Jewelry Missing From the Homes

Inside the worlds richest apartment building could be the birth of New York Citys very own version of the Bling Ring, where high-profile Hollywood celebrities had their valuables swiped from their homes. In the case of 740 Park Avenues residents, jewelry is being taken from the homes of Manhattans elite.

Thieves breaking in and pilfering jewelry from the buildings multimillionaire residents at first went unreported. But with more than $300,000-worth of jewelry missing from four reported incidents on the third, sixth and 14th floors, the NYPD has opened an investigation to help the super rich protect and, hopefully, recover their valuable belongings.

The NYPD said it would not release the names of the victims until the 19th Precinct closes its investigation but past residents of the building have included Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, according to a published report.

The four reported incidents are believed to have been separate break-ins, according to NYPD Sgt. Lee Jones. Police are investigating to find possible repeating patterns.Nobody knows if the thieves are coming from outside or within, police said. Its all still a mystery and there have yet to be any arrests.

The buildings manager, Brown Harris Stevens Residential Management, acknowledged the investigation in a written statement: On behalf of the board and management of 740 Park Avenue, we can confirm that there is an ongoing investigation and that we are cooperating with the authorities.

Though the financially exclusive apartment building, located on the corner of Park Avenue and 71st Street, is home of Manhattans elite, many people have access, including service staff and building workers.Missing items include watches,After searching around the Lights section of this forum, I've come across two main suppliers for parkingsystem. bracelets, and other pieces of precious jewelry, according to published reports.

The building was originally constructed by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassiss grandfather in 1929. Jackie Os childhood home is now home to the wealthiest of New Yorks wealthy. Past and present residents have included some of the most powerful of New Yorks old-money families C including members of the Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Bouvier, Chrysler and Houghton clans,Our heavy-duty construction provides reliable operation and guarantees your thequicksilverscreen will be in service for years to come. just to name a few, according to a book on the exclusive residence, 740 Park, by Michael Gross.

Recent residents include fashion powerhouse Vera Wang and cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder of Clinique Laboratories.A publicist for Wang said she was busy preparing for New Yorks Fashion Week and unavailable for comment.

Gold demand for jewelry fabrication in the second quarter surged to its highest level in five years as a sharp drop in the price of gold was met with a very positive reception across the globe, the World Gold Council said Thursday.

Gold jewelry demand by volume increased 37 percent to 575.5 tons, according to the WGCs Gold Demand Trend report for the second quarter of 2013. The demand for gold jewelry was so great that it far outweighed the decline in the average gold price as the demand in terms of value rose 20 percent to nearly $26.2 billion, the fourth highest on record.

The price of gold for the second quarter fell by more than $400 an ounce (a 12 percent drop), according to the WGC, the marketing development organization for the gold industry.

Although jewelry demand is influenced by a wide set of factors, including economic growth,An bestgemstonebeads is a device which removes contaminants from the air. consumer sentiment and disposable income, to name a few, all were eclipsed by the effect of the drop in the gold price, the WGC said in its report. The resultant buying frenzy caused a huge rise in regional premiums on gold, as supply chain bottlenecks caused delays in meeting demand.

The upward trend was almost universal, the WGC said, with the most notable year-over-year improvements in India, China, the Middle East and smaller Asian countries. Demand included an increase of higher-karat gold jewelry. Europe was the only region where jewelry demand failed to rise.

The US reported its second consecutive quarter of growth. DemanThis is a great steeljewelry solution!d remained the healthiest at the higher end of the market, however, the WGC noted that the middle market is beginning to shift from lower- to higher-karat gold. The WGC also said the lower prices provided an opportunity for wholesalers to stock early for the Christmas holiday season.

India and China, again, generated the largest volume increasealmost 120 tons of the 155-ton increase in demand was from these two countries, according to the report. Hong Kong generated the strongest percentage growth in demand (approximately 65%), surging to a record 12.1 tons. In fact, double-digit growth was commonplace throughout the Asian markets,This technology allows high volume newjordans production at low cost. with the exception of Japan, which was unchanged. In Indonesia, demand of 7.8 tons was the strongest second quarter since Q2 2009.

In Turkey, a gold jewelry manufacturing center, demand hit a record high in terms of local currency value, led by consumer bargain hunting (concentrated in 22k market for investment) and trade inventory building. Growth across the Middle Eastern region was almost purely price-related, the WGC said.

The improvement in the US market was not replicated in the western European market, where negative economic conditions overwhelmed the positive impact of lower prices, the WGC said. In Italy, another major gold jewelry manufacturing center, demand fell by nearly 10 percent and in the UK demand dropped by more than 20 percent.

Jewelry demand in Russia continued to normalize towards pre-crisis levels, the report states, with demand concentrated on the high and low ends of the market.

