As I write this, I am on an Amtrak train bouncing, tilting and clattering its way to Washington, D.C., where I have been invited to the inauguration as a personal guest of our 45th president, Donald J. Trump.
Just kidding.
I am actually going to speak at the D.C. chapter of the GIA alumni association tonight at a Holiday Inn in Arlington, Virginia, giving the PowerPoint version of the blog post I recently wrote on my retail prognostications for the year.
Since I am on my way to our nation’s capital, however, I feel like it’s a good time to catch readers up on my last trip to D.C. As they say, there’s no better time than the present to finish a story you should have written two months ago.
Back in November, I was invited to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History for a dinner welcoming the 187.63-carat Foxfire Diamond as a temporary resident of the museum’s Harry Winston Gallery, which is also home to the 45.52-carat Hope Diamond.
Discovered at Canada’s Diavik Diamond Mine in August 2015, the Foxfire is the biggest diamond ever known to be found in North America.
Rio Tinto, which owns a 60 percent stake in Diavik, had the diamond in New York back in May and I got my little, grubby, never-polished fingers on it then. The following month, the stone went up for auction and Deepak Sheth of Amadena Investments/Excellent Facets Inc. placed the winning-but-never-disclosed bid for the diamond.
