Spirer Jewelers

Synthetic Diamonds

2012-01-26T11:22:00.006-05:00

What is a synthetic diamond (or any synthetic gem material)? A synthetic diamond is a diamond created by man that has all the same physical and chemical properties of the natural version. This is different than a diamond simulant (something like cubic zirconia) which mimic the look of a diamond, can be man made, but are not actually diamond material.

In the last ten years there has been a lot of talk about synthetic diamonds. It has been possible for quite awhile now to manufacture fancy colored synthetic diamonds in a wide range of sizes. However the quest to manufacture white diamonds has been a lot slower in coming. Creating white diamonds is significantly harder than creating colored diamonds, for a variety of reasons, which usually require a degree in the sciences somewhat beyond mine to explain and understand in detail but I am sure if you are interested in it, a quick online search should yield some results.

Unfortunately a great deal of the talk generated about the availability and the manufacturability of white diamonds was generated by the two companies who seem to be currently in the forefront of production. Both of these companies have made some of the most wildly exaggerated claims about their capabilities and their experiences (one of the owners claimed that agents from deBeers were following him around and had threatened to kill him). They have been saying for years that in just a little while (usually within the upcoming year after whichever conversation they were having) they would be flooding the market with white diamonds of all sizes, especially stones over 1 ct (which is kind of their end goal). Well so far none of that has come true. Are they currently able to produce white diamonds? Well yes but they haven't been able to come anywhere near their claims of the size range they can produce nor of the quantities they can produce.

However I had a customer come in recently who is a scientist and she had decided that she wanted a synthetic white diamond. I won't sell synthetic diamonds (of any color) but I told her I would be happy to make up a ring for her if she was able to procure a stone from one of the two manufacturers. So she went to them and after a little period of time she was able to buy one of the largest stones they had been able to make to date. It was a .65 ct. stone. Not exactly a 1.00 ct. diamond. Not completely white either in my book since it was an "H" color and I only sell "D", "E" and "F" (completely colorless) diamonds. It also, despite the fact that they claimed it was an excellent cut, did not fall into the ideal cut range that I sell.

But here is the most interesting fact. I went to check the pricing against other normal retail prices for like natural goods and it was only about 15% less expensive than a natural stone. Now this is somewhat understandable because it does take a huge amount of heat and pressure (read: energy) to produce these stones. So it isn't exactly a bargain, nor are they exactly dramatically undercutting the pricing of equivalent natural goods.

It also is not, for those of you concerned with environmental damage from diamond mining, a whole lot better for the earth because of the energy used to produce it.

As a gemologist, it is an interesting stone to see and work with. I'm sure that sometime in the future, the companies may actually be able to produce truly top color, larger stones. But for now, I don't think the natural diamond producers have much to worry about.

You should also note that it is possible with the right equipment to identify these stones as synthetics as well. However there have already been numerous incidents of small synthetic fancy colored diamonds being sprinkled into pieces that have some natural fancy colored material. It is becoming ever more important that you buy your jewelry from someone you trust and who has reliable sources.

My next posting will be about pearls. I can't remember if I ever wrote an article about the different varieties but I think it's an important topic so I'll be writing it up in the next week for your reading, and educational, pleasure!

The 18k gold ring picture above has one of my ALL NATURAL diamonds in it.

Back from Vacation and Ready to Roll

2012-01-21T10:48:00.005-05:00

I am back from one of the longest breaks I've ever taken in my life from the bench. I have taken two weeks off in the past but because of the way the holidays and our flight times ran I actually had about 2 1/2 weeks off. The last time I had that much time off was when I was 15! My wife and I once again went back to our favorite spot in the country, Big Sur. We like to stay at an inn called Ventana that is quite wonderful and I strongly recommend it to anyone heading out to that part of the country. The two pictures above were taken from the deck at the restaurant at Ventana. We also spent a few (cold) days in San Francisco to visit with friends and relatives and some of our favorite stores! So I am well rested and ready to get back to work although so far I've mostly been slogging through end of year things like inventory.

This year I may be revisiting some topics I have discussed earlier simply because the blog has gotten so long that newbies might find it hard to dig out some of the high points and the specific topics they would like to read about although you can get to my blog directory here. But to start with here I want to talk a little bit about metal prices today.

Gold, as many of you know, has reached somewhat stratospheric heights in price in the past two years. For quite awhile I believed that it was a temporary situation and that prices would drop, possibly quite rapidly, at some point. Well this hasn't proven to be the case. While I believe prices peaked at about the $1900 mark and, barring some world disaster, won't go over that point, I am no longer of the opinion that prices will make any significant drops in the near future. Please note that I am not a financial expert, and also that if I really knew what gold was going to do I would be rich and retired by now, but there just doesn't seem to be any reason for gold to go back down as long as the current market forces continue, which it looks like they will.

So why is this important to you? First of all it means it is highly unlikely that jewelry costs will go down so if you have a big occasion coming up and you think you can wait until prices go back down, I simply wouldn't count on it. Secondly, it means that it is going to continue to be a good time to scrap some of that old jewelry you don't wear anymore for something new and fun. While I don't buy gold for scrap outright, I will take it in towards work being done, pieces in my cases or even to put towards repair work. I have had a number of customers who have cleaned out their jewelry boxes and ended up with some beautiful new pieces to wear. There really hasn't ever been a time in the past when you could take some of the (mostly commercial) jewelry you had bought years ago and turn it in for more than you paid for it. The third thing that is important about this is that it means that everything you own currently has far more value than it did if you bought it more than 3 years ago, which means it might be time to update any old appraisals you have. You should check with your insurance companies about whether they require this (some of them do) or if they have clauses allowing for increases in value automatically.

So it's a new year. Why don't you go clean out your closets and see what you come up with. Bring it by and let me see if we can't get you into a nice, new, more beautiful bauble for the upcoming year!

My next posting will be on synthetic diamonds as I just took in an order using a stone a customer purchased recently from one of the synthetic diamond manufacturers.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-29T12:43:00.003-05:00

This will be my last posting of the year as I am in the midst of finishing up my year end stuff and getting ready to go on a muchly needed vacation in January. I will be closed until January 18, 2012. I am posting a picture of my last custom job of the year as well. My customer had bought the pair of spectrolite carved moon faces from me last year for Christmas and brought them back this year to have them made up into earrings. I thought they really came out pretty neat. They were designed to be worn with a pin she owns of mine that had a similar moon face in it.

I am hoping to recharge my batteries a bit. I have worked seven day weeks almost all year and I'm pretty much worn out. So some time sitting in a hot tub, looking at the Pacific Ocean, the stars, mountains, and whales and sitting in front of a fire enjoying some of my favorite tequila will be a welcome respite. I hope to come back with some fresh perspective on my work and look forward to producing some new designs this year.

I may write a posting while on vacation but I'may also be too relaxed to deal with it.

As an aside I'd like to mention that my older son got named as one of Forbes top 30 under 30 in the arts at the end of this year. We are very proud of how successful he has been. His name is Ryan Sullivan and if you Google Forbes 30 under 30 on the web you will find him listed there.

So I hope you all have a great New Year and I look forward to seeing you all in the new year!

Montana Sapphire Earrings

2011-12-20T10:44:00.002-05:00

I made this pair of earrings up over the weekend and they have some unusual gem materials in them. I had the opportunity recently to purchase some Montana sapphires (yes they come from Montana!) from the collection of Henry Shawah, a wonderful local jeweler who passed away about a year ago. Blue Montana sapphires usually have a very different type of blue color than most other sapphires. They tend to be somewhat lighter in color, with slight green overtones and usually accent someone with blue eyes wonderfully, because the tone is closer to that in the eye color. But.....they sold yesterday so if your sweetie has blue eyes we'll have to look at some other stone options........

New Pieces

2011-12-19T10:54:00.001-05:00

New moonbeams necklace with all natural, unheated orange sapphires.

Another new picture tomorrow.

3 Postings in one day.

2011-12-07T10:58:00.005-05:00

Here's one more picture of a new pair of earrings. They have natural color Umba orange sapphires, blue sheen moonstones and are 22k and 18k yellow gold. Please be sure and read all three postings today. I don't understand how the opal one got misplaced (it must have been the computer!!!).

For my new readers here is a link to my blog directory: http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-directory.html

This article is a recent one that somehow got a date of September 2010 on it and didn't show up recently.It should have followed the 11/10/11 post.

2011-12-07T10:47:00.012-05:00

In my last posting I told you about some boulder opals I had just gotten in and that I was pretty excited about having some new material to make earrings with. I also told you a few postings ago that if you wanted my new designs, you really had to get in here quickly. This week I put out three new pairs of opal earrings. The ones at the top of the page are boulder opal and rubies in 18k and 22k gold. And I'm sorry but you can't have them because I put them out on Wednesday and they sold on Friday.

The pair below this paragraph have the really spicy pair of boulder opals I was talking about in the last post and my assistant Katy got a really pretty amazing picture showing some of the astounding color flash in the stones. This pair will not last long either.
And I also just put out the pair pictured below this paragraph as well this week. This is one of my comet series of earrings (although I have customers who say they are my bug earrings). These stones were not boulder opal splits, but a larger stone that I had cut in half (and that retained its color properly).

The following is a blog post I started quite awhile ago on opals. It talks a bit about opals in general and white opals specifically. I'll get something up soon that discusses black opals.
If you asked me what my favorite colored stone was I would have a really hard time choosing between sapphires and opals. Admittedly they are completely different types of stones but they both move me in a myriad of ways. And opals, without a doubt, have a slight edge simply because they aren't just ONE color but they are MANY colors. Some of them have ALL the colors. I mean, what more can you ask for in a gem material? Well okay, they could be a whole lot more durable and they could hold up better over time, but still they are just so fascinating. And they have so many colors!!!

Well actually the nice opals have so many colors. For many of you opal means those ugly white stones that have some specks of greens, blues or reds in them. But that just means you haven't seen any of my boulder opals or the astronomically priced black opals that show up occasionally. So what the heck are opals anyway you might ask? And I'm glad you asked because I intend to tell you what they are. They are beautiful!!! Ooops sorry I was actually going to get scientific here.

Opal is an amorphous, hydrous form of silica. Basically what that means is that it has some water in it. The amount of water, and the crystallization of it, will effect the opal in a variety of ways. It is believed that the play of color comes about because of the diffraction of light and slight variations of refractive index from a large amount of spherical, regularly arranged particles of silica and from the voids between. Okay enough science. It's great to know this but it doesn't amount to a hill of beans when you want to own an opal!

There are actually a variety of types of opal that are available. The ones most people may be familiar with are white opal, boulder opal, black opal, crystal opal and fire opal. All of these are broken up into even more varieties but it isn't really that important for a non gemologist to know.

White opals, the most common of the opal family, are opals that have a white (sometimes described as milky) body color with flashes of color scattered throughout. There is a huge amount of this material available but much of it is either so milky that there isn't much play of color or there just isn't much color in it to begin with. This is not to say that there isn't some beautiful white opal out there. I have owned, at various times, many fine pieces with strong color flashes throughout the stones, but generally speaking because the background is white the colors simply don't show up that well. Often if you coated the back with black ink (or set them with black behind them) you could see a lot more colors. If this is being done to the opal, however, it must absolutely be disclosed to the customer as it is a misrepresentation of the goods if it isn't revealed. I never did this with stones that I sold, unless it was going into a custom piece for someone and they specifically requested it, but it was always pretty amazing how much of a difference you would see in the play of color when it was done.

It's Christmas Time

2011-12-06T20:39:00.011-05:00

First of all I love my new iPad. What does this have to do with jewelry? Nothing really but if you don't want to give your loved one a wonderful piece of jewelry than an iPad should be next on your list. Oh, I'm sorry I'm supposed to be talking about jewelry. Well this is a great time to come by my store (especially if you want to pass on a few hints to your significant other) because 80 hour weeks seem to get my creativity running at full speed. I have gone from new lows in stock on pendants and earrings to new (oh okay just recent) highs. I am creating five or six new pieces a week lately. Good thing: fun new pieces! Bad thing: no time to write long blog entries. So on top is a new take on an old design with emeralds and on the bottom is a new take on a new design with South Sea black pearls and diamonds. More pictures coming soon probably with no dialogue. Come in and see them while I still have them. Oh and forget about buying that great nuggety strand of black South Sea Keshi pearls that I showed you here: http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/10/brief-followup-to-yesterdays-post.html because they're gone already!

For my new readers here is a link to my blog directory: http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-directory.html

And this is a list of some of my favorite articles in the past:

1) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-am-i-in-this-business.html

2) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/04/on-timing-of-things.html

3) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/04/overworked-underpaid-and-happy.html

4) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/12/anatomy-of-custom-order.html and http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/01/part-two.html

5) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/04/shop-local-or-bricks-and-mortar-vs.html

6) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/12/giving-engagement-ring.html

7) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/12/sourcing-of-diamonds.html

8) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-im-in-this-business-ii.html

9) http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/09/custom-work-iv-and-why-im-in-this.html

DON'T LOOK AT YOUR CREDIT CARD BILLS

2011-12-03T10:25:00.004-05:00

You know it's really quite amazing the way our society has changed thanks to the computer age. Everything is at our fingertips all the time. If you need to check the weather it's right on your phone, or your Ipad, or your PC. Want to see how the stock market is doing? It's right in front of you on your home page. Want to see when that book you ordered will arrive, just look at the site where you bought it, use the tracking number and hey, it's on the truck right now for delivery! But with all of the good things that we get out of this instant age we live in, a few not so good things tend to creep in.

Let's take for instance your ability to review your credit card charges instantaneously on line. I mean this sounds like a great thing. You can check for fraudulent charges, see if the monthly utility payment has gone through yet, etc. But, if you're married, and you share the cards, and you check your online account all the time, then it becomes just about impossible for your partner to SURPRISE you with a present. And this is the time of year when we all like to give and get presents. And I always thought half the fun of it was that surprise factor. So how about if we all take a break from looking at those accounts on line for a month (at least the shared ones) so that you might really look like the people in some of those television commercials who look surprised when they get that nice little box filled with some wonderful new memories for you!

Why, you might wonder, am I writing this now? Because, sure enough, one of my customers lost the element of surprise when his wife checked the accounts today.

The ring pictured above is 18k gold with a .41 ct. "E" color, VS1 clarity ideal cut Lazare Diamond.

Fun Custom Work

2011-11-29T11:35:00.010-05:00

I always enjoy custom making jewelry for my customers and I enjoy the challenge of trying something new or different. But if I am to be completely honest I really like it the most when the customer already likes my style of work and wants me to do something for them that is reflective of that because that is what is most fun for me.

A few months ago a couple who are one of my oldest (in terms of being customers not in terms of age!) customers came in with a pile of diamonds. His mother has been in the process of selling off and passing on her collection to her three children and she had given them a platinum necklace with approximately 360 .15 ct. diamonds in it. The children decided they were each going to make up some jewelry with it to wear at her upcoming birthday party for themselves, and I believe some of their children as well. So my customers had 119 diamonds (almost 20 cts. in total) that they wanted me to play with. They didn't ask me to use all of their diamonds but as many as I thought would work in the suite of jewelry they were commissioning from me. They wanted a pair of earrings, a bracelet, a pin/pendant and a ring. They also picked out some beautiful blue sheen moonstones I had gotten recently to use in the earrings and one for the bracelet.

We discussed general parameters and ideas for the pieces. For the earrings I wanted to do a larger version of something I had done years ago for another customer with a lot of dangling diamonds. The bracelet I thought should be done as separate, unique links with the diamonds on them. For the pendant we looked at a piece I had out in the case with a moonstone in it for a general idea. The ring was a bit different though in that they looked at a regular design I do (http://spirerjewelers.com/gallery/rings/Capture_00115.jpg) but they wanted a waving row of diamonds set into it. Because everything was being hand built from scratch this was a huge job in terms of my time. I started with the earrings and had them look at them before moving on to the next jobs. While I had a pretty good idea of where I was going on the pendant and bracelet, I had no idea what I was actually going to do for the ring until I actually began building it.

What I was happy about with this job (besides the fact that I just really enjoyed making them and the results!) was that I was able to tie in all of the pieces in different ways so that they were both a set but unique items. While you can't see it in the photos there was a distinct stripe of orange through the middle of each of the moonstones (especially visible in the one in the bracelet). This led me to think about things in terms of two sides/designs. So on the bracelet I took the square pieces and cut them in half and set them each up a little differently. If you look closely at the pendant you'll note there is a distinct design shift midway (diagonally) through the piece. The diamonds in the ring created two distinct sides. although the design on either side was similar. I wanted the customers to be able to enjoy them and look at them and see different things going on each time they did. After all that plain old Tiffany style engagement ring is going to look exactly the same no matter how many times you look at it. You'll never see anything new. But no matter how much time you spend with one of these pieces they'll never get boring.

The four pieces are pictured here. I managed to get 103 diamonds into them which I thought was pretty good. They were picked up this morning and I'm happy to say my customers were thrilled (and they said they would write a comment here so I'm hoping they will back me up on that!) Okay, okay so not all of you are fortunate enough to be given 120 diamonds to play with. But even if you only have a few I'm always happy to make something up for you!

Boulder Opals

2011-11-10T14:24:00.008-05:00

I love opals, but I am particularly fond of the boulder opals that I specialize in. There are a variety of different types of opals with white opal, black opal and boulder opal being the best known of a somewhat larger grouping. Boulder opal is opal that is naturally backed or surrounded by the boulder, or rock, material that it is found in. One of the reasons I like it so much is that the darker background (usually the rock, or boulder, material it is found in is brown) brings the colors of the opal up beautifully. You also can get pieces that have seams of opal running through larger pieces of boulder than can be quite unusual. We once owned a piece like that which had a rather striking opal part that looked exactly like a portrait of Bette Davis, and which we ultimately sold to a guy who had a thing for Bette Davis.

One of the other things I always liked about boulder opal was that I used to be able to get, on a regular basis, what are known splits. These are pieces of boulder that have a seam of opal running through them and when they are cut along the opal seam, you end up with a matching pair of stones. Usually these were cut in a way that left the peaks and valleys in the material matching so you could actually fit the two pieces together if you put the opal parts next to each other. The colors also usually matched better than material that was simply cut up into pairs because it was the same seam of opal for both halves.

Unfortunately, a number of years ago, the availability of boulder opal splits dropped tremendously because most of the better opal material was being bought up by the Asian market which has always had an appreciation for (and the money for) finer stones and opals are big sellers over there. For the last 4-5 years it has been a struggle to find any better material in splits, no matter what the size. It reached the point where I had been forced to simply buy bigger pieces of boulder opal and have it recut into pairs. The problem with this, however, is that as with most colored stones, colors often read more distinctly, and stronger, in larger sized stones. Opals, with the vast variation in the color of each piece, is particularly like this and sometimes when we would cut the larger pieces down into smaller pairs, they didn't read nearly as strongly as the one larger piece did. This often not only meant that they weren't as pretty but also that I couldn't charge as much for all the pairs together as I would have for the larger piece (the price of which was not reduced to me so this was somewhat problematic).

So finding pairs of opals has been a growing issue for me, along with my top quality diamonds. However, I have just come into a number of pairs of opals through a variety of means. I saw my opal dealer about a month ago and I did find one larger piece that we were able to cut into two very attractive stones. Then a few weeks ago I was bemoaning the lack of boulder opal splits to a dealer I work with who never carries opals and he brought out a box of stones he was trying to sell for a jeweler who had retired recently. Lo and behold there was a beautiful pair of splits that I bought and had recut into slightly smaller pieces.

