Renani Jewels awarded The Guinness World Record title for setting 17,524 diamonds in a watch

A Meerut-based jeweller, who has been awarded The Guinness World Record title for the most diamonds — 17,524 — set in a watch, “loved the whole journey”. “We tried a lot of conceptual designs initially. But our idea was clear — to make it a classy and elegant piece that is 100 per cent wearable. Also, making a watch was a whole new experience for us, we accepted all the challenges and loved the whole journey,” Harshit Bansal, CEO and founder, Renani Jewels, told indianexpress.com.

Their endeavour broke the previous record set by Aaron Shum Jewelry Ltd. (Hong Kong) who had achieved the feat with 15,858 diamonds, in December 2018, according to the Guinness site. “We are really happy. The whole team and the family are happy. This has helped us promote and showcase Indian art across the world,” Bansal added.

The record, verified on December 29, 2022, features the watch named Srinkia — “the watch of good fortunes” — that is inspired by ancient Indian mythology wherein Srinkia means flower. It also signifies Goddess Lakshmi.

According to Guinness, the design started with hand drawn sketches. “It took almost 11 months to make this beautiful watch,” said Bansal.

The final product features 17,512 white diamonds and 12 black diamonds. “Diamonds are sourced through the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which ensures that all the diamonds are conflict-free,” said Bansal.

Guinness authenticated the diamonds with International Gemological Institute Lab (IGI) certificate to determine that actual diamonds were used.

Bansal informed that the watch weighs 373.030 gram and contains 54.70 carat of natural hand cut diamonds. He shared that the main challenge was the procurement of a huge quantity of diamonds with the same colour, size, shape and clarity.

“There were a lot of challenges faced at every point. Some of the major ones were to source so many diamonds with the same colour and clarity, then building the whole team’s motivation so that they believe we can do this,” Bansal said.

This is, however, not the first time that Bansal and his team have broken a Guinness record.

In 2020, they set the Guinness World Records for “most diamonds in a single ring”. The ring had 12,638 natural diamonds encrusted in it. Renani Jewels achieved the title for the ring named ‘THE MARIGOLD – The ring of prosperity’ shaped in the form of a marigold flower. It was a “dream project” for Bansal. However, the record was broken by a Kerala-based jeweller in May 2022.

Courtesy: The Indian Express