Some people show off their success with a nice car or designer brands. Slater Jones wears his in his eye socket.
The Alabama jeweler lost his right eye to illness but decided that if he had to live with a prosthetic, it might as well reflect his craft. So he asked ocularist John Lim to design something one-of-a-kind. He wanted an artificial eye with a real two-carat diamond embedded in the center. When light hits it, the stone flashes a literal glimmer of luxury staring back at the world.
“I lost my eye, but it brought new light into my life,” Jones said, reported by Oddity Central. The diamond, he said, turned the prosthetic from a medical necessity into a personal emblem that reflects his creativity, persistence, and dedication to his craft.
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Lim, who has made nearly 10,000 artificial eyes in his career, called this his most valuable creation to date. “I’ve made prosthetic eyes for babies as young as six weeks old and patients over 100,” he told reporters. “But this is the most valuable in terms of materials.” The process took six weeks from start to finish, requiring precision molding and design work to safely embed the gem within the iris.
When Jones first shared his diamond eye on social media, the internet lit up almost as brightly as the stone itself. Admiration mixed with alarm as viewers questioned whether it was wise to walk around with something that valuable staring out of his face. “Shouldn’t you be careful every time you go outside?” one user commented.
Jones, unfazed, says the diamond doesn’t make him nervous. “It’s a part of me,” he told local media. “If I’m going to live with something artificial, I want it to be beautiful.”
His story spread fast online, with headlines calling it the world’s most expensive prosthetic eye. Jones says he hopes it helps people rethink what recovery can look like, mixing healing, humor, and personal style.
The diamond doesn’t make him special so much as it makes him impossible to ignore.
The post This Jewelry Store Owner Put a 2-Carat Diamond in His Artificial Eye appeared first on VICE.