Yesterday however, my regular opal dealer called and told me he had managed to find 3 pairs of beautiful splits that a fellow dealer had and he wanted to know if I wanted to look at them (knowing full well that I was so desperate that not only would I look at them but it was a pretty sure thing I would buy them). They showed up today and I did buy all three pairs. None of them are large and they are all pretty but one of the pairs is absolutely smokin' hot! They have some beautiful flashes of orangey red, greens, blues and they are absolutely unique. I plan on setting them up into earrings in the next few days and if you'd like to get first shot at them, check in with me and see if they're done yet. By the way the larger stones I had recut are also in process and will be part of my comet series of earrings (well some people call them bugs---they're like the ones at the top of the page).

Opals are notoriously hard to photograph as the colors often float across the top and are routinely different depending on the angle you are viewing them from but I'll try to get some more pictures posted of the new goods as soon as they are done.

Trust Your Jeweler (So He Doesn't Get Fat)

2011-11-08T14:02:00.004-05:00

As some of the long term readers of my blog know, I have advised people in the past to go to jewelers that they trust, jewelers whose designs they like, and that are willing to offer a good range of options and warrantees. I usually advise this because it's easier to work with someone like this. But additionally if you like their style and quality of work and design, you know you'll get a nice piece of jewelry that will look good and you'll enjoy over the years.

So if you come in to work with a designer like me, you should be willing to put yourself into their hands to some extent. I have more than 30 years of experience designing and making jewelry so I usually have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't. Now this doesn't mean that if you have imagined up some design that you want me to execute, you can't ask me to do it, but it does mean that you have to be willing to take some of my advice on what will look good and work well within the parameters of the design. This particularly becomes the case if you are asking me to alter an existing design of mine for you. (Yes I am going somewhere with this.)

So I recently had a young couple come in with their diamond and they decided on one of my simpler designs in which there is a very plain band that comes up and loops around a prong setting. It rises up slightly as it goes around the setting. Pretty straightforward and at times I have made it with both very small and huge stones and pretty much everything inbetween, but I almost always show it with a fairly small (quarter carat) diamond in it. Anyway, the couple's diamond was quite a bit bigger and I offered to make up a model (because I was going to have to anyway since the band was going to be made in platinum) for the customer to look at ahead of time. As I usually do, I made it up the way I thought it would look best given the design and size of the stone. However, when the customer came in she decided that she wanted me to raise the metal up around the stone setting higher because it was a much bigger setting. I'm here to make you happy, so even though I thought it looked fine the way it was, I boosted up the metal that wrapped around the setting and sent it off to be cast.

Well about three weeks after the ring was picked up my customer walked in again and, in a very humble way, asked if I would take the sides of the setting back down to where it was originally. Because I want you to be happy with a ring you're going to wear all the time, I agreed to do it immediately, even though ultimately I had to actually start from scratch with the original model and recast the entire piece (platinum is a very persnicketly metal and doesn't take kindly to a lot of changes being made). The final piece looked great and was exactly as I had first wanted it to be, and the customer seemed to be thrilled with it. Apparently she was so thrilled that she brought along an apple pie as a thank you gift, something that was totally unneccesary. And now I have to eat the whole thing, because I hate to throw good food away!

Morals of the story: If you like what your jeweler designs, trust them to make it right. If you want your jeweler to live a long and healthy life don't make him too fat!

Pictured above is a variation on my best selling ring but this one is narrower with a prong setting and a .41 ct. ideal cut Lazare Diamond, "E" color, VS1 clarity.

A brief followup to yesterday's post.

2011-10-28T13:28:00.004-04:00

So for those of you who read yesterday's posting and said: "Ha. That guy is just making those things up about selling his new stuff so quickly.", I just wanted to let you know that the new opal earrings shown in yesterday's post sold today. You just have to be quick if you want something new.

Pictured above are some new black South Sea keshi pearls I got in recently. Interested? Don't wait!

New Jewels

2011-10-26T10:35:00.000-04:00

If you are a regular customer of mine, it behooves you to keep an eye on my blog. This is where I am posting pictures of my new pieces as they come out. The reason it's advantageous to you is that if you actually want to own some of my new pieces (and this becomes particularly important to those of you who might be looking for Christmas presents) you really have to move quickly if you see something you like. For a variety of reasons the new designs I put out sell much faster than anything else. The South Sea pearl earrings in this recent posting: http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/09/shortest-one-of-my-blog-entries-ever.html have already sold to one of my regular (and nicest) customers. Sometimes the new stuff sells so quickly that I don't even have time to get a picture taken of it (well one that someone else takes given my photographic skills).

Obviously one of the reasons new pieces sell so quickly is because my regulars already have a lot of my older designs and when they see something new it moves them. But the other reason is that I'm always excited when something new comes out and (yes I still get excited when I make something new) I tend to show the new stuff more. So even when I get new customers in who might not have seen my work before, I will often show the newest pieces first.

Then there is the other strange thing about retailing, which is that even if I don't show the newer pieces to someone who is in the store for the first time, they often gravitate towards the new items. It's another thing about retailing I just don't understand. It is somewhat akin to my lack of understanding why certain designs seem to cycle into the customer's minds at the same time. Last week I had two different customers come in with diamonds they wanted reset from a variety of pieces they owned and they both picked the same design (something akin to this one here: http://spirerjewelers.com/gallery/rings/Capture_00191.jpg). Now I hadn't sold a set like this since last Christmas and then in the same week I sell two of them! I have this happen with other designs as well. I have some rings that languish for years and then suddenly in a month I'll sell three of them! Perhaps it's something in the water...........

I have a few requests of anyone reading these pages. One is that I'd love for you to become a follower (although for some reason, in a recent change to the system, blogger has stopped showing my list of followers---I'm working on that). The second is that I am always happy to hear both comments from you and suggestions for future topics (and yes I STILL am working on a posting on opal).

Pictured above are 18k and 22k yellow gold earrings with boulder opals.

Problem Solving

2011-10-20T19:59:00.000-04:00

Half of my job has nothing to do with making jewelry. It has to do with problem solving. I have now been in business for so long that many of my customers have aged a bit and sometimes the actual functinality of pieces can become challenging. One of my older (both in how long she's been coming to me and in age) customers loves pins and she has quite a few older ones, many of which I have worked on over the years. However her fingers are no longer as agile as they once were and she has a terrible time manipulating the pin stems, especially when they are short. A short pin stem is hard to get into a piece of material and then fit into the clasp mechanism and close the clasp. So one of the things I have tried to do for her over the years is to extend the length of the pins so she can manipulate them easily. Recently she came in with a piece I had worked on previously. But the somewhat longer pin stem we had added to it originally was no longer functional. So she wanted me to devise a solution for her that would allow her to put the pin on more easily.

When she was here I immediately said fine, I can just add a bigger piece behind it and put a longer pin stem on. But when I actually sat down with the piece I realized it wasn't quite that simple. First of all because of both my prior work, and possibly other prior work, I could no longer remove the cameo to do work on the piece and hope to get it back in, looking right, and set properly. So I couldn't solder it onto anything because the heat from my torch would have ruined the cameo. Additionally because there were open elements of the design that I really didn't want to lose I couldn't just simply attach it to a big piece of flat metal. So my first thought was to cut out a rectangle, the size of the pin, in the middle. So I did that. Only then I had to figure out how I was going to attach the pin to my larger piece of metal without using solder. At first I considered using rivets but there was no area on the pin that I either wouldn't have ruined trying to rivet (riveting involves hammering a piece of wire down onto a piece) or ruined the design by drilling holes through it for the rivets. Finally I figured out that I could use a prong like attachment to hook it on. This would resolve a number of issues: 1) I wouldn't have to use any solder to attach the piece. 2) I wouldn't have to destroy any part of the original piece to attach it. 3) It would actually get the job done (something always important in my book).

So if you look closely at the picture (one of mine, apologies) you will see that I ran four prongs up inside the border of her pin and bent them over to hold her pin in place. So no solder, a bigger pin, and hence much longer pin stem, and success. And given what I had to work with it looks consistent and pretty. Can't ask for much more than that. In this case, it wasn't about making jewelry, just figuring out HOW to make the jewelry. And now you know why I charge what I do!!!

Good Diamond Cutting VS. Great Diamond Cutting

2011-09-29T15:28:00.000-04:00

As many of you know by now I like to sell ideal cut Lazare Diamonds for most of my diamonds. I like them because they are always true ideal cuts with very little variations in the cuts. A lot of what you see online and available elsewhere are diamonds that are called ideal cuts but really don't have the exact angles to qualify as ideal cuts. The name has become abused and misused everywhere. However a cutter's art can go far beyond just making sure the angles the stone is cut to are proper.

I got in a pair of quarter caraters from Lazare the other day for a ring I was making up with an orange sapphire in the center. I routinely do a Diamond Grading Report for stones that don't come in to me with a laboratory certificate so that when I do an appraisal for my customer on the piece I have proper documentation. Now with many of the diamonds I sell today this is not always an easy task. Because the clarity grades I am working with are so high, it often takes me awhile to find any inclusions in the stones. But Lazare is a strict grader and if they say something is a VVS stone, there is usually something there. VVS clarity stones usually have extremely small pinpoints or other very difficult to locate inclusions in them. A VVS1 stone is only a step down from a flawless diamond so there really is going to be very little inside the stone to identify it. A VVS2 stone will have something a little bit larger but still something incredibly difficult to locate. So my two stones were both VVS2 clarity stones. It took me about 10 minutes to locate a small inclusion near the culet (the point at the bottom of the stone) on one of them. But the other one I spent a vast amount of time looking for anything. Now if it had been a VVS1 stone I would have said that Lazare was erring on the side of caution and it might really have been a flawless stone, but this one was a VVS2 so I knew they had to have seen something in the stone.

With stones like these I usually use extremely high magnification to find any inclusions and then back off to 10X to see if I can still see them (10X is the magnification all diamonds are graded at). I looked at this stone, backwards, forwards in all different types of lighting and just kept getting more and more frustrated. You should note that with stones in these clarity ranges, you really don't want to mistake a piece of dust for an inclusion, and diamonds are natural dust collectors, so nonstop trips to my steamer to continually clean the stones is part of the process. Finally after close to a half an hour with the microscope I happened to catch a glimpse of something on the pavilion (bottom) of the stone again near the culet. Looking at it more closely I finally realized that there was a tiny black needle like inclusion running right up one of the facet junctures. Because it was on the facet junction it was just about impossible to see.

Okay so what does this have to do with cutting a diamond? Well pretty much everything. Because of where the inclusion was placed, along a facet junction, it became virtually invisible. Another cutting operation that pays less attention to this kind of perfection would have allowed the inclusion to end up wherever it was going to. The stone probably still would have been a VVS2 clarity grade but the inclusion would have been much more visible. This is one of the subtle differences between good diamond cutting and great diamond cutting. Which would you rather have: a VVS2 clarity diamond that has an inclusion right smack dab in the center of the table (albeit tiny) and immediately visible, or a VVS2 clarity diamond that it takes a trained gemologist a half an hour to find the one inclusion in the stone?

Diamonds are not all created equal and diamond cutters have vastly different skills. Lazare Diamonds uses cutters with great skills and that will always make a difference in the final product. Please think about this when you go out to buy that next sparkly bauble!

The picture above is one of mine (apologies as always). I made this version of my moonbeams necklace a number of years ago. It has an orange sapphire and diamonds in it. Usually I do a lighter weight version of this but I had this one in the shop the other day and thought I'd grab a picture of it.

Shortest one of my blog entries ever. Nothing to read, just something to look at.

2011-09-20T18:45:00.000-04:00

On Selling Your Jewelry (Again)

2011-09-19T12:57:00.000-04:00

As I said yesterday, this entry is a rehash of a number of articles I have written about selling your jewelry. Not a day goes by anymore that I don't get at least one person, and often as many as five or six, into my store trying to sell something. This isn't just because the economy has been a little soft and some people need some money but also because the high gold prices have led to a larger than usual knowledge about how selling your scrap gold can generate money. Now obviously I am a jeweler and my storefront clearly identifies me as such. And today, many people think that as a jeweler, I must not only sell jewelry, but also buy it. Unfortunately in my case, that simply isn't what I do. I have never had scrap, or jewelry, buying as a part of my business plan. I am a jewelry designer, and SELLER, and that is what I do. This doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of "jewelers" who buy jewelry, just that I don't do it.

The one thing I am happy to do for my customers is give them a scrap credit for old jewelry towards something new I am creating for them (or that is in the case). I don't have a problem with this as it is simply another form of payment. And with today's somewhat high gold prices often a commercial chain purchased 10 years ago can lead to a credit well over what was originally paid for the piece at retail. But I am not in the business of buying and scrapping gold, nor am I in the business of buying old jewelry and reselling it.

So let's talk about this business of selling your jewelry once again. There are, as I see it, three separate issues to be dealt with in selling your jewelry. The first is a straight gold (or platinum) issue. Gold has been at all time highs recently and it is possible to actually sell some commercial jewelry for more than what was paid for it at retail. This is truly a first in terms of this business. Unless you bought something years ago when gold was fixed at $35/ounce there was almost never a case where you could sell something you bought at retail to someone for scrap and get more out of it than you paid for it. The reason for this is because everyone in the chain has to make money on what they sell. So a gold refiner has to make money on refining and producing gold for someone like a gold chain manufacturer who has to make money on their processes and machines when they sell the chain to a middle man who then sells it (at a profitable markup) to a retailer who than must resell it again at a profitable markup. This routinely meant that if you tried to scrap a chain shortly after you bought it, you would get nowhere near the price you paid for it. However, because of the extreme heights that gold has reached in price today, it has, in some cases reached the point where in fact you cannot only scrap your gold jewelry for what you paid for it but often for more than you paid for it.

The second issue has to do with selling the gemstones that may be in your jewelry, including diamonds, rubies, sapphires, etc. Unfortunately a vast quantity of jewelry produced and sold in this country has absolute garbage in it in the way of gemstones. The vast majority of those tiny diamonds and other stones in pieces are pretty much junk. This is so much the case that many scrap buyers don't even bothering removing stones from pieces---they just send the jewelry into the refiner and the stones are burned out and usually destroyed. It isn't even worth the time often to remove the stones, no matter try to resell them. So if you have a piece of jewelry you are going to scrap and there are small stones in it, don't expect to get paid a penny for them.

The other problem is that even if you do have high quality stones in them, many of the people buying gold for scrap these days have no clue of what they are looking at unless the stone has some significant size to it. Now if you do have a more significant sized stone in the ring it may be possible to get an offer made on it. Diamonds of better qualities, 1/2 ct. and up should generate some money (although prices have not risen on gemstones the way they have on gold so it is unlikely that you will get back more than you paid for the stone originally---or even close to it). There are a few things to remember when trying to sell your gemstones. The first is that, unlike with metal at the moment, this is not a seller's market. People are dumping jewelry right and left these days so the normal midrange to lower quality goods that most people own in this country are in abundant supply. The buyers must be able to make enough on something they buy from you so that they can 1) sit on the goods until they are actually able to sell it and 2) make a profit on it when they do sell it. Often the buyers are reselling the stones to wholesalers as they have a better chance of selling the goods. If this is the case the person who buys it from you has to take a price far lower than the wholesale price because the dealers are paying less than wholesale on their normal goods (so that they can sell it to a retailer and everyone makes money on it).

I always believe that you maintain the most amount of gemstone value by holding onto it and putting it into a new piece. Admittedly, if you are in need of money, this isn't a solution but if you are simply scrapping things you aren't wearing anymore and feel like taking advantage of the high gold prices, hang onto your stones.

The third issue is a little trickier when it comes to getting rid of your jewelry. This involves pieces that might be worthy of bringing to an auction house like Skinner's in Boston. Generally speaking I would only encourage this if you have true antique pieces in good shape, or significant gemstones. What do I mean by significant gemstones? These would be diamonds of exceptional size, color, clarity and cut (probably over 2 carats and VS or better clarity grades) or larger emeralds, rubies or sapphires of exceptional quality. Despite what most of you think about your pieces, you probably don't own one of these stones but that isn't always the case.

The baby boomer generation is also just starting to see their parents passing on family heirlooms. This does sometimes mean that pieces passed down through generations are becoming available to people who see no immediate or long term use for them. Unique pieces of note or with historical significance should be looked at by a qualified appraiser who could direct you to the appropriate place to sell them. When I see customers with large quantities of jewelry they have just inherited come in, I usually try to divide the stuff up into three piles: junk, stuff to scrap with a gold buyer, and stuff to go to an auction house. Most of the time there is very little to go to an auction house. The advantage of using an auction house is varied. For one thing, if pieces have true historic value they will be able to tell you. Secondly, the buyers pay the premiums to the auction house. Thirdly you can set minimum sale prices for stuff (although I would always advise you to listen to the auction house on this---they know what stuff goes for and what it will yield and they don't base it on the fact that it was your grandmother's piece and that you remember her wearing it when you were a child). Fouthly you have the chance of generating a return far higher than scrap value in some cases.

What I haven't discussed again here is the issue of actual yield on gold scrap. But the following is a posting that will help you with that:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/03/selling-your-gold-for-scrap.html

The pin pictured above is an old piece I made that I recently came into a picture of. It is a sunstone with orange sapphires in 18k and 22k yellow gold.

Reticulation

2011-09-11T16:13:00.000-04:00

The pendant pictured here was made using a jewelry technique known as reticulation. Reticulation is one of the more enjoyable, but random, things that can be done with metal. Although certain gold alloys can be reticulated, the way I do it is to use a traditional 800/200 mix of fine silver and copper (sterling silver is 925/75 fine silver/copper) to actually make the pieces and then I have the ones (or parts of them) that I like cast in gold. Long ago when I first started doing reticulated pieces I had to make my own reticulating alloy to work with. Now, since a lot of the oddball techniques that I have been doing for 40 years have become more mainstream, my refiner actually offers a reticulating silver to work with. The process is time consuming in that you have to heat and pickle (throw the metal in an acid bath) repeatedly (10-20 times) so as to build up a layer of fine (pure) silver on the surface. This means that the melting point of the surface metal is higher than the metal underneath it. After the heating/pickling process is finished, the piece of metal is then heated until the metal underneath begins to melt. If you're lucky you can actually exercise some control over how the metal moves as the molten metal begins to fold up on itself but the top layer remains somewhat rigid. If you're not lucky you can still get a lot of interesting results. And if you're really unlucky it doesn't work at all and just rolls up into a molten mass of metal. (Try this for a tongue twister: rolling molten mass of metal!)

Once the silver piece is finished, I usually cut out the shape I want (sometimes the actual shape of the piece I want, sometimes a larger one that I can cut into smaller pieces). Then it goes off to my casting company who make a mold of the piece and send me back some nice cast ones in 18k or 22k yellow gold. The pendant above was made up because I had an old customer come in recently with some reticulated earrings I had made awhile ago and he wanted a matching pendant. I made one for him and put the one above out into my cases. I'm also currently in the process of trying to come up with some reticulated wedding bands for the cases. I haven't gotten the metal doing quite what I want yet (I have a few of those rolling molten masses of metal lying around) for the rings but as soon as I do I'll get a picture posted. The picture above, incidentally is thanks to my new assistant, Kady, who it turns out is far more skilled than I am at photography (well just about everyone is more skilled than I am at it, but Kady is quite good and has a part time job actually doing some photography work as well).

