1,400 to $171,000. All the diamonds are sold loose, meaning buyers pay extra for the setting. Andruskevich says several people have made appointments, but no gems have been sold.
After May 1, the remaining collection will then travel to other major flagship stores across Canada, returning to Toronto in time for TIFF and, we assume, another splashy celeb-filled party.
