After the incredibly disorienting weirdness of 2020, many of us anticipated 2021 would bring a “return to normalcy.”
But it’s been another interesting, and often unsettling, 12 months, and we’ve all gotten an unwelcome crash course in the different letters of the Greek alphabet.
Yet, even during a pandemic, the world goes on—and keeps being strange. So, as we did last year, JCK has collected some of the most bizarre, unusual, and sometimes icky (you have been warned) jewelry-related stories from 2021.
Earlier this year, Turkish jeweler Mehmet Yuksel rescued an injured squirrel named Memocan. And ever since then, the “staunch lionhearted” little guy has apparently been guarding Yuksel’s cash register.
Sound hard to believe? Or not particularly scary? Yuksel said don’t be deceived; you shouldn’t mess with Memocan.
“This tiny animal has strong feelings,” Yuksel said, claiming that the squirrel has injured store workers when they tried to use the register. “He made their fingers bleed.”
The kidnapping—or botched escape—of former Gitanjali chairman Mehul Choksi this summer was certainly bizarre enough. It so captivated people on the island of Dominica, where Choksi ran aground, that local calypso singer Trendsetter began writing songs about the latest news regarding the fugitive diamond trader.
Watch him serenade a bemused Indian reporter here:
If the internet is good for anything, it’s letting people slam each other. This was demonstrated in January when an Australian couple posted a Facebook shot showing off their new engagement ring, while the groom seemingly held a bag of dog poop.
All of which led online commentators to talk a lot of you-know-what.
“Maybe they met at the dog park or something?” one person theorized, making sure to add, “That wouldn’t make it okay.”
Susan Prior was snorkeling off the east coast of Australia, when she noticed something strange: a mullet fish with a gold band wrapped around it.
She put an ad in the local classifieds and heard from the couple who’d lost the ring while swimming. The problem was, now that she’d found the owner, she had to relocate the fish.
Did she ever track it down? it’s not clear. But her discovery did, apparently, inspire a play—Gold Fish.
Australian Diver Spots Fish Wearing Gold Wedding Ring https://t.co/ymu2Y7ckzd
— Inside Edition (@InsideEdition) May 18, 2021
English jeweler Taylor & Hart has found a unique way to appeal to pet-loving future brides: It’s offering dog collars that match their engagement rings.
“After all,” the jeweler wrote, “who says your pooch doesn’t deserve diamonds too?”
Still, diamond-studded objects don’t come cheap, even if they’re likely be to drooled upon—it costs at least $500 to get your paws on a Pooch pendant.
You can now buy bespoke dog tags for your pooch which match your engagement ringhttps://t.co/T0wrF5HjE1
— Daily Star (@dailystar) April 29, 2021
Andrea, a makeup artist whose business had dried up due to COVID-19, went on ITV’s Million Pound Pawn looking to pawn her late uncle’s Rolex, which he bought at a “car boot”—the U.K. version of a garage sale—not knowing if it was real.
It wasn’t. “It’s worthless as a watch,” the pawnbroker told her. That was the bad news. The good news was, she made money anyway. The fake Rolex was made of real gold. She left with 2,700 pounds (about $3,600).
Maybe someday they’ll be a really bad romantic comedy made out of this:
Man meets woman. They go to a hotel room. He puts jewelry in the safe. And when he wakes up, his $1 million in jewelry is gone.
But this one-night scam won’t likely have a happy ending. After it was publicized, the woman turned herself in; she’s suspected of at least three similar thefts.
As an Atlanta police spokesperson told Fox 5: “We would just say, be careful who you allow into your hotel rooms.”
It was a big enough shock when the Orange City, Fla., woman found out via Facebook her boyfriend was engaged to someone else. It was an even bigger shock when she saw her now-ex-boyfriend’s fiancée wearing her wedding band and engagement ring.
She immediately scoured her jewelry box and found out they were missing, along with several other pieces. Police are now searching for the suspect, who, according to the local sheriff’s office, has a tattoo on his left arm that reads: “Only God can judge me.”
It’s not unusual (anymore) to see diamonds supposedly grown from the ashes of a cremated corpse. But an Australian jeweler has developed a new kind of jewelry to commemorate lost loved ones, in a more visceral—though arguably more unsettling—way.
According to the New York Post, Jacqui Williams started making jewelry from dead people’s teeth while working as a cemetery gardener and studying jewelry design. She put the two together—and Grave Metallum Jewellery was born. She told the Post: “I have always seemed to be drawn to the morbid side of life.”
Bizzare News on #RYSENSHYNE w/@AjoaMorgan x @nydjlive
“I used dead people’s teeth,ashes and hair to make jewelry – yes I’m morbid” pic.twitter.com/3pMXFnDqd7
— YFM KUMASI 🇬🇭 (@y1025fm) July 12, 2021
More of her tooth rings—which are sometimes made from the teeth of the living—can be seen here.
A parrot in Bangkok named Frosty had to receive emergency surgery after he reportedly raided his owner’s jewelry box and ate 21 diamonds.
No joke: Parrot in Bangkok swallows 21 diamonds after raiding owner's jewellery box https://t.co/4BR90zIEB4 pic.twitter.com/g0XIyICnfs
One of the attending vets told Metro: “This kind of bird is attracted to things that glitter. We see this kind of situation a lot, but this case was strange because the parrot ate lots of valuable diamonds.”
With their sharp edges, the gems could have seriously hurt the bird, but, luckily, his owner got him help on time.
The parrot is said to be doing fine, though the animal hospital’s Facebook page warned: “Birds are very smart and naughty animals.”
As the above list proves, sometimes people are too.
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