Diamond Created From Beethoven's Hair Auctioned on Ebay
Posted on September 25, 2007
<[>The hair from legendary composer Ludwig van Beethoven has been fused into a diamond and auctioned off on eBay for charity. The synthetic diamond is one of three diamonds created by LifeGem from the carbon in a lock of Beethoven's hair. The second diamond belongs to John Reznikoff, who provided the Beethoven hair sample.In case you didn't Reznikoff holds the Guinness World Record for the largest and most valuable collection of celebrity hair. Reznikoff's celebrity >hair collection may be even more valuable than previously thought if they are going to be fusing diamonds out of it. The third diamond is being kept by LifeGem for its celebrity diamond collection.
LifeGem is a company that creates diamonds using carbon from cremated remains as well as from locks of hair. LifeGem's faq says it takes 6 to 9 months to complete the diamond depending on the color. The Telegraph describes the steps LifeGem took to create the diamond from Beethoven's hair.
Experts at LifeGem HQ in Chicago then burned the hair without oxygen to ensure it did not disintegrate.Bidding for the Beethoven diamond has passed the $200,000 mark. The item has a buy-it-now price of $1 million. LifeGem's page says that 100% of the proceeds from the auction will go to charity.They extracted 130 milligrammes of carbon from 10 strands and divided it into three separate diamond presses.
Each of the presses was exposed to temperatures of 3,000 degrees celsius and placed under one million pounds of pressure for a two week growing period.
Once ready, the stones were cut into Round Brilliant Diamonds, polished and then certified.