I haven't been writing for awhile because I have continued to be swamped with work. However there is some end in sight and I am hoping to get a few new articles up soon. I plan on doing another one about selling/scrapping your jewelry as it seems to be a constant topic in the store these days, and I still hope to get an article on opals up. Actually I have some new opal earrings that Kady took a picture of for me that would make a nice heading for it so let me see what I can do. I also have some new South Sea pearl earrings made up that I have a nice picture of as well---they'll be headlining whatever the next article is about.

The piece pictured above is 18k yellow gold with four .03 ct. ideal cut, "E" color, VS clarity diamonds. Come by the shop if you want to see it in person.

Why am I in this business?

2011-08-11T15:10:00.000-04:00

Gold prices soar! The market sinks! The market rises! Gold prices plummet! It's the new world we seem to live in. Personally I have a theory that it is the speed with which information is available and the speed with which stocks can be traded that is actually accounting for most of the wild swings we're seeing in the marketplace. Fifty years ago it would have taken weeks before financial news from Asia would have impacted our stock market. Now the news is there within seconds and the traders respond seconds later. Good news/bad news/no news, it's all become fodder for a market that no longer seems to be driven by the basics of sound business management, supply and demand, etc. but is actually driven by traders out to make a quick buck and news from a media that obsesses over far too many things. The real problem is that the economy of any country doesn't turn on a dime this way. It takes years to get into a downturn and years to get out. But everyone wants it all to happen instantly because that's what we're used to now. With a click of a button you can order almost anything and 24 hours later it's in front of you. Need a new book? Download it in a minute or two. Want to see a movie? No need to go to a theater. Turn on your television and there it is. My personal belief is that the economy has actually been improving for well over a year now but it has been a slow and incremental recovery. I think the doomsayers are wrong. But then if I really knew what was going to happen I'd probably be rich and retired in Big Sur California, and I am most assuredly not doing that!

My business in particular has been rocked by some of the market machinations because I work with the world's current favorite money maker: gold. Personally I'm faring well because, as always, I offer a quality product backed with stringent guarantees and I do stuff that is different than what most other jewelers are doing. But I think there is another reason why I'm doing well: I had a young couple in (I'm sorry but all of my customers seem young to me these days) today. He had been in before looking at engagement rings and this time he brought his intended in to look. He told me that he had watched the video that is on my website and also is available on this blog off to the right if you're reading this. He told me that one of things he liked about it was that I was obviously enjoying myself while I was making the jewelry. And I think that is what makes a big difference. I DO actually enjoy making jewelry. It's why I'm in this business to begin with. I mean, sure, I like talking to all the unique and varied people who come into my store, and like anyone who sells for a living, I enjoy that process as well but really, in my heart, I'm a real jeweler: I MAKE jewelry. And I have always enjoyed MAKING jewelry. And that is one of the biggest reasons I am in this business. Come on by and see what I've been making lately!

Pictured above is an 18k yellow gold and garnet pendant.

Summer is ending

2011-08-04T13:20:00.000-04:00

I haven't had much time to write lately. Between trying to catch up from being on vacation (the work before and after vacation always does me in), getting a little stock made (tax free day is coming), and just the normal business in the store I haven't had a lot of spare time. But this time of year is perfect for stargazing so my thoughts have turned once again to objects located in the far reaches of outer space. Hence the pin that I have posted a picture of here. Once again my apologies for my photographic skills. You really can't see how stunning the boulder opal is in this picture but trust me it's a real beauty. As usual in my comet pin series this one has a name: "As the Opalian ship neared light speed the slipstream became quite vivid". I spend way too much time reading science fiction books these days apparently.

I have had more people in looking for engagement rings recently. A constant topic that seems to come up is the issue of ring size. If the intended knows they are getting a ring soon then it might be possible they have proactively gone ahead and gotten their finger measured at a jeweler. Unfortunately most of the time, the proposers are trying to surprise their intended so they don't know what the ring size is. Routinely I get them in with rings their intendeds wear on their right hand. This may get me in the general range but almost all people's hands are different sizes. Usually the dominant hand is larger than the other so if you are right handed your right hand will be larger. USUALLY. But not always. So I still won't have a real idea of what the size is. Sometimes I have found that the proposer (and this is usually guys) has no clue of even what size in general their partner's hands are. So a first step might be to actually look at their hands. Get an idea of whether they appear large or small, whether the knuckles are much bigger than the rest of the finger, are the fingers long or short? These are all first steps. They still won't actually resolve the issue but it's a beginning. Things like trying pieces of string on their finger while they are sleeping will NOT work. String stretches. Metal doesn't.

So what are you supposed to do when you haven't got a clue what their ring size is? Well my best suggestion is buy your ring from someone like me who includes resizing in the original cost of the band. Most jewelers will actually do this for you but many of them don't have in house bench jewelers so you may have to wait awhile to get it resized (never a good thing in my book---when someone gets an engagement ring they want to show it off!). Since I do the work myself, and I'm attuned to the need to get that ring on the finger I always try to get them resized overnight if it is at all possible. Admittedly, occasionally that isn't possible. Rings that have stones going all the way around the band may need to be made up from scratch and that can take some significant time. But generally speaking most bands should be able to be resized overnight.

Or you could always bring them into the process, especially if you're getting something unique, but I know that is not always quite as much fun. But people, please at least spend a little time looking at your loved ones hands. They're usually nice to look at anyway, and you'll be holding them for quite some time so you may as well know what they look like!

Besides the new pin, I have a new pair of blue sheen moonstone earrings out and a new pair of maw sit sit earrings out. More is coming. Stop by and take a look if you get a moment. And remember tax free day is coming (and those of you who have bought from me before know what that means---emails will be out shortly).

A BLOG DIRECTORY

2011-07-21T14:08:00.000-04:00

I realized the other day that many of you who are new to my blog may not want to read the whole thing in order to find out some of the information pertinent to your own particular needs. So I am making a handy dandy little list here of some of the subjects I have covered and the blogs related to them. However some of my more interesting posts don't actually fall into these categories so you might still want to look around a little. I hope this helps. Pictured above is a new 18k yellow gold and rhodolite garnet pendant that just went out today.

On Custom work:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/04/on-timing-of-things.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/12/anatomy-of-custom-order.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/01/part-two.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-on-custom-work.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/06/marquis-diamond-custom-ring.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/05/more-on-custom-work-lets-not-steal.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/09/custom-work-iv-and-why-im-in-this.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/09/custom-work-iii.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/08/csutom-work-ii.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/08/custom-work.html

On Gemstones:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2011/06/rarity-of-gemstones.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/11/real-rarity-of-gemstones.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/09/alexandrite.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/03/watermelon-tourmaline.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/03/aquamarine.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/03/birthstones.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/08/heat-treatment-of-sapphires.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/07/heat-treatment-of-sapphires.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/07/buying-gemstones.html

On Engagement rings:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/01/different-kind-of-recycled-gold.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/12/giving-engagement-ring.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/11/diamonds-in-engagement-rings.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/11/engagement-rings-ii.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/11/engagement-rings-1.html

On Diamonds:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/11/de-beers.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/05/synthetic-diamonds-from-your-pets-or.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/12/sourcing-of-diamonds.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-on-diamonds.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/11/diamonds-in-engagement-rings.html

On reusing gold:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/01/different-kind-of-recycled-gold.html

On white metals: http:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/11/platinum-other-white-metal.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2009/10/white-gold-vs-platinum-or-other-white.html

On metal allergies:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/07/back-from-vacation-and-metal-allergies.html

On Mokume gane:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/06/ive-spent-some-time-recently-looking.html

On Appraisals:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/06/appraisals-103.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/06/appraisals-102.html

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/06/appraisals-101.html

On selling gold for scrap:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/03/selling-your-gold-for-scrap.html

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

2011-07-20T11:08:00.001-04:00

I have returned from a very pleasant two weeks off. I actually can't recall the last time I had two weeks off. I believe it was at least 15 years ago. This is something to think about when contemplating starting your own business. It always involves MORE work not less work than if you are employed by someone else. We spent one week on Martha's Vineyard this year and had a wonderful time sitting on the deck of the house we rented and looking out at the water. Actually there was a wonderful view of one point of the island rising out of the water and I plan on making up one of my mountain rings (like the one in the lower right here) with the view. We also ate enough lobster to last a lifetime, including the one in the picture here, that weighed 8 pounds! So my batteries are recharged and I'm starting to work on both my custom jobs (if you have one in house right now and you are reading this thank you for your patience!) and on some new goods for the case. I have continued to sell quite a few pieces out of the cases and they are looking a wee bit peaked at the moment so I hope to have some new pictures soon of some new work.

In the meanwhile, however, I am posting another picture here of a custom job I did about a year ago that I had the opportunity to photograph recently. The neat thing about this particular ring (which you can't clearly see from my picture) is that there were two angles on the band that allowed me to bead set diamonds at different angles. The center stone is a .77 ct., "F" color, VVS2 clarity, ideal cut diamond. For this piece I hand built a model in silver and then had it cast in platinum.

On another note, gold prices have continued to rise. While I don't buy gold for scrap, I will take it in towards custom work I do for you or towards pieces in the case. It's a good time to look at all those old pieces you bought that you don't wear anymore and think about whether it might be a good time to get something new that you will wear.

Vacation Time Woo Hoo!

2011-07-01T14:51:00.000-04:00

Well I have managed to survive until my vacation. I have had a tremendous first half of the year and I feel quite positive about the second half as well. I would prefer, however, not to work seven days a week for the next six months as well. I have been bringing in some part time help occasionally but I feel it's important that the customers get my designs, as I make them up, and it's hard to impart some of that to other jewelers. So I will be forced to continue working some of those long weeks it looks like. Kathy and I have, however, been discussing a long term plan where I take off a significantly larger amount of time on a regular basis. So you may find that there will be more periods when the store is closed. As always, if in doubt, call ahead to check on my hours (although I can pretty much assure you that I will be here the entire month of December!). By the way if you come by in the next few weeks you may see people in and out of the store as Kathy's non profit is still in full operation. Please don't confuse this with the store being open for business.

I have posted another picture I took of the last piece made for the cases for the first half of the year. It is an 18k gold ring. The diamond is a fantastic stone (which you can't tell from my, as usual, poor photography skills) but it is not a Lazare Diamond. As I explained in a post recently I have been having a terrible time getting stones in the sizes I need from them. It is a .31 ct., "D" color, VVS2 clarity. It comes with two certs: one from the American Gem Society (AGS) and one from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). The AGS is a much better gem lab for cut grades. They have been issuing them for years and rely much more strictly on true Tolkowsky ideal proportions (you can read about this in previous posts). Actually they are stricter graders in general. They gave two other stones with GIA certs lower color grades (as well as lower cut grades which is why I didn't keep them). Lazare Diamond sells true Tolkowsky stones as well so these stones are equivalent to a Lazare Diamond. It is a stunning stone (in person). Might be worth a trip in to see it. But please wait until I'm back from vacation (July 16).

Hope you all have a great Fourth of July!

PEARLS

2011-06-29T09:22:00.001-04:00

What's in a pearl? No, I mean quite literally, what is in a pearl? Virtually all pearls today are cultured, meaning that they have been started by man in some way. One hundred and fifty years ago there were only natural pearls. Divers would go into the water pull up a bunch of oysters and, if they were lucky, find a few pearls. But in the 1920's the world's major natural pearl producing regions were fished out and production of natural pearls basically came to a halt. As it happens, at about that same time, a couple of Japanese gentlemen happened to perfect a method to produce a pearl by inserting a bead nucleus into an oyster and having the growth form around it. These were the world's first salt water cultured pearls.

For quite some time the size was somewhat limited because the oysters that grew in the colder waters around Japan weren't large enough to produce much of anything over 8 mm round. However over some time it was recognized that in the South Seas there were much larger oysters available that could grow much larger pearls.

So what's in a cultured salt water pearl? Actually a round bead nucleus made out of shell makes up approximately 95% of the total pearl size. The actual pearl growth is usually quite thin (and got thinner over the years as production time was decreased due to demand). Consequently most of the pearl is actually starter material.

Natural freshwater pearls had been known about for quite some time too. Actually the Mississippi River produced a large number of pearls over the years, although overfishing reduced the yield dramatically over time. In the 1960's the Japanese however, also figured out a way to produce freshwater pearls by inserting mantle tissue from another mollusc into a mussell instead of a bead. Many of you probably remember (or still own) the rice shaped pearls that were produced in some rather large quantities over the years by the Japanese. I always enjoyed using freshwater pearls because they were unusual shapes making them far more interesting in rings, pendants and earrings than a traditional round pearl.

However as always time marches on and things change. Japanese labor got quite expensive. Some of the best freshwater pearl producing lakes in Japan got too polluted. So the Japanese exported their pearl expertise to China. China is a huge nation and they have a tendency to do things in a large way. Once they began producing freshwater pearls they began producing so many (and so cheaply) that they flooded the market, prices plummeted and quality suffered dramatically. In the meanwhile however, the Japanese salt water cultured pearl production of round pearls was falling rapidly.

So the freshwater producers saw a new area opening up and began to attempt to produce perfectly round freshwater pearls, which they achieved. Initially only available in very small sizes, over the years they boosted the size until they were able to produce perfectly round freshwater pearls in the same size range as the Japanese cultured pearls had been.

And then they began to look at other, alternative production methods, which brings us to the picture above (apologies as always---it's my own photo). The picture is of two strands of bead nucleated freshwater pearls I just purchased. In other words they are now putting round bead nuclei into freshwater mussels and producing pearls. Admittedly they are baroque (odd shaped) at the moment but it is pretty obvious where they are heading. Of course, I have always liked the odd shapes so these are working fine for me. But someday they will have perfectly round freshwater bead nucleated pearls and I'll have to begin the search for something else.

In the meantime, these two strands are very reasonably priced and way, way more interesting than those boring round pearls your grandmothers used to wear. Come on by and see them (or better yet send your significant other in with a credit card in hand)!

Rarity of Gemstones

2011-06-23T14:14:00.000-04:00

People today often think that everything can be bought for a price. In some cases this is actually true. But what people forget about, especially when dealing with a natural product like gemstones, is that many of them are finite (and in some cases extremely finite) resources. I have been seeing a huge increase in prices across the board on my gem materials. The top color, top clarity, ideal cut diamonds that Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers sells are becoming harder and harder to come by. I have had a standing order with Lazare Diamonds for stones under a half carat in my quality range for the last three months and they have only been able to come up with one stone for me. I have had to start looking elsewhere to try to fill in with the types of goods that I believe are truly rare and that I think it's worthwhile for my customers to own. Diamonds in general have seen a significant spike in price recently but my super rare goods have gone up even more than the bread and butter goods that most jewelers use. One of the reasons for this is that high quality material is being sent overseas to Asia where there are now more buyers than ever and where quality is the first thing they want (as opposed to many Americans who only care about size). But there are additional factors. Rarity, of course, is one of them, especially in the better goods. People are also demanding better environmental practices as well as fair trade type practices. These things all cost the companies mining the goods more money so you have to expect the prices to rise from these factors as well.

Colored stones (again in the better qualities) are also experiencing significant price jumps. An example of this is a stone I recently pulled out of a piece of my wife's that she was no longer wearing. It was a 2.90 ct. purple/blue colorshift, unheated, natural color sapphire. When I took it out I realized that the stone was horribly cut on the back (my standards 15-20 years ago were not quite as rigid as they are now). So I sent it off to my cutter and he recut the back so that it was a much better looking stone. I ended up with a 2.73 ct. oval stone that is quite magnificent. I sent it off to my sapphire supplier to get an idea of current pricing on something like it. Now honestly I have no idea what I paid for it, who I got it from or even exactly when (although based on the age of the piece it was in, 15-20 years ago is the general time frame). I also know that while I have no qualms about spending money on beautiful gems for my wonderful wife, there was no way I spent anywhere near what the stone is going to be put out for now that it's been refashioned and readied for sale. The asking price on this beauty is going to be in the $9-10,000 range. When I purchased the stone the asking price would probably have been in the $2500-3500 range. My sapphire dealer told me that there is so little of this kind of material (especially untreated material) coming into the marketplace that the prices have just skyrocketed. Now this isn't a complete surprise to me because it's very similar to the material I already sell and I have been watching prices rising rapidly on it in the last few years. But it certainly gave me some perspective on what is really going on in the gem world. A computer 15-20 years ago that cost $3000 would cost you less than half that today thanks to technological and production advances. Not so with a nonrenewable resource.

The piece pictured above is also an example of material that is too pricey today or simply nonexistent. I have been unable to find any black South Sea round mobe pearls for over three years; either because it isn't being produced anymore or again because the Asian market is sucking it up. So I couldn't make a pendant like this one for you at ANY price. I simply can't get the material.

So now, as well as the price of metals having skyrocketed, the stones are beginning to as well. It might just be the time to get out and buy that piece that has been on your wish list for a few years before it just gets more expensive!

I"m back from the missing in action!

2011-06-17T13:29:00.000-04:00

I know, I know it's been awhile since I wrote anything. I'm happy to report that it was mostly because I have been so incredibly busy here. April and May were both tremendous months for me, and while I always love the income, I had been working seven day weeks since the beginning of February. It has finally quieted down a bit and even though I always love more business (more business=more money eventually) the slowdown is allowing me to attempt to catch up on all of the work I've been running behind on (and that I need to finish before I close for vacation in July) and I've actually been able to reduce down to only six day weeks (and you guys all thought working for yourself is easy).

A few of you may also know that I came down with Bell's Palsy 3 weeks ago today (a compression of the nerve that controls one side of your facial muscles) but I'm happy to report that I have about 90% of my face back already (this is on the extremely short end of normal recovery periods which usually don't even start until about 3 weeks out and often runs much, much longer). I attribute it to my good attitude and tequila!

In the meanwhile I've had a number of successful engagement rings go out there. A young man who recently bought an alexandrite engagement ring from me (an absolutely stunning stone---and I'm not always a big fan of them) proposed in his underwear and she said yes (he emailed this to me---I'm not kidding). Perhaps this is a little reminiscent of a certain Congressman's recent infidelities, but my thought is that the ring was so stunningly beautiful that the young woman didn't even notice he was on his knees in his underwear. He claimed that it was because of the heat, but I think there might have been other reasons. I just heard from another client that an emerald engagement ring I made up for him (and yes I repeatedly warned him about the fragile nature of emeralds in rings but it was what he wanted) was successful as well although no underwear was mentioned in his email. Again, I must attribute it to the wonderful ring, but I have to give the proposers some kudos for being smart enough to use me for their jeweler.

A few posts ago I also talked about a young gentleman who had a problem with an engagement ring he bought elsewhere. A diamond had fallen out almost immediately and then they had charged him for the replacement. You can see that posting here. Well he came back in again because, guess what, the diamond had fallen out again (although they didn't lose it this time). So beyond what I had already suggested to him about attempting to recoup some of his money, I suggested that perhaps this ring design just wasn't going to work. So he, and his lovely bride to be, picked out a new ring of mine in platinum which they picked up recently. She was so thrilled with it that first they brought me a box of chocolate macadamia nuts and then a gift card for Starbucks (both wise choices as I consume a lot of both chocolate and coffee) which really wasn't necessary as I had been paid for my work, but I was delighted to see it made her so happy.