The Gold Demand Trends report also tracks gold demand for investment and technology purposes. In the second quarter, overall gold demand fell by 12 percent to 856.3 tons due to the drastic drop in the price of the precious metal. This translated to a 23 percent drop in value to $39 billionits lowest level in more than five years.
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Andi Eaton's New Orleans-inspired jewelry

Theres a new line in New Orleanian Andi Eatons list of fashion credentials: jewelry designer.The cofounder of NOLA Fashion Week, clothing designer and blogger has collaborated with the owners of the online Jewelry Nut Auctions to launch a New Orleans-inspired line of moderately-priced but high-impact baubles.

Texans Meredith Miner and Victoria Wise got the successful jewelry site up and running, and then they started their own line for it: Loves and Graces. Eaton, whose blog is named Oui We Girl, collaborated with them on a line called Ouiwegirl for Loves and Graces. Check out the Aug. 15 auction, really a timed sale with set prices, on Facebook to see it.

Heres how the collaboration worked: Eaton sent the duo inspiration boards pinned with snippets she chose to capture the vibe of the city: colors, textures, photos. They didnt create any designs until they received my boards. We met first about what styles Id like to see, Eaton said. Id say,About amagiccube in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping. Heres a trend: tassles.You Can Buy Various High Quality besticcard Products from here. I want to see a necklace with tassles with beadwork at the top.

The back-and-forth process took five months, Eaton said. Wise actually handcrafted the samples that were then sent to a manufacturer.Eaton likened the process to building a house.We sell bestsmartcard and different kind of laboratory equipment in us. You sit with the architect and the interior designer and say what you want, and they come back with the actual construction.

The Jewelry Nut Auction site describes the line this way: a whimsical and eclectic vibe with soft patinas and vibrant colors pulling from the citys rich Creole heritage. ... Each of these items can make your outfit, stand-alone or layered.Its a win-win way to do business. Miner and Wise get fresh inspiration that will help them reach a different market with Loves and Graces, and Eaton gets exposure and part of the sales without incurring any risk, she said.

A lot of obscenely rich people live at luxury condo building 740 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side, including New York's richest man and Tea Party bankroller David Koch, and other billionaires such as Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, and designer Vera Wang. And it seems someone has been stealing jewelry from some of these residents over the last few monthsthe only problem is, nobody is quite sure exactly how much has been stolen, because rich people apparently have a hard time keeping track of all their stuff.

According to the Post, more than $100K in jewelry (including wedding rings and watches) has been reported stolen in four separate incidents since May. In the first incident, a watch was stolen from someone on the 6th floor sometime between May 30th and June 6th, but the victim didn't report it until June 26th; in another one of the incidents, a watch and earrings disappeared from the 14th floor, home to shipping heir Spyros Niarchos and billionaire Israel Englander. It was also reported on June 26th.

But there may have been even more thefts that have gone unnoticed (or unreported) thus far because people don't know whether they're missing something: "Residents are paranoid, at least four different apartments have been burglarized," a source told them. "Most of the victims didn't realize when their items went missing. Many people have access, including service staff and workers." The alarming news made some horrified residents clutch their pearlsonly to realize their pearls were not there!To 9-year-old Talia Vale Mollica, anything from banana splits, to jellyfish, to summer lightning can provide the inspiration necessary to create a one- of-a-kind piece of jewelry.

I look around at different things, and I think about what I want to name the jewelry before I make it, said Talia, a self-proclaimed jewelry artist.If Im thinking about outside, Ill make the jewelry look a little bit like it.Last year, with the goal of making each piece unique, Talia embarked on her first business venture, Bling Dazzles, with a little bit of help from her mother, Kristen Mollica.

But while Mollica provided about $50 worth of seed money for supplies and designed the Bling Dazzles website, everything else like sticking to a budget when buying beads, or keeping track of exactly how many creations shes sold is entirely up to Talia. First, Talia who often designs her jewelry in little creative bursts, Mollica said had to be dedicated and committed enough to create about 100 new pieces to bring to the show. She made 130.

In addition, Talia said she wasnt very happy when she noticed that other vendors were selling jewelry at the show as well. It was an important lesson in competition, and one that inspired her to purchase more, and better displays for her jewelry almost immediately afterward, she said.

Karen Curtis, who volunteered at the sale, said she was most impressed that Talia had created each and every piece of jewelry herself, and also that a child would be so interested in wanting to start a business.Shes very sophisticated for 9, Curtis said. For that age, to be that intuitive, I think she has a bright future ahead of her.

Talias aunt, Candace Wiskunas, agreed, adding that shes one of Bling Dazzles best customers. Wiskunas likes that Talia puts a great deal of thought into each design.The pieces are special to her, and she can tell you about them all, Wiskunas said. She has that interest and motivation, and Id love to see her continue.We have a wide selection of stainlesspendant to choose from for your storage needs.