Anyway I have posted a picture of a new pendant I made up recently. It was taken by me with my phone as the young gentleman who was doing most of my photos is no longer with me. I apologize for the quality. But the piece is 18k yellow gold with a blue sheen moonstone, part of a batch of these stones that I got recently. They are very attractive moonstones and I have sold a number already. I also have come into some orange sapphires just this week that are all natural color, unheated stones in the 1-2 ct. range from the Umba Valley region. They came out of an old collection that my sapphire supplier came upon recently. It's worth a trip in to see what I got (I have a nice pair of rounds in this too).

I hope to get one more posting up before my vacation. See you soon!

2011-05-12T14:41:00.000-04:00

Yes I do custom work! Scorpio sign on an Aztec sun. 18k palladium white gold background, 22k yellow gold sun, 18k palladium white gold Scorpio sign and an 18k yellow gold chain. The next time I'm actually allowed a day off, I'll actually write something.

On the Timing of Things

2011-04-27T10:32:00.000-04:00

I had a young couple in the other day (why do I seem to start so many of my blogs this way) who were looking for wedding bands. Their wedding was about 6 weeks off. Seems like plenty of time to get a wedding band, right? But there was a little problem. It seems that they had seen some mokume gane bands made by a friend of mine, James Binnion, who also happens to be the foremost metallurgist in the United States and is probably the best mokume gane jeweler in the world right now. I believe they came in to see me because I do some mokume gane (see some here and here), but I only do a couple of bands and with a particular look that I like. I've never been one to get focused on only one style so I've never had the desire (or the time frame) to develop a lot of the other things that can be done with mokume gane if I had chosen that path. I like what I do with mokume at the moment and I view it as a part of my repertoire but I will be the first to tell you that there are a lot of other jewelers (James Binnion included) who do a whole lot of interesting stuff with it. There are also commercial gold suppliers who will provide you with billets of ready made mokume gane material that you can just carve up but that seemed to take all of the fun of making it out of it so I have never pursued that either.

Anyway, back to the couple. So they had their hearts set on bands by James BUT James' wife recently got hit by a car when she was in a crosswalk. His wife is a partner in his business and it meant that he was suddenly running way behind on production. He told the couple that it would be at least 10-12 weeks to get the bands they wanted. And that was after their wedding. So.......they could change the wedding date (well only if it was a very, very small minimalist wedding), wait until after they get married to get the rings (something that a lot of people just don't like to do---I mean you're getting married! You should have your wedding band! That you're going to have for the rest of your life! With the person you love!) or try to find a substitute. But I can assure you that once you have your heart set on something like this it's pretty hard to change and take a substitute instead. So I suggested to them that, since James wholesales his work around the country, that they call every one of his accounts and see if they could find the rings they wanted already made up. I'm not sure if that's what they did or not but it was the best I could offer them.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well it has to do with the reality of timing on a hand made product. Both James and I HAND MAKE our product. It does not come from China. It is not stamped out by machine. We cannot simply call up a supplier and say ship me two more of those. Now I know that most jewelers really want to try to make their customers happy. I know that I try to do the best I can with meeting people's schedules. However there is a point that is reached, with handmade products, where they simply cannot be produced any faster or meet some deadlines.

People often come in and ask me how long it will take to get bands or a custom order from me. Frankly the timing can vary tremendously depending on what they want. If it's something I can pull out of the case and size it's only a day or two. If it's a ring that I just need to swap a stone out of, it can also be only a day or two. If it's something that I cast and I have to get a casting made up and then finished it can be a few weeks or so. If it's a handbuilt piece it can run anywhere from a few weeks to a month and a half. If it's a custom piece that needs models made up first it can take up to two and a half months from start to finish. And when Iam as busy as I am now, working 7 days a week already, you can pretty much plan that all of those time frames will be longer, sometimes much longer. I have been unable to find a way to work 8 days a week so you just have to get in line.

So here's the deal. If you're getting married, and you want a hand made wedding band, it is the single most important part of the wedding planning (maybe next to the dress and reserving the space). You cannot wait until two weeks before the wedding and be assured of getting what you want. Sometimes you cannot wait until two months before the wedding either. You just can't tell what might have happened, how busy someone might be, etc. So don't leave it until the last minute! Or even the last month! You need to plan ahead!

You might be wondering by now what the picture at the top of the page has to do with this, or with jewelry for that matter. Pretty much nothing. But there were some new infrared space photos released by NASA recently and this was one of my favorites. Plus many of you know how comets, and their ilk, show up in many of my pieces so it is an inspiration for me!

Overworked, underpaid and happy

2011-04-19T19:33:00.000-04:00

I have been killing myself lately with work. I have been working seven days a week since the beginning of February to keep up with things, with the exception of one three day weekend in New York (to see my wildly successful artist son who I am so, so proud of and to visit my parents as well) and I am so exhausted. But you know something, I truly love what I do. I really enjoy the fact that the pieces I make are so important to so many people for so many different reasons. I really don't make jewelry anymore, I make memories; and that is something that means so much more to me than just making jewelry. Whether it is an engagement ring that commits you to your significant other for a future together, a wedding band that signifies your undying love for each other, or even just a custom pair of earrings that represent your love and gratitude for what another person in your life has done for you or means to you; what I create with my poor, bruised hands means something. And that makes me happy. Admittedly I try to make memories that are well made and last you for a lifetime but isn't that what memories are?

I also really enjoy the fact that I still actually MAKE jewelry. With MY hands. Using techniques that go back thousands of years in some cases. This is what I offer my customers and hope that they love.

As always, as you know, I am going somewhere with this. I recently had a very nice young gentleman come in and place an order for my currently best selling ring (which I have mentioned before and can be seen at the top of the page). He asked me if I would be willing to take pictures of the piece in progress. I agreed because, after all, my job is to please and he had explained to me that he was making a photo book that he could present to his fiancee with the ring. I'm not a great photographer, but hey, I have a new phone having finally stepped up into the smart phone market (and yes I would highly recommend the Motorola Atrix that I got)and I figured I could use it to take pictures with. So I basically took a photo after every soldering/setting action that I took. I made an attempt to post it here on the blog but for some reason the system would not allow me to get the photos in order no matter how much time I spent trying (2 hours in fact). But my customer put it together into this very cool book that is available on line and then gave me permission to allow you all to see it (after he proposed of course). As seems to have always happened with a Daniel Spirer ring, she said yes (I swear it's the rings that really make them say yes!!!)and I can now direct you to the link for the really spectacular book that he created here. The final pictures of the finished piece were taken by the customer. It was an 18k palladium white gold version of the ring.

Personal Safety

2011-04-01T16:47:00.000-04:00

The other day I had a woman come in with a gold ring and a platinum ring. She wanted to know how much it would cost to remove the engraving on the inside of the platinum ring and get them both polished. She also said she wanted to know how much each weighed. Anyone who has been in my store knows that I like to find out the whys and wherefores of any work I'm doing so I inquired why she was doing this and why she wanted to know the weights. I thought at first that she was going to take the rings to a scrap buyer and sell them, but if she was doing that it was meaningless to remove the engraving. The scrap buyers don't care (nor do they care if they're polished). She announced to me that she was going to sell the rings on Angie's List.

Okay, now I know I'm a little paranoid. I have to be in my business. There is, after all, a reason why I have cameras all over the place, a locked door, panic buttons and requirements that people have to take off their hats and sunglasses, and sometimes have to hand over their licenses before I'll show them an expensive piece. But the reason I do all of these things is because I know that there are criminals by the barrelful out there, many of them desperate and they will often do anything to steal something like jewelry as it's easy to carry and has high resale value (even if it's only for gold scrap value).

Now, please folks, think about this for a moment. You're going to advertise in a public place that you have jewelry you want to sell. And then you're going to agree to meet someone YOU DON'T KNOW to have them look at this jewelry. Do you honestly think there aren't people out there looking for just this opportunity? After all, look at the Angie's list killer who has just been back in the news again as they released some new information on his crimes. He killed someone he met from the list for anything she had and he didn't even know that they might have jewelry for sale on their person!

I'm really sorry, but this is just a stupid thing to do. It is, quite simply, asking for trouble. I did tell the customer (actually I pleaded with her) to either just take the stuff and scrap it or do it on Ebay where she didn't actually have to meet anyone. I told her I was exceedingly uncomfortable with helping someone put themselves in such a vulnerable position. I think however that despite my repeated pleas with her that she plans on proceeding with the sale on Angie's List. It's a big mistake folks and I urge everyone to take this advice to heart: If you have to sell something do it in a way that won't leave you in a position to have someone stick a gun in your face and steal it (and probably stuff you don't want to sell too!).

Implied Warranties

2011-03-19T10:39:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had a young gentleman in to look at wedding bands. As we talked however, it quickly became apparent that looking at bands was only one of the reasons he wanted to talk. He had purchased an engagement ring at another local jeweler and one of the side stones on it had fallen out three weeks after he purchased it. When he went back to the jeweler about it, they charged him to replace the stone! Three weeks after he bought it!

Before I get into my main topic here I need to talk a bit about some of the things that are going on in my industry these days. Because of the increase in metal prices many manufacturers have scaled back, in any way that they can, the amount of gold going into their products. A great example of this is what is going on with commercially made earrings with posts on them. The manufacturers have been shaving off the amount of metal in the posts making them a very, tiny bit thinner. I know, you're thinking how can shaving off a hair of gold on a post make any difference cost wise? Well you're right, if you're talking about one post. Now think about it if they do it on a million posts. Aha! Suddenly you're talking about huge savings (for the manufacturers not you). So what is the problem with this? Well all of the gold backs that go on those posts are designed for thicker posts so they don't work for long and you're losing your earrings. Or, even worse, they've lightened up the metal in the gold back as well. The backs are designed to work through tension. Remove more metal, you get less tension. Less tension means---you got it------lost earrings! This is something you should be looking at if you're buying your jewelry somewhere besides Spirer Jewelers. If those backs don't work so well to begin with, they are only going to get worse.

Another instance of jewelers cutting back in a negative way is the latest trend of micro pave. This involves setting a whole bunch of microscopic diamonds in a pave style, usually around most of the shank of a ring or over extensive parts of the top. It makes it look like you're getting a lot of diamond but in fact most of the stones are junk and so tiny that they are really just about worthless (except for fixing the rings when the things fall out). There are tiny beads of metal pushed up over each stone. Now pave setting, or bead setting, as it is also known is a nice way to set stones. The stones are set flush into the metal, and when properly done, actually make the whole piece sparkly, as opposed to just the stones themselves. However when you are dealing with stones that are often no bigger than one fifth of a millimeter, you can't exactly push a reasonable sized bead up over them or you won't see the stones (this actually happens on poorly made bands sometimes). So there is basically a microscopic bead of metal holding in a microscopic diamond, which means that the metal gets broken off quickly and routinely and you lose your diamonds. Jewelers are using it because, again, it gives the look of a lot of diamond, but the customer pays the price by purchasing something that just won't last over time.

Now the young gentleman's ring wasn't horribly made by any means. But the six small marquis accents were set with a single round prong at each end. This might have been due to cost savings or possibly because that was the look the designer wanted. Either way it was a bad idea. When you have only two prongs holding in a stone you're just bound to have problems. Usually, when setting small marquis diamonds in which more prongs would hide too much of the stone, or would not make the piece as attractive, a V-shaped setting is used on the ends. This type of setting actually extends down a little bit on each side of the marquis from the point, which means that you are holding the stone in on both ends, and both sides at both ends. Consequently one of the prongs broke off and one of the marquis diamonds fell out.

Okay, you know, stuff happens. You're often dealing with a handmade (or at least partly handmade as setting stones still pretty much has to be done by hand) product and not everyone is perfect. I have certainly made my share of mistakes over the years. And I still routinely make stuff up for people and toss the first one because, even with all of my years of experience, sometimes stuff happens. It just does. That's not the problem in this case (although because of the way the stones were set he is going to have an ongoing problem with them). The problem is that three weeks after he got the piece a stone fell out and he had to PAY for the repair!

So let's forget, for a minute, about how bad that is from a customer service standpoint (and remember that you're reading something written by a guy who pretty much unconditionally guarantees everything he makes for life). The real issue in this case is something that is known as an "implied warranty". This is a legal term and it is quite real. Basically the law of implied warranty states that if you purchase a product you have a legal right to assume that it should hold up for a reasonable period of time, given the product and the price paid. So if you buy a new computer, but don't purchase one of those expensive guarantee plans they are always trying to sell you, and it stops working in a month, you have the right to demand that the company you purchased it from either fix it at no cost or replace it regardless of whether or not you had bought their "plan". This is because it is a reasonable assumption that a computer will last a heck of a lot longer than a month. On the other hand if you buy a head of lettuce and it rots in your fridge after a week, you have no claim. A head of lettuce wouldn't be expected to last longer than a week in normal circumstances.

The same thing applies to jewelry. If you purchase a new piece of jewelry, the usual expectation is that it should hold up a reasonable period of time. It's not always easy to define "reasonable period of time", but I can assure you that three weeks is NOT! For a cheap silver ring, probably a reasonable period of time might be 6-12 months at best. For an expensive gold and diamond ring, my belief is that a year is about a minimum time period. After that, normal wear and tear can impact the piece enough that it won't necessarily be the fault of the jeweler. Now there are times when this may not be the case. If a customer comes in and wants a design made up that is structurally unsound (and he can get a jeweler to agree to make it that way) then a jeweler might have the right to argue that it is always the customer's responsibility. Also anything purchased used does not have these inferred rights.

So what are your options when you are buying something like an expensive piece of jewelry? The first thing you have to do is ask what, exactly, the guarantees are on the piece. If the jeweler has nothing in writing about it then you should ask for something in writing. If there are no guarantees being offered then I would simply walk away because even though there is always an implied warranty, it's going to be harder to deal with the seller. An implied warranty allows you to take legal action, but as you know, that can sometimes be costly (although occasionally if you just bring up this topic when having a problem, and then threaten legal action, you will get satisfaction). So really, why would you even want to deal with this if you don't have to. Better to buy from someone who offers an extensive, written warranty on their product.

To make matters worse in this young man's case, he was charged one third of the cost of the total ring (excluding the center stone) to replace the one diamond. So they sold him six diamonds and a ring to begin with and then charged him one third of that price to just replace one of those diamonds. That makes no sense to me at all. Fortunately his father is a lawyer and I suggested to him that he get him to write a letter and also that he challenge the credit card charge until the issue is resolved appropriately.

It is also unfortunate that, even in this economy, small jewelers still seem to act with such impunity and complete disregard for customer satisfaction. If you're not getting good vibes from someone, it's just better not to buy from them.

2011-03-17T10:17:00.001-04:00

I haven't been writing much of late but when I'm already working seven days a week to get my jobs done, I can't seem to justify a lot of time writing as well. Hmmm.......which is more important: getting the customer's jobs done or writing on the blog??? I guess it depends on whether you're reading me or buying from me. But I am still here. I did get one of the new opals mentioned in my last post made up into a ring and a picture of it is here. The new opal beads and black keshi pearl strand (also pictured) are also both strung and ready to go.

I was recently informed by my diamond supplier that prices on all of the range of goods I sell have just gone up (again). It is another indication of just how rare the goods I sell are getting. More interestingly however is this. I used to get a lot of people in complaining about how De Beers was a monopoly and all diamond prices were falsely inflated. They all seemed to think that in an open market the prices would collapse. Well as it happens De Beers now controls less than 40% of the market and no longer is holding a monopoly on diamond production and sales. And yet, not only haven't prices collapsed, they've been fairly steadily going up (with the exception of a slight dip at the beginning of the recession). I have to conclude that the prices De Beers charged were not falsely inflated. Of course when you think about the fact that a ton (yes 2000 lbs) of rock has to be removed to just end up with about a carat of diamond material it becomes pretty apparent that the pricing is there for a reason.

Speaking of pricing, gold has continued to stay at extremely elevated levels (around $1400/0z). I was previously of the opinion that this was a temporary increase and that eventually it would begin to drop. While I still believe the price will come down a bit at some point (say if the economy improves, the Middle East calms down and Japan survives its latest woes) I no longer believe it will ever return to the levels it was at a few years ago. Now hopefully (and because I consistently lose when gambling or investing in the stock market---oh wait that's the same thing) I will have just jinxed gold prices and they will plummet shortly. But I wouldn't count on it. The bad news about this is that, well yes, everything is more expensive. The good news is that everything you already own is worth more! I am actually anticipating more increases in the jewelry industry across the board. Better sapphires and other colored stones have gone up significantly as well. Due to various practices in the industry becoming more common (sustainable mining practices, better pay for miners and laborers associated with the industry, stricter environmental laws) things are just simply going to cost more. Not necessarily a bad thing that these things are taking place but neccesary if we want the planet to survive. And for those of you who want these things to be taking place please note they do cost more money so you need to be prepared to pay more.

My occasional assistant Jason got a very nice picture of the boulder opal in the ring but, trust me, it looks even better in real life. The black keshi pearls pictured are the closest thing you can get to natural pearls these days. Unlike Chinese keshi pearls, these pearls start entirely spontaneously after the large oysters have been implanted with bead nucleii to start making cultured salt water pearls. The Chinese keshi pearl process is a little different and done purposely to create those "keshi" pearls. The South Sea process is entirely random and there is never a way to know if a secondary keshi pearl will form.

New Opals Are In

2011-02-17T14:05:00.000-05:00

I just met with my opal/South Sea pearl dealer on Tuesday and, as usual, ended up with some magnificent new stones. I got two strands of small boulder opal beads and a strand of black South Sea keshi pearls that are all at the stringer now (pictures will be posted once they return). I also got a few very unusual opal pieces in, one of which will be going out in a pin shortly, one, a piece from Koroit in Australia, in a pendant and I got an absolutely psychedelic smaller piece that I am going to be setting up in a ring fairly soon. Pictures of these will be posted as they come out. Anyone interested in seeing the unset stones can come in anytime. I didn't get a lot but what I did get were absolutely unique pieces. The comet pin with a boulder opal and emeralds pictured here is not one of my new pieces but it was a great one!

Back from Vacation

2011-01-18T17:16:00.000-05:00

When even my wife goes on my blog and starts complaining that I haven't written anything in too long, I know that I'm way overdue.
We did go and spend some time getting refreshed in my favorite place in the whole world, Big Sur California. We went back to our favorite inn which you can check out here: http://www.ventanainn.com/ . Those of you who have been reading all along will remember that we had an incredibly memorable experience there two years ago with the wonderful (regrettably) temporary chef Phillippe. Unfortunately Phillippe seems to have moved on and we were unable to see him again (anywhere), much to our dismay. However Ventana's restaurant is now up and running after their fire and they are doing a much better job in general with food than they used to. And the views from both the restaurant and the inn are still unbelievable. This picture is of us standing at the front of the patio of the Ventana restaurant and you can see the mountains that make Big Sur so memorable. If you could see a few feet to the right of us you would be able to see the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

Big Sur is so far out in the middle of nowhere that the night time sky is amazing. The first night there we saw shooting stars (many of you know how I fell about comets and things moving through space) and the sheer number of stars visible is overwhelming for a city boy like me. With the aid of a pair of binoculars it is astounding how much you can see.

We took a hike through some mountains in the Michele Pfeiffer State Park to see the Pfeiffer Falls (above) while we were there and then decided we should try to walk to the ocean through the Andrew Molera State Park. Unfortunately when we got there we were informed that we were going to have to ford the Big Sur River since they took all the bridges down in the winter. We didn't exactly come prepared for any river fording so we had to abandon that particular adventure!

So this is, in part why I have been so reticent in my writings recently. Between the end of the year inventorying, preparing to go on vacation, actually going on vacation, and then taking care of the large pile of work when I returned I have been fairly busy.

However one piece I made for a gentleman this past month was quite interesting. He had a jade carving that he had gotten in China that was very important to him. The rope like material it had come on originally had finally broken and he was desperate to wear it again. He wanted something that was consistent with the piece. I thought it would be nice if we could do an Asian style chain of some sort as that might fit the bill. In doing my research however the only type of chain that was distinctly Asian was a baht chain. Baht chains are made in Thailand and are often used in lieu of money. They are made up in 1/2, 1, 1.5 and 2 ounce weights and they are usually made of 23 1/4 kt. gold. I used to have a source for them but the problem with them was that they were always hollow. Hollow chains are problematic because the links get dented easily (especially in high karat golds). Actually I take issue with any hollow jewelry because of the damage problems. My source wasn't regularly stocking them anymore anyway and there was a timing issue as the gentleman is out of the country most of the year. So I offered to make him a solid version of the baht chain. This was an interesting project for me as I had never made a baht chain and I always relish a challenge. Additionally because of the significance of certain numbers to the Chinese, I needed to work these into the design of the chain. Eight is apparently a very important number to them, so I made the chain up with sets of eight round links alternating with eight square links (both styles are used in traditional Baht chains). I also built a new bail for the jade. This was all done in my own 22k gold mix and I poured all of my own gold just as I did in the chain in the last postings. The picture below is of the finished piece.

I still have plans to write about opals in the near future but I am also looking for new topic ideas. Please let me know if there is something you'd like to know about. Valentine's Day is rapidly approaching. Men readers take note. Ladies, remind your men that there is nothing more romantic than getting something special to remind you of how much they still love you or show your love for them by getting them one of my amazing William Henry Knives---one is pictured below!

There has been a lot of snow but I have actually never closed due to a snow storm and have no plans to. So if you're in my neighborhood in the middle of (yet another) snow storm come on in and visit! It's actually a great time to get my strictly undivided attention as usually no one else is ever there! Parking is a mess in Cambridge these days however, so you might want to think about taking the T at least part way in.

Part Two

2011-01-06T18:05:00.000-05:00

Well it's not tomorrow but this is the soonest I could get back to my post on making the custom ordered chain. So here is the rest of the story:

Once the wire is made I have to roll it onto an appropriate sized pipe in order to make the circles I need to make the chain. Since by this time I have either a really, really long piece of wire or a bunch of shorter ones, it's not nearly as fast as one would think. Plus when rolling it onto the pipe I have to insure that it never overlaps so that the links are consistent in size. Once done with that I have to cut the links which, fortunately in this case, does not require me to saw them as it isn't necessary to have an absolutely perfect join on these links to fuse them, so I use a small pair of shears I have to cut the loops. Then all of the loops (and please note we are talking about hundreds of loops) have to be bent so that the two ends line up perfectly. Once done with that I can begin the actual fusing process. Once again I spend a large amount of time fusing links with a hot flame about 2 inches from my face. Periodically I have to toss some links into a separate pile as they aren't bent together properly and at the same time I start a separate pile of links that melt while I'm fusing them, or simply don't fuse properly. When I finish fusing all the links (hundreds, remember?) I go back and rebend the pile of ones that didn't come out right the first time and then go back to fusing them.

Once this first round of fusing is done, I have to stretch the loops into a long oval shape with a pair of round nose pliers. This inevitably leads to about a 20% breakage of the fused joints as they just didn't take properly. Those links are tossed into the pile with the other ones that didn't fuse properly. The ones that hold up okay are then squeezed in the middle to get a kind of elongated figure 8 effect. Once done with that I have to go back to my pile of bad links and guess what? I have to start all over again with pouring them into my ingot mold and then making them into wire which is then formed into loops and fused and stretched yet again (whereupon I will end up with another, albeit smaller, batch of bad links).

So now I have a bunch of figure 8 shaped links. I then have to fuse two of them together in opposite directions to start the chain. Once this is done, I bend up the ends and begin the actual chain making process. This involves putting each link through TWO (once I get the first few started) of the links in the chain, then rotating the chain 90 degrees and putting the next one through from the opposite direction. Each time I put a link through I have to then push a small sharp tool through the top two links to stretch them out so that they are prepared for the next link that will go through. This, inevitably, leads to more link breakage as by this time I am truly putting an extreme amount of pressure on each join in each link. When a link does break it is almost always one back a few links so periodically I have to remove three or four links to get the broken one out and then start back at that point again. This process goes on until I run out of links, at which point guess what? You got it. I have to take all the broken links and all of the failures from the last round of link making and START ALL OVER AGAIN with a new pour of metal, make wire, make links and finally continue to make the chain. Phewww. Sounds like I'm done, huh? Well no.....................

After this, I have to anneal (heat the chain to soften it) repeatedly and then hammer it out gently with a wooden mallet on a block to stretch it and set all the links properly. After each hammering I have to anneal it and spend some time loosening it up. Okay so now we're done, right? Well no............

Then I have to make the caps that finish the chain off. This involves making new metal that I make into sheet metal. I then have to roll it into shape, fuse it together, fuse end caps on, fuse the wires that I wrap around it on, fuse the little gold beads on, drill out the ends for wires to go through, set small diamonds in the caps, and finally make one of my signature S clasps. I'm exhausted just writing about it!

So finally I have a beautiful chain, made to the right length, using all of the customer's metal and some of mine and it's ready to go. Then I have to contact the customer (made a little more complicated by the husband's desire to surprise his wife with it), get him into the store and deal with the final payment and packaging.

Estimated time here: 15-20 more hours. So you tell me how much you think this kind of job is worth!

The picture at the top is of the pure 24k gold we got back from our refiner after he purified the customer's Kruggerand.

The Anatomy of a Custom Order

2010-12-29T15:24:00.001-05:00

I realize that many people have no clue what goes into the actual production of a custom job for a customer at Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers. So I've decided to document one that I took in this December. I had an old customer come in and tell me that she wanted one of my handmade 22k gold chains (as pictured). However given where gold prices have gone, I discussed with her pricing and she mentioned that she had a gold Krugerrand that she had inherited from her parents and that she felt strongly about being able to use the actual gold from that coin in the necklace if that was possible. I knew it would lower her cost a bit and I told her that I would be happy to try and accommodate her needs if at all possible. This first meeting took about a half hour to complete. She said that she would bring the coin in for me to use shortly.

After she left, I realized that while I knew that Kruggerands were gold, I didn't really know what they were composed of. I assumed (mistakenly, as it turns out) that they were simply pure gold. So I then spent a half hour on the phone with my primary gold supplier who proceeded to tell me that in fact Kruggerands were 22k gold. At first that sounded great because I need 22k gold to make my chains in, but he then informed me that the only alloy they used was copper. Not only would this not produce the color I need, but I knew the metal wouldn't behave properly when I went to fuse the links (I don't use solder in these chains; I simply heat them until they actually are almost at melting point and then fuse them together). We then got into a long discussion about how I would get it to the alloy I would need and I soon realized that it was completely impractical as I would need to get about 3 more ounces of pure gold, alloy it only with silver and then mix her coin in. This was impractical because I only needed a little over an ounce and a half of gold for the chain and I then would have a lot of her metal mixed in with my own that I would have to sit on until I had a need for it (plus she wouldn't get all of her metal back in her chain).

So I realized that I would need to find a refiner who would take her coin and alloy it to pure gold and then send it back to me. It took a few phone calls but I found a guy I bought some other materials from who agreed to do it. Once I got the pure gold back, I could add only the quantity of my own pure gold so that I could make up the specific 22k gold alloy that I needed for the piece. Basically I had now spent about an hour on the phone clarifying all of this.

About a week later, my customer came in with her husband and the coin and the order was placed, with the understanding that, despite the late starting point I would try and have it ready for Christmas (the order was actually placed on December 9). I then had to call and confirm with the refiner that I was sending the coin in to them and to spend a few minutes begging that they would get it back to me as quickly as possible. The piece had to be packed up and shipped overnight to Los Angeles. In the meanwhile, I also had to call my regular gold supplier and order the balance of the 24k gold I would need. I didn't actually get the pure gold back until December 17 (one week before Christmas). Now I had to actually make the chain itself.

In order to make the chain, I first had to melt all of the 24k gold together with the silver and copper that would alloy it down to the 22k gold mix I needed. This is basically taking a really huge flame on my oxy-acetylene torch and heating up a huge mass of gold until it melts, and then sticking a wooden stick in to stir it around until the alloys have blended properly. The stick, of course, catches fire but you just have to kind of ignore it for awhile and try really hard not to singe yourself. With the molten metal in the crucible, while keeping the flame on it the whole time, you have to lift up the crucible and pour it, all at once, into an ingot mold that creates a 3" long extremely thick rod of round wire.

The next step is to roll the rod down to a much thinner gauge wire. A rolling mill is used, the wire is fed into it, and each time you roll it through you crank down the gap a bit to make it smaller. Eventually you have to use smaller and smaller holes to roll it through. After every three or four runs through the mill, the wire has to be annealed (heated until it is red hot) in order to soften it enough so that the metal isn't being stressed as it keeps getting smaller and smaller. But the rolling mills we use actually make square wire not round wire so, eventually, I have to start pulling the wire through a drawplate. This is a bit more complicated. I have to first file the ends of the wire into points and then grab it with a large pair of tongs and physically pull it through progressively smaller holes. Again it has to be annealed regularly, and inevitably it breaks and I end up having to file the ends of, and pull, multiple pieces of wire. Usually in the larger sizes this isn't too hard but as the wire continues to get thinner it eventually reaches the point where the filed ends are so thin that they routinely break off before I can actually get any of the wire through.

Eventually when I reach the point where I have wire the size I actually need I anneal it one more time and then proceed to actually making the chain. Please note that I have now spent about 2 hours with the customer, on the phone with various people, shipping the package, etc. plus about 4-5 hours making the metal and wire. In tomorrow's posting I will continue describing the process.

2010-12-17T18:39:00.000-05:00

Two more new pieces. One could go very nicely with the garnet pendant I posted recently and the other could go very nicely with the Maw Sit Sit earrings I posted recently. The holidays are upon us and I have no more time left to write. If you want to hear what I have to say you'll have to actually come into the store!

A Thought For the Season

2010-12-16T12:56:00.001-05:00

I occasionally get customers in who have very minor repair jobs that I am able to do on the spot for them. If I don't have to actually go into my workshop and it doesn't require more than a few minutes, I usually won't charge them anything. (Trust me I value my time highly but sometimes it just isn't worth the bother.) The ones who are polite enough to ask me if they can pay me something (and I do get a number who seem to think they don't have to do that unfortunately) I usually tell them that the next time they see a person in need to give them a few dollars. Today I got a note from one of them that I am going to reprint here:

Dear Daniel,
You recently repaired my broken necklace. When I inquired about payment, you suggested that I give $5 to the next person I saw who was in need.
The conversation I had with the panhandler in Harvard Square a few days later (to whom I gave the money) reminded me again that homeless people, just like anyone else, want to make connections with people and be recognized as human beings. It's a lesson I've been slow to learn.
Thank you for giving me the chance to learn that truth. Thanks also for fixing my necklace; it's good to have it back in action.

In any season (although it seems to be something we only think of in this season) it IS important to think about those who are so less fortunate than we are. Hopefully more of you will stop and give someone in need something as well.

Another Day, Another Picture and Strange Karma

2010-12-09T11:22:00.000-05:00

One of my more classic looks but with a really nice topaz in it. 18k gold of course.

I'm always amused by how connections work in this business. Sometimes I'll have a ring design that no one looks at for years (literally) and then suddenly I get a half dozen people in looking at that design in the same week, and ordering it too. Recently I had another one of these incidents (actually I had two but I can't discuss one in case I give away someone's upcoming present). It had to do with a posting I ran awhile ago which you can read here. So if you read the article you'll understand that I designed a ring for a chef. I liked the design when it was done so I made another one up and put it out in the cases. No one paid much attention to it until---------a chef (!) who had gotten his fiancees engagement ring from me came in looking for a wedding band. And he bought the thing. So what are the odds? I sell only two of the things and they both go to chefs! But this kind of thing seems to happen with great regularity. Just a little thought for the day and now I'm back to being a bench slave.

New Picture of the Day

2010-12-08T11:06:00.001-05:00

This is a cute little boulder opal pendant I just finished up. 18k, 22k gold and a small emerald compliment. The opal is really very nice, but was quite reasonably priced.

New Picture and Rerun of an Old Post

2010-12-07T11:53:00.000-05:00

These are some new Maw Sit Sit earrings I just finished recently. They have little swinging diamonds in them and are, of course, 18k and 22k gold. I love Maw Sit Sit. It has an incredibly intense green plus the name is a lot of fun to say.

I am going to reprint the text of a post I ran just before last Christmas as I think it is particularly appropriate at this time of year. Those of you who remember it forgive me. The rest of you, enjoy it:

I should really be working. I am completely inundated and it is three days before Christmas, but I want to get this post up while I am thinking about it. This is intended for all of you guys who intend to give your intended an engagement ring for Christmas (three intends in one sentence, not bad). And I have to say that I have had a quite a number of you this year.

I had one of my regular customers come in last week looking for his annual Christmas present. When he said he had no idea what he was looking for this year, I suggested (as I knew he had been with this one woman for awhile) that perhaps it was time to give her a ring. Immediately, of course, sweat began to pour out, hemming and hawing began, and I generally got him completely aflutter. However what then transpired (or tranSPIRERed in this case) was a conversation about whether or not it was appropriate to give an engagement ring (I had initially actually suggested a sort of "promise" ring) as a Christmas present. He related how he had actually had a discussion about this at work and that he worked with quite a few women. They had ALL said that an engagement ring was NOT a Christmas present. For that matter it isn't a present at all.

The fact of the matter is that they are right. An engagement ring is a statement of commitment, a declaration of your love for this ONE person, and something to be worn as an indication that this person is no longer available to the general male public (or female if you happen to be gay). It is NOT a present. That is just cheaping out and trying to kill two birds with one stone. Now if you want to give an engagement ring on Valentine's Day, that's fine as there is nothing more romantic in this world than asking, and being asked, to marry someone. But to give it as a Christmas present (or birthday present) and then pretend that you don't need to give them anything else is simply not the right thing to do. And who wants to be remembered as a betrothed who cheaped out at the very beginning of the new and exciting path you might be embarking on. So fellas, face up to it. Give an engagement ring as a sign of your commitment but DON'T give it as a substitute for some other present. (Ideally of course, if you are commited to giving it to them for one of these events, you should first give them a beautiful pair of earrings or a necklace and THEN surprise them with the ring.)

Party Ring

2010-12-06T11:10:00.001-05:00

Here's two views of my new "party ring". Natural color (unheated) purple sapphire, pink sapphires and a diamond, 18k lower wires, 22k gold upper wires. If you're going to a party, or you simply want your hand to have a party this would be a great ring for you!

New Tourmaline Earrings

2010-12-05T17:00:00.001-05:00

As promised another new picture. These earrings are 18k yellow gold with tourmalines and diamonds. I just had a customer call who's birthday is today, and is having a party tonight and she wanted to come in and buy them to wear this evening but alas I am still closed on Sundays. However I told her she could cut out the picture and paste them to her ears for now. As of Tuesday I will be open every day until Christmas. It may be that if you want to see these in person you'll have to get in early on Tuesday!

2010-12-04T12:45:00.000-05:00

As promised some pictures of new pieces. I'm going to be posting one per day for the next few days. This one is an 18k white gold pendant with a rhodolite garnet. I do earrings like these too!

Wish I could write more but I'm working way too much these days.

2010-12-01T16:26:00.000-05:00

Lots of new jewels coming out daily right now. New pictures will start tomorrow but here's a picture of an older favorite of mine. Opal, emeralds, sapphire, diamond in 22k and 18k gold.

The Real Rarity of Gemstones

2010-11-22T15:38:00.000-05:00

So at the end of my last posting I mentioned that you could forgo diamonds and get some of those purple sapphires I love so much....but maybe not. People tend to forget that the product that I deal with (truly fine quality gem materials) is actually in relatively short supply. A number of jobs I've taken on recently have shown just how short the supply really is. The piece pictured here is a new pendant that I just finished up. The center stone is a black (well more grey than black) South Sea mobe pearl. A few years ago I got my hands on a small (very small) collection of a few of these round beauties. Since then I haven't been able to get a single one of any quality.

Two years ago I took an order in for a pair of carved spectrolite faces (like this one) that I so like to work with. The stones had to match a pendant that my customer had bought from me. I kept ordering stones and the carver kept sending me labradorite (which is a lighter color material usually with speckles in it), which of course didn't match. I've been after my supplier to keep at him about getting the right material and, while I kept getting nice faces none were what I needed. Then earlier this year another customer of mine came to me and wanted me to get a matched pair of faces similar to these but with the faces facing each other. So I placed the order for those as well as the smaller ones I was looking for. When they came in finally guess what? They were also labradorite. Pretty but no comparison. So after many discussions with my supplier she finally found out from the carver that he had, in fact, run out of spectrolite material entirely and was running out of carvable labradorite as well. The only other material my supplier has been seeing (uncarved spectrolite) has nothing near the colors or intensity that all of my older cut faces had.

I also recently took in an engagement ring order from a very nice couple who spent a few hours with me. They picked out a design (this one) but they saw a very nice lighter toned blue/purple color shift sapphire that I had from my regular sapphire supplier but it was round and the design takes an oval stone. So I first went to my primary suppliers but no ovals were to be had in this color range. I expanded my search. I went to a number of other suppliers I have used in the past and eventually a few new ones as well. The first thing I realized when I started seeing the stones they sent me was that the stones I now sell are even better than I realized. Most of the ones sent to me were dark, poorly cut, windowed, included and all over the place in color. When I finally got the other suppliers all focused on the actual color I wanted, no one (so far, although I have more stones coming in this week) could actually produce a single stone that was an exact match to the one in my case. I have one or two that are close. I have one or two that are actually pretty. But it surely isn't like when I want a blue sapphire where I can get a bunch in whatever size or shape I want almost immediately.

So what's my point you might be asking. Well I have a couple. The first is that while there is a plethora of junk out there, the existence of high quality stones is in fact fairly rare, especially when dealing with things that are out of the ordinary. The second is that we are, in fact, running out of material at a fairly rapid pace. Fine quality gem material is a rarity, not a commonplace thing. With the booming Asian markets absorbing huge amounts of the remaining high quality materials, Americans being ever more concerned about the price of things (and hence gem dealers offering the better goods to Asia first), and the depletion of many of the world's most prolific mines we are going to see less and less high grade, fine gem material. I wouldn't ever consider the purchasing of gems to be an investment but if you want your grandchildren to be able to own some of this better material it might be a good time to invest in a few pieces to pass down.

The pendant is 18k and 22k yellow gold with chrome tourmalines, a pink sapphire and a diamond and is currently available.