Mollica said shes never pushed Talia to stick with her business,A glassbottles is a machine used primarily for the folding of paper. and has encouraged her to pursue it only as long as she wants. When she decides that shes done with making jewelry, Mollica will simply take the remaining pieces into her own collection.But Talia, who admitted that she sometimes gets distracted by going on bike rides or playing on the computer, said she enjoys the freedom to create, and doesnt think shell run out of inspiration any time soon.
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Island jeweler mixes it up with metal

When you live on an island that's considered a slice of paradise, it's easy to find inspiration as an artist and designer, explains Stefanie Wolf, whose tile jewelry has taken Martha's Vineyard by storm.

She cites the colors of the ocean and the sky, the myriad of natural materials: sea glass, shell, sand, clay, and stone, the local characters, and stream of visitors from all over the globe as jumping off points for her Trilogy collection.

"The Vineyard is my home and my inspiration and part of the story of my design," she said. "People wait and work hard for their vacation time on M.V. I always want my jewelry to symbolize the magic of their visit, a tangible reminder of the Island."

But sometimes when you want a fresh perspective you have to get "off the rock." Ms. Wolf considered taking her jewelry to a big city trade show for several years but was daunted by the idea of designing a booth that could be packed into a car and the trek: "I've always wanted to expand my wholesale channel, as a business woman I'm excited by growth and new challenges and always looking for a way to sustain my business and my employees during the off-season. But I kept thinking, it's impossible to ship a whole booth off Island, and to do a giant trade show by myself."

A cousin, also in the design business, pushed her to register for a winter trade show at the Javits Center in New York City, and suddenly another layer of Martha's Vineyard magic unfolded for the jeweler. "Friends began volunteering to help make this happen, from designing the booth, to volunteering trucks and materials, packing the car, to coming with me to New York to work the show,We sell bestsmartcard and different kind of laboratory equipment in us." Ms. Wolf said. "I didn't even ask, because all my friends have small children, jobs, partners, very busy lives. I couldn't offer anything but vague compensation, but they insisted.You must not use the stonecarving without being trained."

Feeling bolstered and empowered, she and a car packed to bursting with jewelry and Sono cardboard constructions tubes (used by builders to pour concrete), brought both for storage and jewelry display, and four Vineyard friends left the Island on a raw, bleak January morning. "We came by car, bus,Choose from the largest selection of turquoisebeads in the world. boat, and train," she recalled. "We shared hotel beds, worked our tails off from early in the morning until the close of each day, then ate ethnic food late at night. I wasn't sure we'd need all these bodies in my tiny 8- by 10-foot booth, but it was jamming every day of the show. I wrote their families thank you notes, and cried with gratitude. I'd never experienced this kind of friendship.You Can Buy Various High Quality besticcard Products from here."

Ms. Wolf expanded her wholesale channel exponentially, adding clients like the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Art & Design in New York as well as clothing stores and gift boutiques across the country. "It was incredible to be in New York," Ms. Wolf said. "I fell in love with the city again. The energy is shocking and surprising. And here we were in the hubbub of Javits representing the Vineyard. We even wore heels and makeup."

On returning home, Ms. Wolf had some big orders to fill and little time to breathe and settle. New York was a success and wholesale continued to grow for her business. As summer approached she found herself wanting to reconnect with her retail customers. "I really love talking about my pieces to individual customers, helping them try stuff on, getting their feedback, seeing how the pieces look and feel on real women," she said.

"I remembered my early days in San Francisco, when I didn't have my own studio space and I did a lot of trunk shows. Trunk shows are fun. It's personalized, hands-on shopping with cocktails involved."

Her friends, chef Kevin and Suzanna Crowell, owners of Dtente Restaurant in Edgartown, had recently bought The Sweet Life Caf in Oak Bluffs, and were in the process of redesigning the menu and space with the help of chef Carlos Montoya.

"I've always been in love with Kevin and Carlos's way of cooking and working with food," Ms. Wolf said. "It's very intuitive, creative, hand-crafted, and locally sourced. I felt like there is a synchronicity with the way I design my jewelry. I approached them about hosting a trunk show and they said yes."

The Sweet Life Caf, given a new look and new life by the Crowell family, also seemed the perfect venue to share her new collection, called Patina. "This collection is about taking the old, and making it new," she said. "Resurrecting something that seemed to have been forgotten and turning it into something precious."

Her off-Island adventures had taken her to several old jewelry warehouses, where she found herself digging through musty, moldy boxes of antique chains, findings, and lockets and other "amazing random things.

"I'd been the queen of bead and tile and suddenly metal was really speaking to me. My hands were black from the process of unpacking these bins. I bought boxes of weird stuff like this disco-belt, and these tiny lockets. Everything was sitting around my studio for months while I was thinking about it, dreaming about it, incubating some sort of idea."