De Beers

2010-11-11T18:37:00.001-05:00

Because I am located in a somewhat intelligent part of the country (you know, MIT, Harvard and a plethora of other universities are located here) I have, over the years, had to listen to a lot of (mis)information about diamonds over the years. The biggest complaint I have had to deal with is that diamonds are not really worth what they cost. And the reasoning behind this is that one company, DeBeers, controlled the market entirely through the stockpiling of diamonds over the years and that the price was completely controlled and not based on a fair market system. Well since 2001 DeBeers has steadily divested itself of this role, through a systematic, planned and controlled reduction in the amount of the market they controlled and a complete elimination of the stockpiles they held, those held ostensibly in an attempt to support the market (from the complainers standpoint). It currently controls approximately only 30% of the total production of diamonds worldwide. And yet, except for a slight dip in prices in 2009 due to the worldwide economic crisis, the price of diamonds have continued to rise, especially for higher quality goods. So the question comes to mind, why, if the price was not real, are they still going up in value?

Did you know that almost 1 ton of rock must be mined in order to produce 1 ct. (1/5 of a gram) of diamonds? Then the production has to be hand sorted (there are no computers that can do this) to the different quality levels. After this the material has to be sold to cutting centers (most now located either in the countries where the mining is taking place or countries such as India which are only recently stepping up from third world countries) and hand cut (often, although the Israelis have pioneered a large amount of computerized cutting), then sold to wholesalers who must then move the material to manufacturers or retailers. Let's also not forget that HIGH quality stones (like I sell, only top color D-E-F color and top clarity VS clarity or better) are actually in short supply (or being bought rampantly by the exploding Asian countries).

So the next time you're thinking of complaining that diamond prices aren't justified, think about what goes into getting those sparkly little things onto your fingers. Of course you could always opt out of diamonds and get some of those amazing purple sapphires I love to sell which will always be less expensive than diamonds.

2010-11-04T18:05:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, I keep telling you I'm going to write a blog on opals and then nothing shows up. But let me explain my problem. Every time that I get started on the entry about opals I go back to reading this great opal book that I own. Then I get so engrossed in reading it that I never get back to writing. If I can actually finish it one of these days I'll actually write something about opals. Really. I promise.

But in the meanwhile, since I have been so bad about keeping up with my opal blog writing I thought I would show you guys one of my latest projects. Back in March of this year I got an envelope in the mail one day with a couple of blurry pictures of a ring, a check for $700, and a short note from someone I had never met before. She said that she had seen some of my work on a customer of mine (one of my oldest ones actually---not her age---but how long she's been a customer) and she just knew that I could recreate the ring her grandmother had worn for years, passed down to her and that she had subsequently lost/had stolen.

Now I love to get money I'm not expecting. But this person had never met me or been in my store, I could barely tell what the ring she wanted duplicated actually looked like from the picture (as you can see here), and she had no idea how much I might actually charge for the finished job. So I emailed her and told her that I would not cash her check unless she actually came in and talked to me personally. So she did. We had a long discussion about what the ring had actually looked like and I agreed to take 0n the job (and subsequently cashed the check!).

It took me awhile to decide how to approach this job but the idea of building a ring in a cone shape with a plethora of leaves by hand was a little daunting so I decided to use the CadCam approach, allowing a computer to at least get the first part done. As it happens there was a fair amount of handwork involved afterwards anyway so there is still quite a bit of me in the ring. The pictures here are of the finished ring and the original photo I had to work from, and yes it was no better than what you can actually see here in this copy of the picture.

While I can't tell you that this particular design is actually my style of ring, it's always nice to be able to help a customer maintain their connection with their past through their jewels. And as I will always do, I made it up the way that, if it had been my design, I would want it made so that it would last for years.

I haven't forgotten about my blog

2010-10-02T13:19:00.001-04:00

At the request of a customer I am trying to get together a blog on opals but it's an extensive subject (and I have had to read up on them again) so it's taking a while. I should have something posted in about a week. Meanwhile here's one of the pictures I found of a beautiful opal! Just to whet your appetite a little. Oh and for anyone who likes moonstones I recently bought a magnificent triple strand of beautiful moonstone beads that are up for sale and worth seeing in any event.

Opals

2010-09-16T19:39:00.005-04:00

The pair below this paragraph have the really spicy pair of boulder opals I was talking about in the last post and my assistant Katy got a really pretty amazing picture showing some of the astounding color flash in the stones. This pair will not last long either.

And I also just put out the pair pictured below this paragraph as well this week. This is one of my comet series of earrings (although I have customers who say they are my bug earrings). These stones were not boulder opal splits, but a larger stone that I had cut in half (and that retained its color properly).

The following is a blog post I started quite awhile ago on opals. It talks a bit about opals in general and white opals specifically. I'll get something up soon that discusses black opals.

If you asked me what my favorite colored stone was I would have a really hard time choosing between sapphires and opals. Admittedly they are completely different types of stones but they both move me in a myriad of ways. And opals, without a doubt, have a slight edge simply because they aren't just ONE color but they are MANY colors. Some of them have ALL the colors. I mean, what more can you ask for in a gem material? Well okay, they could be a whole lot more durable and they could hold up better over time, but still they are just so fascinating. And they have so many colors!!!

More on Custom Work

2010-09-14T10:05:00.000-04:00

Custom work is always an interesting process. People come to me with all sorts of things, ideas, visions that they've had and then hope I can make them come to life. The picture here is what a customer brought in to me not long ago. She had a rather traditional looking three stone ring with a diamond and two emeralds but she wanted to do something else with the stones. So she drew up her idea on an envelope and brought it in. She said that she would allow me to exercise some of my own judgement when it came to the types of leaves and the overall look but that the drawing was pretty much what she had imagined. This project took me a bit longer than most as it required some thought behind how to get the stones at an angle, still make it wearable, and have some of the details she envisioned. Fortunately there was no time frame on it since she was just doing it for herself. These pictures are what I came up with:

I always recommend, when working with a jeweler on a custom design, that you like the kind of work they do in general. If you're giving an Art Nouveau styled design idea to a jeweler who only does geometric work you're probably working with the wrong person. On the other hand there are people like me out there who are adaptable enough to come up with pretty much any kind of design imaginable, which is not to say that I don't really prefer to work on pieces like this one that reflect a lot of what I do in general.

Alexandrite

2010-09-08T10:37:00.000-04:00

Alexandrite, a member of the chrysoberyl family of gems is one of the most expensive gem materials on the market. Due to the way the stones absorb light, the color of these stones will change from a greenish blue color to a purplish red color depending on their light source (fluorescent/incandescent). As with all gem materials there is better and worse material out there so it is possible that lower grade material will not be so expensive but nice material always carries an incredibly steep price tag.

Alexandrite was originally found in Russia (hence the name as it was believed that the first piece was found on one of the birthdays of Czar Alexander) but sources in Sri Lanka and Brazil are now producing material as well.

In gemology, stones that do things like change color or have stars in them are known as stones with phenomenon. Personally I think alexandrites can simply be phenomenal stones. It is a stone however, that requires the purchaser to have an appreciation for the unusual, and is not neccessarily the most attractive of stones. While high quality alexandrite may achieve a rich purplish red color there is always a brownish tinge to this color and while people often wistfully say that the green approaches emerald green in tone, the color is less like emerald and more like tourmaline. In reality, even fairly expensive stones will have a muddiesh color tone to them and sometimes, under some lighting situations, the two colors will sort of blend together, again leaving a somewhat blurry image. But fine material can be truly astounding (and is exceedingly rare). One of the most beautiful stone I ever saw was at the Tucson gem shows about 25 years ago where one of the dealers had a magnificent 15 or 20 carat stone that had a huge color change and was beautifully transparent. I believe that the price was somewhat over $100,000 for the stone at the time (this was 25 years ago mind you!).

It seems that the people who know about, and love, this stone always tend to be collectors. I have one customer who owns 5 alexandrites that she has purchased from me. Another customer, who is mostly a gem collector, also has one he got from me. It is, however, an expensive habit. You can generally expect to pay between $5-10,000 per carat for decent one carat size stones. Larger stones are extremely rare so as soon as you get into the 2 ct. or bigger range the price range will skyrocket.

If you are interested in owning these stones here are the things to watch out for:

1) If the stone doesn't exhibit color change it isn't an alexandrite, it's just a chrysoberyl. There are many gem "dealers" on the Internet who sell stones they claim are alexandrite but they don't have any color change so they really can't be called that (I have seen a plethora of these stones show up in the last few years).

2) There are synthetic (man made) alexandrites that are in the market that are extremely hard to detect. You need to buy from a reputable source. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Interestingly, synthetic alexandrite is not a cheap stone to produce so the pricing on these will be higher than many other synthetics, which often means that they won't be so much cheaper than the natural that you would immediately be aware that it is a scam.

3) For many years, synthetic color change corundum (sapphire) has been on the market and was originally marketed as alexandrite because it had a color change. The colors are usually different from an alexandrite and after you've seen a few they are easy to identify. So if someone comes to you and says they own a really big alexandrite, most likely they are talking about synthetic corundum. I don't get as many people in with these as I used to, but over the years I have had to deliver the disappointing news to many people who said their mother/grandmother/great uncle/great grandfather swore to them that this was an alexandrite, that in fact what they had was a pretty much worthless bauble.

4) As with any expensive material there are always scams waiting to happen. Lately there have been a number of incidents in which jewelers have been approached by people (I actually had an email conversation with one myself) with large (ostensibly) alexandrites (among other stones) who will claim a variety of misleading things in an attempt to sell the pieces. They will say things like: oh, this stone is so valuable that no gem laboratory will identify it. Or that it is so valuable that they can't ship it to a gem lab to be identified. This is a load of hogwash. Any reputable gemological laboratory will identify any size gem material. As a matter of fact, they love to get in large, unique gem material because it increases their knowledge of what is available. And anything of any value can be shipped through a variety of means, and if they don't want to trust a shipper, surely if you have something worth so very much money, you can afford a trip to hand deliver the stone to a gem lab.

5) While it isn't absolutely necessary, it does help to have certificates from a reputable gemological laboratory on any major alexandrite purchase.

6) Know your source. Work with someone like myself who has both a Graduate Gemologist degree and has been in business for a long time. If they are a member of the American Gem Trade Association or Jewelers of America it helps as well. There are just far too many fly by night operations who are just out to make a quick buck and the Internet has expanded their numbers exponentially.

Back in the Saddle Again

2010-08-26T11:15:00.000-04:00

I had a very successful tax free day this year, in particular thanks to a few of my wonderful customers out there. But it's left me busier than ever. Besides trying to make up a bunch of new stock ahead of time for it (pictures will be forthcoming), I have been somewhat swamped with custom work as well. So I've been working 6-7 day weeks and nights. It does however get my creative juices flowing and I'm still putting out new stock. I just got in a triple strand of magnificent blue sheen moonstone beads that are going to the stringer this week (a picture will be forthcoming after the stringing) with a handmade clasp. I also just got in a South Sea black mobe pearl that I'm working on a pendant for. There is a large Asian gem and jewelry show about to take place and I've talked to a number of my suppliers about what it would be nice for them to pick up for me this year. This is just a brief check in but my next posting will be about alexandrite because Laurel asked about that and it is really a pretty interesting gemstone. I hope to get to that in the next few days.

The ring above is one of my wife's pieces and one of my favorites. It has a beautiful tourmaline in it.

Sales Tax Holiday and Too Much Work

2010-08-06T11:32:00.000-04:00

Well as always seems to happen with my vacations I've been worker harder than ever since returning (hence my lack of posting of late). It's always a lot of work to get ready to go and then a lot of work to catch up. Unfortunately the vacations seem to fade way too fast because of this. It seems to be a big engagement ring time and I've had a slew of orders I've been working on so that all these couples can start a new life together. I do love to see couples in love! Actually it's the part of my business I like the most. Some of them are custom designs and as soon as I get them made up I'll get some pictures up.

The weekend of August 14-15 has been declared a tax free weekend in Massachusetts. It is a great time to buy those wedding bands or engagement rings that you know you're going to need anyway and to do a little early holiday shopping. My existing customers should watch their email folders for a special offer from us as well for the weekend (well only Saturday actually as we're closed Sundays). The tourmaline earrings above are currently available. They are hand built in 18k yellow gold with some beautiful dark green tourmalines.

Back from Vacation and Metal Allergies

2010-07-17T11:14:00.000-04:00

Well I'm back from vacation and somewhat rested. I think it was a good idea to take some time after my return from Martha's Vineyard off as well. It gave me a chance to ease back into things. As for the Vineyard we had some great (albeit hot) weather while we were there. It didn't rain at all. We had a wonderful stay at the bed and breakfast we stayed at: The Doctor's House and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to stay on the Vineyard. I think in the future I wouldn't stay quite as long. Neither Kathy nor myself are beach people so after about 4 days you run out of things to do there. But if you are into beaches there are plenty of pretty ones there. There were quite a few good restaurants we went to although it wasn't until near the end of the week that we found some decent bars as well. My idea of a decent bar may differ from most people's however as I look for my favorite drink, tequila, wherever I go. The picture is of me at the head of Aquinah on one end of the island. I think I look like I'm on vacation.

Now on to my topic of the day. I have been inundated lately (it seems) with people having allergic reactions to metals they are wearing. The reactions can range from mild irritation to serious scabbing. So let's discuss the causes of these problems.

The first thing is that many people confuse the problem they are having. People who wear wide bands often complain that they have a metal allergy but often it turns out that it is simply that things like soap, other cleaning agents, or dirt is collecting under the band (especially if there are bezel set stones on it in which case even more junk can collect in it) and it is this that is actually bothering people. If you seem to suddenly develop an allergy and you wear wide bands, I almost always recommend thorough cleanings (jewelers can do it better than you can but more on cleaning in a minute) first and then that you spend some time thinking about whether you have changed cleaning agents you are using, skin creams, perfumes etc. that may be impacting you because they are collecting under the band. If after doing this you are still having a problem then it may, in fact, be that you have a metal allergy.

Most people who have a metal allergy are in fact allergic to the alloys that are used when making gold into either 10k, 14k, 18k or 22k gold. The metal most people are actually allergic to is nickel. However, nickel is ONLY used in white gold. I routinely get people in who think nickel is used in yellow gold but it just isn't. As long as you are buying from reputable sources, nickel will never be used in making yellow golds. If you are having reactions to yellow gold then you are probably reacting to the copper or silver in the metal, BUT this is not always the case. Some people are allergic to gold as well. Platinum is the most hypo allergenic of metals on the market, but it is possible for someone to be allergic to platinum as well. Obviously if you are wearing base metals (costume jewelry) then the likelihood of being sensitive to it is very high.

Here is the other thing to remember: Our bodies change over time. You may not have been allergic to something when you were young but you may be as you get older. (Personally I never had allergies when I was young; now I can't make it through the spring without a lot of Claritin.) So if you have a reaction to wearing metal what do you do? Well if you are wearing white gold, I generally recommend that you stop and switch to platinum (although a good rhodium plating may help until the plating wears off) if you have to have a white metal. If you are wearing yellow gold, I generally encourage people to move up into higher karat golds. If you wear 10k (why anyone would want this metal I don't understand but that's just me I suppose) move up to 14k. If you wear 14k move up to 18k. If you're wearing 18k, and it is feasible for the design you want, move up to 22k (rings are not always durable enough in 22k gold). If none of these options work you may want to try platinum. For earrings there are hypoallergenic steel ear wires available if nothing else is working.

If none of these things help then you're just plain out of luck but it's worth trying them all first. If you are really enamored of white gold, some of us are now using a nickel free white gold which is colored with palladium (and zinc in some cases). Nickel in jewelry has actually been banned in a lot of the EU already and it would probably be a good thing if it was done here too, but don't count on it. Palladium white gold is more expensive than nickel white gold and that always means that manufacturers for the most part won't change their ways. I was actually somewhat instrumental in the reintroduction of palladium white gold into the US marketplace as a whole (due to my constant nagging of my gold supplier about how problematic the nickel white gold was to work with). I only sell 18k palladium white gold in my shop.

As for cleaning your jewelry at home here are my recommendations (because it always looks better and there is less of a risk of reaction to gunk collecting underneath rings). 1) Do NOT boil your jewelry. There is far too much of a risk of forgetting about it and returning to find your stones completely cooked after the water dries up. And yes, you can burn your diamonds. 2) I generally do NOT recommend home ultrasonic units. First of all they aren't as good as the commercial ones jewelers use. Secondly stones can break in them. 3) Do NOT use any of the commercially available jewelry cleaners that are profligate in the marketplace. I find they do more harm than good. 4) What you can do is take some ammonia (plain grocery store ammonia), Ivory Liquid (dish detergent) and warm water and mix it together. Any proportions will work, although obviously the more ammonia in the mixture the stronger it is. You can soak stuff in it for awhile and then use a soft toothbrush to scrub the stones, especially underneath them. This is where most of the dirt collects and it impacts the way a stone looks tremendously. Always scrub with plain water afterwards.

I would still encourage you to get your jewelry cleaned professionally at least twice a year. If you own a piece of jewelry from Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers I offer lifetime free cleaning on my work (and I'll do up to 6 pieces I didn't make for free too if you own something of mine----there are a few exceptions to this as some pieces can be major events and a charge will apply). Many other jewelers will clean jewelry for free as well, or have minimal charges (I charge $5 per piece---again with some exceptions---if the jewelry isn't mine). The advantage of bringing it to a jeweler however is that they can also check all the stone settings at the same time. You wouldn't ever drive your car for 2 0r 3 years without having a check up. Don't drive your jewelry for that long either without having a check up.

Vacation Time

2010-06-30T13:42:00.000-04:00

First of all the new turquoise and diamond earrings I posted a picture of in my last post have sold already. It seems if you want my new stuff you have to jump on it quickly. So here is a picture of a new sapphire ring. Unfortunately (despite the fact that I didn't take the picture), the sapphire didn't read well in this shot. (Okay addendendum on 7/1---This is a new version of the picture---color reads a bit better but it's still prettier than this.) I can assure you that it looks a whole lot better in real life. So look at the design and imagine a really stunning, beautiful dark blue sapphire in it.

I am taking a muchly needed vacation for 10 days starting on July 6. Hopefully it will provide some refreshment for my creative spirit (I'm going to the Vineyard for part of it). I should come back with a lot of ideas for waves. Wait a minute, I already do waves in my jewelry. Oh well. I'll find some inspiration somewhere. This will be my final posting until I return.

How About Some Feedback

2010-06-24T11:02:00.000-04:00

I know that some people out there are actually reading my blog because I routinely get customers in who said they read it. But honestly guys, I'd really love some feedback. Any and all comments are appreciated. Is there something you've found helpful? Is there a posting you hated? Is there something you'd like me to write about? Is there something you don't want me to write about? Would you like to see more pictures of something? Please let me know. And become a follower too! By the way I also can be found on Facebook and I have a fan page for my store as well. Join up and become a fan!

Pictured above are some new 18k gold, turquoise and diamond earrings.

Mokume Gane

2010-06-22T10:49:00.000-04:00

I've spent some time recently looking over some other jeweler's blogs and once again had my feelings reinforced about what I don't want my blog to become. Almost universally, they are discussions of a piece recently made, usually with pictures of the work in progress. Now this is all well and good. I'm sure that a lot of people are intrigued by how jewelry is made and it's great self promotion to show what goes into making the items we produce as jewelers. But generally speaking, it's not the direction I like to go in. I prefer to talk about my MOTIVATION for making a piece. I also like to talk about subjects that I think will help my customers buy any piece of jewelry (not just mine). But today I'm going to throw all that out the window and talk about one of the techniques I use to actually make some of my pieces. Why? Because I said I would in my last posting.