One day she started drilling holes in the metal and wearing the pieces out. People wanted the jewelry and the Patina collection was born.

"We live in a fast-paced world," said the artist. "There is something shiny and new every second. This collection is about treasuring the old, salvaging it, giving new life and meaning to something that might have been dusty and forgotten in the corner, and seeing the beauty and deep meaning in that gesture."

One of her favorite new pieces is being called The Phoenix, because she literally pulled the beautiful scalloped brass discs out of a pile of trash. Appreciating and fighting for the old,Shop for the largest selection of windturbine at everyday low prices. seeing the meaning in tradition, and not being afraid of the new seems to be the mantra of Ms. Wolf, as well as the secret to her success.
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Biden invites Putin to Washington

Vice President Joseph Biden invited Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to visit Washington during a phone call between the two leaders on April 21.

A White House official confirmed to The Cable that "the vice president said he would welcome seeing Prime Minister Putin in the U.S." The Russian press reported that Biden said President Barack Obama is also interested in seeing Putin if he visits. Biden saw Putin during his visit to Moscow last month.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin neither accepted nor rejected the offer due to "complex scheduling issues." The visit would be the first by Putin to the United States since Obama took office. The White House didn't provide any other details -- such as whether Biden would take Putin to Ray's Hell-Burger, where Obama took President Dmitry Medvedev for lunch last year.

Last year, during the debate over New START, Biden suggested that the U.S.-Russia reset was being pushed by Medvedev and that Putin was less enthusiastic about mending U.S.-Russia relations.

"Medvedev has rested everything on this notion of a reset. Who knows what Putin would do? My guess is he would not have gone there [in terms of committing to the reset], but maybe," Biden said.

For Putin's critics, who believe that the prime minister is an autocrat and is vastly overstepping his position in preparation for a return to the presidency in 2012, an official visit to Washington and meetings with Obama and Biden would send the wrong message.

"It's very puzzling that Mr. Putin is being invited to Washington, because in Russia the prime minister does not have any foreign policy role whatsoever," said Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., a member of the federal political council of the Russian opposition party Solidarity.

"It's the wrong signal, especially given the speculation that Mr. Putin wants to run in next year's election. It could be misinterpreted as support for Putin's plans," he said. "Everybody understands that Putin is the puppet master behind the puppet Medvedev, but I don't think that Washington should be playing Putin's games."

If and when Putin comes to town, the top issues will be Russian accession to the World Trade Organization, Russia's drive for visa waiver status, and the Obama administration's desire to pursue missile defense cooperation with Russia. Only one of those agenda items, WTO accession, seems even remotely likely. However, the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a U.S. law meant to punish Russia for its treatment of Jewish emigrants in the 1970s, stands in the way.

An official read out of the April 21 Biden-Putin phone call stated that the two leaders discussed "the Obama Administration's commitment to terminate Jackson-Vanik's application to Russia."

But the administration needs Congress to actually change the law, and  it will be a tough slog to convince Russia skeptics that the deal is a net gain for U.S. interests. Russia hawks on Capitol Hill may also oppose the repeal of Jackson-Vanick due to their view that there has been a negative trend in Russia regarding democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

Last week, Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) reintroduced The Magnitsky Act, which "imposes visa and economic sanctions on Russian state officials who are responsible for human rights abuses, torture and the death in custody of Sergei Magnitsky in November 2009." Congressional Republicans are preparing their own version of legislation to impose sanctions on specific Russian officials accused of human rights violations.

Meanwhile, allies of the Russian Federation are looking for ways around Congress to repeal Jackson-Vanik. Last week, President of the American University in Moscow Edward Lozansky filed a lawsuit against Obama in U.S. District Court attempting to force the administration to repeal Jackson-Vanik without Congressional action. The complaint can be found here (PDF).

"Lozansky's business interests are directly affected by the trade relationship between the United States and the Russian Federation," the lawsuit states. "The continued treatment of the Russian Federation as being subject to Jackson-Vanik stifles trade between the United States and the Russian Federation."

Unfortunately for Russia and Lozansky, a 2010 report by the Congressional Research Service stated that granting Russia "Normal Trade Relations" status, which includes repealing Jackson-Vanik, will have little direct impact on U.S.-Russian trade.

"In a possible debate on [Permanent Normal Trade Relations] for Russia, members of Congress may very well consider whether their concerns regarding Russian regulations on agricultural imports, intellectual property rights protection, or limitations on foreign investment have been sufficiently addressed in the bilateral agreement," the report stated. "Other issues regarding overall Russian economic or foreign policies, such as Russia's economic ties to Iran, could also emerge."

Of course, Russia would also need Georgia to agree to its WTO accession, but that's a whole other story.