Mokume gane is a Japanese metal layering technique that has been used for thousands of years in making both jewelry and ornamental objects. Mokume means woodgrain and gane means metal so the description is woodgrain metal. That is exactly what a lot of it can look like. It used to be that almost all mokume gane work was done with a variety of less expensive metals, copper, silver and a number of oddball alloys that the Japanese had developed. More recently it has been done with precious metals. There are some jewelers who specialize in mokume gane and do some absolutely stunning things with it. They have taken the technique to whole new levels. Using ovens to carefully bond their metals together over long periods of time, they have come up with some new ways of using mokume and a variety of new looks for it. With modern advances in technology, their ability to produce perfect billets of mixed metals to work with is impressive.

However I don't want to spend my entire life doing one process. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I can please so many different types of customers is because I work in a variety of styles. While some of my work is immediately recognizable as mine, a lot of it is just nice jewelry. And that's what I like to do. I'd be bored to tears if all I did was one particular technique. So I leave that for the other jewelers who specialize in it, but I do have a particular mokume that I enjoy making and that I produce routinely.

Basically what you do in mokume gane is create a piece of metal with a large number of layers of different colors of metal and then peel away parts of it to see the layers underneath. I do this by starting with a piece of my special 22k yellow gold mix and a piece of the 18k palladium white gold I use. I've found these two metals fuse together better than some others, given the conditions I'm working in. I then fuse the two layers together using my torch in a process in which I heat the two metals until they are almost liquid and they actually fuse together. Then I cut the piece in half and fuse them again. I do this until I get either 16 layers or 32 layers of metal. This metal is then rolled down (in a mill) until it is fairly thin. I then take a dapping die (a small tool I use with a hammer that has a ball on the end) and punch out a series of rows of holes (they don't go all the way through) in the metal. The piece is then flipped over and ground off on the top. This allows the different layers to show through.

I really enjoy making mokume gane because it involves a lot of torch work (I admit, I have somewhat of a fascination with working with a lot of fire) and it is just generally fun for me to do. It's technically advanced (trying to get the metal to fuse properly with a torch is tricky---most mokume today is produced in controlled ovens), it's always a little different and I can do some neat things with the results.

In the three ring picture only the top ring is mokume gane. That is a 32 layer mix. The earrings are a 16 layer mix.

Appraisals 103

2010-06-05T11:25:00.000-04:00

If you read my last two posts on appraisals you should have noted that I said that appraisals are a legal document. If you go into a jewelry store and show a clerk a piece you own and ask what is this worth and they scribble something on a piece of paper, or even verbally state a value, that is in effect a legal document that could be used in a court of law in the event of a fight with an insurance company over value, or in the event of a fight between heirs. The problem is that someone who glances at something briefly and then gives you an on the spot value, but doesn't charge you anything, is doing you a disservice because the statement won't be accurate and is risking being dragged into court over it with no real backup for their statement of value.

If you want a legitimate appraisal you have to be willing to pay for it (although a point of sale insurance appraisal may be provided free by the jeweler you are purchasing the piece from). Fees for appraisers will vary but you should NOT work with anyone who charges by the value of the pieces appraised. This used to be common practice, although it isn't done as much anymore, but the problem with it is that it tends to be better for the appraiser to overvalue the jewelry because they get paid more. This type of fee is considered unethical by all appraisal organizations. Beyond that, however, some appraisers charge by the hour (I do), some will charge by the piece, and some may base a price on the entire collection they are dealing with. In general, you can assume that free appraisals (excluding point of sale insurance appraisals) are worth exactly what you paid for them: nothing.

Anyone can actually write up a jewelry appraisal. There are no licensing boards per se. There are various appraisal organizations which people can belong to and require their members to pass certain tests and while it is nice to get someone with this background it isn't actually critical. Assuming the jeweler doing your appraisal is a Graduate Gemologist (or the equivalent), has taken courses on appropriate appraisal practices and has a good grasp on the marketplace in general (not just what their store sells things for), you should be able to get a decent appraisal. I don't belong to any appraisal organizations (time constraints more than anything prohibit it, plus I'd rather be making jewelry than appraising it) but I do have my Graduate Gemologist degree from the Gemological Institute of America, I routinely take refresher courses in gemstone identification, and I have completed numerous courses on appraising over the years. Additionally I read a half dozen trade magazines every month, both for current information on appraisal practices and for pricing information. I also have been doing appraisals for long enough that I know when something is out of my range of expertise and I will refer people accordingly.

So when you go to get an appraisal I recommend the following:

1) Look for someone with the proper credentials

2) Look for someone who will take the time to do a proper appraisal. Grading diamonds properly takes some time. The proper identification of gemstones and metals takes time. The accurate write up of these things takes some time.

3)Do not use someone who has a vested interest in buying whatever is being appraised. If you have an antiques dealer buying an estate from you, they should NOT be the ones doing the appraisal (no matter what kind of appraisal). If the jeweler writes an appraisal for you and then makes an offer to buy the piece from you based on that, I would think long and hard about having another jeweler value it.

4) Work with someone you trust. If you don't feel good about leaving your merchandise with them don't use them.

5) Do expect your jewelry to come back looking a little different. Any appraiser worth working with has to thoroughly clean any items being appraised. Suddenly the big inclusion in the center of the diamond that you never saw before is readily apparent because the diamond is clean (possibly for the first time in decades).

It is helpful if you have old documentation on pieces to bring this along when you meet with an appraiser. A good appraiser won't use another appraiser's or a jeweler's statements to write up their own appraisal, but sometimes point of sale appraisals are helpful because they have accurate stone weights listed (something that is hard to get once a stone is set into a piece).

Hopefully this series will help anyone looking into appraising some of their jewelry.

Appraisals 102

2010-06-04T11:16:00.000-04:00

Okay so let's say that you've been buying jewelry over the years and never had an appraisal for any of it, but you've just started working with a new insurance company for your homeowners policy and they tell you they want an appraisal of your jewelry to cover it properly. This again requires a retail replacement value appraisal. An appraiser should use the same general approach in valuation as I described in the last posting but prices should be updated to reflect current metal and stone values. In the case of gold and platinum, the prices are up so it might be possible to have a value assigned to a particular item that is, in fact, higher than what was paid for the piece. In the case of diamonds, it is possible that the price will be lower as the RETAIL price of diamonds has dropped over the last 5-7 years. Some consideration of the condition of the jewelry has to be taken into account as well. In the case of a piece with missing stones, or with a lot of metal worn off, it really isn't up to the insurance company to replace a lost or stolen item with a new, perfect condition piece. All of these factors should be taken into account when valuing these pieces. Other factors on older pieces (are they collectibles?, were they made by a known--now dead---artist?, etc.) should also be taken into consideration. In the case of items that are collectibles the values should be based on similar items that are being offered for sale to the general public.

The most important thing to remember however about insurance replacement appraisals is that the values shown will have absolutely no relationship to what you might be able to sell the pieces for. As such, these appraisals should NEVER be used to help make a sale to a private individual, nor will they help you in the least if you take your jewelry to a jeweler to sell it. So if you want to sell your jewelry you do NOT want an insurance replacement value appraisal. And, conversely, if you are buying jewelry from a friend, or from an online used jewelry site, you should not use a retail replacement value appraisal as a starting point for price negotiations.

Estate appraisals are a different type of appraisal that is used, obviously, when estates are being settled. It can also be called a fair market value appraisal, and can be a more accurate representation of what a piece might sell for privately. Fair market appraisals have to reflect a price for what the piece might actually sell for, if there are no time constraints, between a willing seller and buyer, given the condition of the piece at the time. Now in some cases, on badly worn pieces, this could be the actual scrap value. It also could be a value close to what an antiques dealer might pay for the goods at the time (a good reason not to have the dealer do the appraisal themselves). It is helpful for people who have an estate to settle in terms of financial liability (estate taxes, etc.) and it can be helpful in the event that a jewelry collection is being split up among heirs (something I get people in for routinely). It's rare that I see collections with a value that will actually impact taxes (most of those tend to go to auction houses) but it is helpful if you want to equitably split up some jewelry (or assign a buyout price for one portion of the value, i.e.--mom only left one diamond but there are two daughters; one gets the diamond and pays the other the fair market value of half of the diamond).

The values in estate appraisals will be much lower than in insurance replacement value appraisals, but they may still not reflect what you would actually receive from the sale of old jewelry for scrap since there often will be more value than just the metal and stone content. Additionally, a fair market value appraisal valuation must take into consideration the phrase I used earlier: "if there are no time constraints". If you go into a place to sell your jewelry for scrap there is, effectively, a time constraint. You want to sell and you want to sell now. That always lowers the value.

The last type of appraisal I'm going to briefly discuss is a relatively new one on the scene (well at least in that they previously were used exceedingly rarely), which is one that is supposed to reflect the value of what you would get currently if you did go in to sell your jewelry because the price of gold is so high (or just because you need the money). The idea is to get an independent valuation so that when you go to the scrap buyers you will have a reasonable idea of what to expect. This sounds like a great idea except there are two problems. The first is that any legitimate appraiser charges for their time. If you pay out half of what your scrap is worth to find out what you're going to get for it, it's pretty much a waste of money. Now if you have hundreds of pieces of varying karats of gold with a lot of different stones in them, it might (and I say might because your cost for the appraisal will be much larger given the quantities of items) be worthwhile. But the real problem is that by the next day the value is already moot as gold prices fluctuate daily (especially these days). The second problem is that it doesn't matter what ANYONE writes on an appraisal. If no buyer is willing to pay you more than $100 for a piece then that is what it's worth even if an appraiser thinks you should get $150. So if you are selling (and I discussed this a bit earlier in my posts on selling gold), the best thing to do is simply go to three or four different places (or if you have a family jeweler you trust go to them) and see what they offer you. Then take the largest offer.

On my next posting I'll talk about finding an appraiser, what you should expect from them, and what they will need from you.

Appraisals 101

2010-06-03T12:58:00.001-04:00

The subject of appraisals seems to be coming up a lot lately so let me write a post or two on this issue for those of you in need of some advice. First of all you need to understand that there are different types of appraisals for jewelry. The most common type is an insurance appraisal. This is an appraisal that will describe a piece and give the cost to actually replace the piece described at a retail store in the event of a loss or theft. The next most common type is a fair market value appraisal. This is commonly used in estate valuations and should reflect the amount the piece would sell for if offered for sale in its current condition. Lately some appraisers have been offering an appraisal that would reflect what should be a reasonable price to assume receiving if you scrapped the piece/s. There are a number of other types of appraisals (donation, IRS related, etc.) but most people aren't going to be concerned with these.

What most people don't realize, even many jewelers who think they can scribble something on a piece of paper and that that constitutes an appraisal, is that an appraisal is a legal document. It can be used in a court of law. As such, those doing the appraisals have to follow some guidelines (although many don't) about establishing value for the items.

An insurance appraisal on a new purchase, sometimes also known as a point of sale appraisal, is the most important type of appraisal for most people to be aware of. This appraisal should reflect what it would cost to replace the same item in the event of a loss. This is the type of appraisal that most insurance companies will want to write a policy to cover your jewels. Except in rare instances, such as when there is a true sale on the piece (not like in the department store sales where everything is on sale 350 days of the year), or errors were made in pricing (I sometimes have this issue on custom work, if I under quote a job and realize afterwards that if I do it again I will HAVE to charge more), insurance appraisals should not show values higher than what was actually paid for a piece (this presumes it's a new piece you've just bought).

Unfortunately for a long time jewelers used to sell people something for $1000 but then tell the customers, oh well the real price would be $2000 so I'll write you up an appraisal for $2000 and you should insure it for that amount. This was bad in a myriad of ways. First of all, they did it to make you think you were getting a deal, when in fact, if you went back the next day for the same thing, you'd pay the same price. Secondly, you would then pay insurance on $2000 rather than the $1000 that would actually be paid for the piece, enriching the insurance companies but not anyone else. In fact many insurance companies have deals with retail jewelers in which they pay far less than the retail price (the real retail price of $1000 not $2000) in exchange for sending the jewelers a huge amount of business. So all of this time you've been paying an insurance rate on $2000 when the insurance company may only pay out $6-800. Good for them, but not so good for you. So if you purchase something for $1000 that is what the appraisal should say. And if you're purchasing from some company that claims that their jewelry will appraise for double or more of the price paid, in fact they are making a false, unethical, claim. If an appraiser were to value the piece at double what you paid for it, knowing that you could go back to the same location and buy the same thing for the same price, then they shouldn't be calling themselves appraisers.

Now mind you, some of appraising is subjective in nature. It can also vary depending on the area you are in. A custom made piece from a jeweler in the boondocks of North Dakota is going to cost less than from someone like me in an area where my costs are much higher. So values will vary. Different appraisers use different formulas as well. And there are a number of things like diamond grading that have some very subjective issues around them. One appraiser (or even a diamond grading lab) may see a VS2 stone and another may think it is an SI1 stone. That can sometimes make a huge difference in price. However a retail replacement value appraisal should reflect a value that is fairly accurate of what it would cost, in that specific area, to replace a piece at a similar venue to where it was purchased. In the case of custom work, unique designs, or designer jewelry, the value should reflect what that piece would actually go for. It is illegal to copy designs so a David Yurman piece, or a Daniel Spirer piece for that matter, should be valued at what it would cost to replace a piece made by that actual company/person not at what it would cost to have someone else steal the design and duplicate it. Things like branded diamonds also need to be recognized for what they are. A Royal Asscher cut diamond, actually cut by the House of Asscher, will carry a higher price tag then a diamond cut to the same shape by any old cutter. The same goes for the Lazare Diamonds that I sell.

My next post will be on insurance replacement appraisals on items that were not recently purchased and, if possible, on fair market value appraisals (although that might have to wait for a third posting). The earrings pictured above are a 16 layer mokume gane in 22k gold and 18k palladium white gold with a .10 ct. ideal cut, "E" color, VS clarity diamond in each earring. A proper appraisal would have to show the price it would cost to buy these from me as this is one of my designs.

Marquis Diamond Custom Ring

2010-06-01T17:26:00.000-04:00

The pictures here (mine and I apologize for the quality) are of a ring I just completed for a customer. I broke all of my own rules on it. First of all, I'm not a big fan of marquis shaped diamonds (which used to be called navette shaped for you history buffs out there)but I do routinely have customers come in who own them and want me to do something different with them and I'm always happy to accomodate them. In this case she was looking for something fairly streamlined and geometric, but she had also seen an ad for some pendants that had marquis stones (not diamonds) set with only two prongs holding them in and she wanted the end prongs to actually come out of the band itself, or perhaps a better way of saying it is that she wanted them to actually be created from the band. Of course I went into a long discourse on why there shouldn't be only two prongs. It's not enough protection against loss, leaves the diamonds more subject to breakage, etc.

However, sometimes when I actually get into making a piece up, I realize things are going to be different than I thought. After I got the seat and the general shaping of the band together I realized that four prongs on the side were going to take away from the streamlined simplicity of the band. I also realized that the band was so incredibly chunky to begin with that if I could actually make prongs out of it to hold the dismond, they would be so substantial that security in the setting wasn't an issue. Also because of the way I built the seat for the stone, even though the sides were exposed, they weren't hanging out in the middle of open air to be whacked anytime the customer moved her hand.

So I made an executive decision to leave them off and finish up the ring with only the two prongs. It took me close to 2 hours to set the stone (usually I can do a stone setting in about 10 minutes) because I had to hammer set (use a hammer and chisel to push the metal down onto the stone) the stone in place, something that with a marquis with long pointy ends that are just dying to break off when you look at them crosseyed, is extremely dangerous. But both the stone, and my now sweaty self, managed to survive intact and I think the ring came out quite nicely. It's not one of my usually more detailed pieces, but I think it came out pretty cool looking and the customer seemed thrilled.

My pt assistant Jason cleaned up my pictures a bit and so they're not quite so bad. My apologies for the red wax showing though.

Synthetic Diamonds From Your Pet's (or spouse's) Ashes

2010-05-28T17:08:00.000-04:00

The pictures here are a new custom design I just finished for a customer. She had two green synthetic diamonds made from her most treasured cat's remains. For awhile there have been a couple of companies offering to make either human or pet remains into synthetic diamonds. I'm not sure how much of the ashes would actually really be in the diamonds when they are finished but I believe that the companies are using them in the stones produced. Personally I would rather have my ashes sent into space in the next available rocket but if my wife decided she wanted to carry some of me around with her and I left her enough money to do it she should feel free to have me made into a diamond or two (or if they've figuered it out by then I'd really prefer a purple sapphire).

I know it sounds a little funny but as I've said before what I really do is not make jewelry but memories. And for those of us who have significant others, or as I do, favorite pets, the memories are what is truly important. If you want to honor that memory by making their ashes into something you can wear I think that's just great. And I'm happy to make up those stones into something beautiful you can wear, and enjoy, every day that will keep those memories close.

More on Custom Work--Let's Not Steal Designs

2010-05-15T13:41:00.000-04:00

The other day I got the following email: "I saw on your website that you make custom jewelry, which got me very excited. I found three rings that I really like, but unfortunately two of them are not for sale in the US. So I was hoping you could custom make them for me. I attached three pictures and I was wondering if you could tell me the prices for custom making these rings?"

Unfortunately in a world where everything is so readily available on the Internet, where the lines are blurred on ownership of ideas and artwork, and where anyone seems able to download just about everything for free (and seems to do it whether or not it is the right thing to do) this type of query is far too common. It's particularly prevalent in the jewelry community. For some reason jewelry is not considered art (granted it often isn't) so an anything goes attitude runs rampant both outside the jewelry community, and sometimes within it. So let me make a few things clear.

All jewelry designs acquire copyright protections the moment they are created (assuming they are original). An individual or company does NOT need to actually file any papers on copyright for their protection to be considered legal and intact, although if you plan to vigorously and legally protect your copyright it is better to do so. Copyright protection is different than patent protection. Patents can be obtained for unique new working elements in jewelry (unique clasps or hinged mechanisms) and it is a far more time consuming and expensive process than applying for copyright protection. People who violate copyright laws do so at risk of being sued and if they produce something in quantity that violates copyright they risk losing a lot of money. So when someone comes to me and asks me to copy another jeweler's design directly I can be sued.

More importantly, however (at least for me) is that it is quite simply the WRONG thing to do. Why would you trust a jeweler who is willing to wrongfully copy someone else's designs with: your own stones, to tell you the truth about the metal they are using, or to be honest with you about anything else?

Now understand that there are many jewelry designs out there that are not truly unique, whose history in some cases goes back over 4000 years, or are just truly so basic that just about everyone makes a version of them. In these cases the designs are pretty much in the public domain. But to take another designer's work and directly copy it is just not the right thing to do.

How Silly Can You Get?

2010-05-04T13:12:00.000-04:00

I have a small thing for a few crime shows on television. I happen to like all of the Law and Order series a lot and I watch CSI Miami both because my wife likes it and I tend to find it amusing, albeit unbelievable (trust me no one can get a DNA sample analyzed and back in under an hour and no one can find fingerprints that are actually useful on 99% of the things they find them on in the show). But last night's CSI Miami (May 3, 2010) reached some new heights in misinformation that I have to take them to task for.

Guess what it was about: A jewel heist of course. So a bunch of guys go in and rob a jewelry store. Ok that's understandable. It happens more than most people imagine (more money was lost in jewelry thefts in 2008 than in bank robberies in the United States). Of course someone gets shot in the theft, and while I don't want to spoil the plot, it happens, ostensibly because the guy--a customer-- gets up and challenges the bank robbers (a no no for everyone by the way). Okay so far I'd say.

But then the robbers get away but CSI is able to track one of the vehicles used to a location where they find all of the diamonds from the pieces taken in the theft scattered across the ground outside the warehouse that was used! So apparently the criminals went in, stole all of this jewelry, pulled out all of the diamonds and left them behind and just took the gold! Now if that isn't stupid I don't know what is. Admittedly, most criminals really are stupid. But as the program develops what they seem to have decided is that the gold (which they mistakenly said was over $1200/oz---something it hasn't quite hit yet although it is getting close) was more valuable than the diamonds. One of the spurious claims made was that all diamonds are marked now and could be traced because of this. Consequently the criminals didn't want to keep them.

Admittedly many diamonds (and all of the Lazare Diamonds that I sell) are laser inscribed with an identification number, and it has become fashionable to laser inscribe many other stones with their certificate numbers if they have one but the concept that almost all of the diamonds had inscriptions is ludicrous. Additionally, any serious criminal (and these people were made out to be very serious ones pulling heists all over the country in a similar fashion) would know that these inscriptions can be polished out if necessary. They would also know that most of the diamonds don't have any, so to leave somewhere between $100,000 and $1,000,000 (both of these figures were used so I'm not sure which they actually meant) worth of diamonds lying behind on the ground is just idiotic. Also for the quantity of stones left lying behind, if it was only $100,000 worth (the figure used most often), then none of the stones left behind would have been large enough to warrant having a number engraved on the girdle. But please, never let it be said that reality is what they are shooting for on these shows, or that the show producers (or at least their technical advisers) are any smarter than the criminals. I just hope the general public doesn't decide to believe any more of this nonsense than they already do.

This is an addendum on June 2, 2010. Gold has hit and exceeded $1200/oz periodically since this post was originally written, so maybe they were a little prescient.

Jewelry Designers; Designer Jewelry

2010-04-21T11:12:00.000-04:00

I happened to be looking through one of the latest Nieman Marcus catalogs a few days ago. I routinely look through them because a) we happen to get them, b) I have a little thing for shoes (as those of you who have seen pieces of mine with shoes in them can attest to) and c) because I like to see what is going on in the high end retail jewelry world. Nieman Marcus is heavily into "designer jewelers".

What, you might ask are "designer jewelers" as opposed to jewelry designers? "Designer jewelers" are people who may have started out making their own jewelry but inevitably get picked up by some big companies (either through direct marketing by savvy partners or by chance) and are forced into producing large quantities of jewelry. They routinely transfer all of their production overseas because the labor is so much cheaper and once they get caught up in the cycle that is necessary to continue to promote and sell their product, they routinely look for ways to increase the profit margins so that they can continue to grow and expand and can afford to sell their product to places like NM and everyone can make a lot of money. "Designer jewelers" are obligated to come up with new lines every season (much as clothing designers do) and there is a constant pressure to produce a new look that is still consistent with whatever their look was to begin with.

Hey, more power to them if they can do this but if you watch the progression of most of these designers you will see that they gradually dumb down their designs to the point that a) they aren't really very interesting and b) they look just like everyone else's work. It's interesting, too, how so many of them work in lockstep with each other. Remember a few years ago when circle pins came back into vogue? It was astounding to me how all of the big name "designer jewelers" came out, at exactly the same time, with a variation on a circle pin.

But as most of us know people tend to be like lemmings and follow anyone who happens to be leading at the moment so if everyone else owns a boring design, they have to have it too. I don't object to this. If you want to spend your money on something that looks like what everyone else has that's fine. What I DO object to however, is the use of cheaper and cheaper materials that "designer jewelers" are forced to use in order to keep their price points where they want them. This is particularly becoming apparent now that gold prices have gone up so much. "Designer jewelers" have routinely used low end gem materials (usually in large sizes) to accomplish this. There is a reason so many of them use large amethyst, citrine, peridot, etc. in their designs. But it seems that every year they take it to a new level.

A few years ago, rough diamonds became the rage. Now mind you, I made up pieces with diamond crystals more than 20 years ago, but they were just fun pieces, not meant to be serious jewelry (one was a space capsule that parts of came off to make into earrings). Now, however, they want you to think that they have value. The reality is that any diamond crystal of a high enough quality is going to be cut into a finished diamond. There is simply too much value there to sell them as uncut stones. So the uncut diamonds that are available are inevitably junk. Some "designer jewelers" are using large rose cut or partially cut diamonds in their jewelry that 5 years ago were considered to be industrial grade bort.

But what has set me off on this latest rant is a piece shown in the latest NM catalog that simply stunned me. They had an advertisement for a designer named Yvel in which is shown a chain (a basic commercial chain) that has bezel set stones scattered throughout. The description of the stones is that they are "natural multi color Sapphires". Technically, they probably are sapphires. But you could have used pebbles found on the beach and they probably would have looked nicer and they definitely would have had as much value because the "sapphires" (and I use this term loosely) are simply junk. They are so included that they are opaque (fine if it's a star sapphire but otherwise pretty useless), they have been badly faceted (why put a lot of facets on a stone that will never sparkle?) and are something that if you took them out of the "designer jewelry" would have absolutely no value! I would not give anyone 50 cents for any of the stones shown, nor would any jeweler who buys stones and gold from the public.

Now it would be one thing if something like this cost $50 and you could go home with a fun new bauble. Or if the pieces were truly a piece of art that incorporated an unusual design. But that isn't the case (especially in this case when the basic design has been around for a few thousand years). These items all sell for top dollar and the value is simply not realistic. It has nothing to do with any actual inherent value in the piece. Now I'm not saying that if you pay retail for something (please read my post on selling your gems) that you will get that back if you go to resell it. But you SHOULD be able to get something more than the scrap value for the gold. I can assure you that in a piece like the one shown there is no way that would happen. In reality the "designer jeweler" probably also paid next to nothing for the "gems" included in the piece.

So the next time you're thinking about buying a nice new piece of jewelry take a minute and think about whether it's something that will always have some value and if it's something you would want your children to own!

Shop Local or Bricks and Mortar vs. Internet

2010-04-03T11:30:00.000-04:00

This past weekend my wife and I took another trip to our favorite shopping mecca, New York City. It was my birthday and it gave us a chance to visit with our older son, my parents and my sister and my new niece. This is a picture of my niece and I on this trip. But this isn't really about how cute she is (although she is) but about part of the trip and what some of it means in the grand scheme of things.

I believe in a prior post I mentioned another trip to New York and a store we happened to particularly like there: Takashimaya. This is a sort of Japanese department store although it is a fairly limited chain (I believe there is only one in the States). My wife and I have always loved to go there because they have a great little restaurant in the basement and it was always a little like walking through a museum when you would walk through the store. They also managed to cover just about everything you would see in a normal department store (clothes, jewelry, furnishings, bedding, florist, perfumes, etc.) but in a relatively small amount of space. It was seven floors but each floor was fairly small. They always had a heavy bent toward Japanese products but also managed to carry clothing and jewelry designers that were more localized. Their prices were always fairly high, but they also offered a unique product, always flawlessly displayed (read: attention to detail) and their staff was always quite helpful (and over the years we consistently saw many of the same people). One of the comments I always heard from people who had been there when I would talk about the store is how much they loved looking at everything but because it was expensive they wouldn't actually buy anything.

So it was much to our dismay that when we eating in their restaurant on this trip that we overheard a waitress (who remembered that I always drank coffee when we came, by the way) tell another customer that the store was closing (in June probably). It turns out that the employees had just been told this on the Thursday before we arrived in New York. The company was closing the store and selling the building. We were told that it was because sales just simply hadn't been good enough during the latest recession and that they were losing money. Mind you, my wife and I can't be blamed for this because we always spent money there when we went on our trips to New York. But apparently there were just too many of those lookers and not enough who would actually buy.

So what does all of this have to do with Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers? Allow me to reprint an email I recently got here:

"Hi Daniel,

I am not a "diamond person." Or at least that's what I thought until I saw one of your ads, months ago, in the Boston Globe. The rings pictured there were so beautiful that I cut out the picture, just to save. Today, I happened upon the picture again and finally visited your website. I am in awe. Your work is the most beautiful, fanciful, and creative jewelry I've ever seen.

I'm an aged hippie, turning 60 later this month, and never thought about diamonds until my son shopped for an engagement ring for his girlfriend, out in LA. The ring he settled on is beautiful, but I feel sad that he didn't find your site first.

At any rate, while I'm not in a financial position to actually own one of your rings, I wanted to let you know how impressed I am, and how their beauty, just viewed online, has affected me."

Trust me I love to get accolades from people who love what I do, BUT the reality is that I don't stay in business because of accolades. I stay in business because people buy my product. My product is unique, like Takashimaya's (in some ways more so because they are all my designs), but it is also more expensive than many other jewelry stores. I get many couples in who are looking for wedding bands and the women are looking for something unique but the gents are often looking for something simple. I offer an extensive line of basic wedding bands and they are generally better made than most others, usually made from recycled metals and they are actually hand made by ME. However they are routinely more expensive than something commercially made by machine (or overseas) that you could find on the Internet or at some mall chain jewelry store.

So the question then becomes, why should you buy it from me or another small local jeweler? Well, in my mind, the first and foremost reason is that if you want people like me to be around for a long time then you need to help support us. When you buy from a small local vendor you are supporting your neighborhood and you are helping them to stay in business. You are also keeping your hard earned dollars working in your community and not having it all go overseas to some other country. How would you really feel if you woke up one day and there was no more jeweler, hardware store, gift shop, etc. in your neighborhood? If there was no way that you could actually touch and feel the product you wanted to buy? If there was no way to try on a dozen different outfits to see which one truly looked better on you?

One of the things a lot of people are doing now is going into their local shops, being educated about what they want by the people in these shops and then going on line and buying whatever it is they have decided on and learned about from their local shop. Sooner or later though, those local shops won't be there anymore to help you with this if you don't actually shop there.

The other thing you will never get online is the personalized service that you can get from a local store. I routinely get people in with rings they have just purchased online that are the wrong size. Because of how hard it is to ship everything back and forth they end up paying me (a service I provide to my customers for free at any time) to have rings resized that they shouldn't have to.

Or they bring in the stuff and it's falling apart, because online you can never truly see if the merchandise is well made, and they have to spend a lot of money with me (sometimes as much as they paid for the pieces to begin with) to have it fixed. They are often forced to do this because jewelry is not really just about the actual metal and stones---it's about what it means. If you've been given an engagement ring by your intended, you usually don't want to give it up even if it was poorly made to begin with, because it's all about the meaning behind it.

Unfortunately, in this country, it is too often about the price and not much else. I was amused by the fact that as soon as the economy nosedived suddenly most people didn't actually care so much about environmental concerns. And suddenly WalMart wasn't the evil demon that it had been before. The problem however is that often some of the economic downturn is a self actualized event. Because everyone suddenly thought they should spend less, they did, which actually made the economy worse than it would have been. Now I'm not advocating that everyone go out and spend money they don't have wantonly. But I think everyone should take more into consideration than just simply the price. If you save a hundred dollars but in the process you end up driving a local shop out of business (which you may need later for those repairs!) what are you really saving?

Watermelon Tourmaline

2010-03-13T11:11:00.000-05:00

Two posts in two days. You'd think I was inspired by the great movie I watched last night: Julie and Julia. Anyone interested in food will love it. But that's not really why I'm posting again today. Over the years I have worked with any number of both traditional and nontraditional gem materials. One of my favorite stones is tourmaline. Coming in a wide variety of colors it offers something for everyone. While not a super durable gem material (despite giving my wife one for her engagement ring I actually don't recommend it for every day wear), it can be so stunningly beautiful that it's hard NOT to put it out in all types of jewelry.

One of the really cool things about tourmaline is that crystals are routinely found that have more than one color in them. It can occur with one color on one end and another on the other, or even more interestingly, with one color in the center and another one on the outside. The crystals that occur with one color inside another are often cut into what is known as watermelon tourmaline (because often it is pink in the center and green on the outside). These are slices of the crystal, with the original rough crystal edge left on but polished on the front and back. They can be quite beautiful and they are certainly one of the most interesting gems I get to work with. Unfortunately, most of the time, high quality tourmaline crystals (those that have few to no inclusions) are cut into faceted stones, or for slightly more included stones into cabochon cut stones. This, unfortunately, means that most watermelon tourmaline slices are fairly heavily included, and often the colors are a bit muddy (again better colors will be cut into faceted or cabochon material).

Years ago, however, my primary gemstone suppliers (Jimmy and Pat) came into some material that was just stunning, both in color and clarity. While not completely free of inclusions (they never are) they were cleaner than most and the colors were quite intense. One of the first major pieces I made for my wife was a pair of earrings using some of these watermelon tourmalines with dangling tourmaline cabochons. At the time, Jimmy claimed that he would be able to continue getting material of this caliber but after a year or two the availability dried up. Since I had actually bought a fair amount of the material I didn't actually need more for quite some time. Over the years Jimmy and Pat changed directions somewhat too and weren't exactly focusing on this type of material.

Recently however, in an attempt to get out some new designs, I started thinking about this material again. I haven't seen any decent watermelon tourmaline in years. So I called Pat up and I said, you know Jimmy swore to me he could get more of this material but I haven't seen any in years. Surprisingly she actually remembered the material and where it came from and she went back to her German supplier who had originally supplied it to them. Lo and behold, the cutter had actually culled a few better ones and stashed them in his safe which he pulled out and offered to them. And they offered them to me. And I bought them all. The picture at the top is a picture of the five pairs that I got. If you've ever admired these stones, or had a desire for something different, these are probably the best that are out there right now. Come by and see them in person if you get some time. For a picture of a pair of earrings I made years ago with the same material see here.

Selling Your Gold for Scrap

2010-03-12T11:31:00.000-05:00

Inquiries on selling your gold are continuing to come in on a daily basis so let me address this issue for those of you interested in doing this. First of all, yes this is actually a good time for you to sell old gold that you're not wearing anymore. Gold is at an all time high (although I believe, when adjusted for inflation it is still not as high as it has been in the past). Platinum is fairly high as well although off of it's peak of $2400/oz that it hit about a year ago. I'm not recommending that you sell things just because gold is at a high. If you wear and enjoy the piece and money isn't critical, I wouldn't recommend it. But if you have old pieces you no longer use it is a better time than most to sell.

However there are a lot of things to understand about the process and what's involved. First of all most of the jewelry you own is either 14k gold or 18k gold (if you've bought from me you may have something in 22k gold or if it comes from Asia or India it may also be high karat). Karat is a statement of purity. 24k gold is pure gold. 18k gold is 75% pure gold and 25% alloys (usually copper and silver). 14k gold is 58.5% pure gold and the balance is alloys. (Incidentally, "karat" is different from "carat" which is a weight measurement for gemstones, although the two spellings are routinely confused.) So even if you bought a piece that was sold as "solid" gold, it doesn't mean it's pure gold, just that it is not something that is plated or gold filled. So even if you have an ounce of gold jewelry (and I'll get to that weight issue in a minute) you don't own an ounce of pure gold that is currently worth about $1100/oz. If it's all 18k gold you only have 3/4 of an ounce of pure gold. If it's all 14k gold it's only a little more than half an ounce.

The next problem is that if you're weighing your gold at home on a normal scale you're not actually weighing in the right weight system (please try to say that phrase "weighing in the right weight system" three times fast). Gold is weighed in troy ounces. Your scales weigh in avoir ounces. If you have one avoir ounce of gold you actually only have .91146 troy ounces. So you take your one ounce of 18k gold that is actually only 3/4 ounce of pure gold and multiply the .75 times .91146. You'll see that you get only .6835 ounces of pure gold that you will actually get paid for.

Okay so now let's say you take your 1 ounce of gold, that is actually .6835 ounces of pure gold, and multiply it times $1100 for the current price of gold. You end up with a figure of $752 (give or take). Now you're getting really excited. Woohoo! $750 I didn't have before! It sounds great, except that no one is actually going to give you $752. Why? Because everyone has to make money on the deal. You take it to a jeweler, who's paying overhead and labor (so that he/she can be there when you decide you want to sell your gold). He has to pay for these things. He also is taking a chance on what the gold price is going to be. Let's say he ships scrap in to the refiner once a week. The refiner then takes at least a few days, or sometimes up to two weeks, to process and refine your metal and only then sends the jeweler a check. So what happens if gold goes down a hundred or two hundred dollars an ounce by then? If the jeweler paid you $752 he would have lost money on the transaction (forgetting about what he would lose on his overhead, etc.). Now there are refiners who will settle the day a jeweler sends in their gold but, guess what: they pay less for the metal!

Additionally a retailer has to take into account the fact that sometimes what they test the metal to isn't accurate. If someone brings in something marked 18k but it's actually 14k (or even just 17.5 k) and the jeweler pays based on the stamping (or even a test that turns out to be flawed---and some criminals are now trying to sell extremely heavily plated items that it's easy to be fooled by) they don't get paid as much, or they can get nothing at all if it's not actually gold. On top of all of this many communities require gold and jewelry purchasers to hold onto anything they buy for up to 30 days. This is mostly to attempt to prevent criminals from selling something that disappears overnight. The side effect is, again, that a jeweler has no idea of what the gold price will be when he actually sells the pieces to the refiners.

And then there is the refiner (and possibly middle men as well) who all need to make some money on the deal. Businesses have to make money to survive so you truly aren't going to get something for nothing.

Then the question becomes what is fair for everyone involved. Unfortunately there is no clear line here. Some places have much higher costs of doing business and need to make more money on each transaction. Some advertise more about this and need to make more money from it. Some little hole in the wall jeweler may not need to make much and he might pay better or, because he does less volume and his risks are higher, he might need more.

So where do you go when you want to sell your scrap? Well you don't come to Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers because I don't buy gold. It's not part of my business model . Additionally I only send in my scrap once a year so my risk level is high on purchasing metal. I will only take in scrap towards work I am doing but it is more a convenience issue than anything else as I will tell you upfront that I don't pay well. On some small single ring, it may not be worth your while to make a separate trip to sell it to someone who will give you $5 more than I would, but on any bulk of metal it's better to go to the people who are doing this in volume.

I can tell you that you absolutely do not want to go the companies that advertise on national television. Besides the fact that there have been numerous exposes of their pretty horrendous actions in buying metal, any company spending that much on national advertising is not going to pay as well as your local jeweler. What I do tell people is that their best option, if they live local to Boston, is to go downtown to one of the Jeweler's Buildings (333 or 387 Washington Street--333 is usually better), and go to three or four places that buy gold (most of them do down there) and take the offer that is the highest. If you live in New York City there is always 47th Street, also filled with jewelers. Most major cities have some type of jeweler's building where jewelers are centralized and a little Google research should get you locations. If you're in the suburbs go to three or four local area jewelers and do the same thing.

There is some misinformation circulating right now (the Boston Globe's latest article on selling gold didn't help with this either) that you need an appraisal before you go to sell your jewelry. While you can get appraisals that will reflect the actual potential resale value of your goods, most appraisals are insurance replacement value appraisals which have no relation to what you will get when you sell your gold at all. But here's the biggest problem, even if you can get an appraiser to value it appropriately: any legitimate appraiser charges for his time. My minimum charge for an appraisal is $75. If you only have $150 worth of gold scrap you've just spent half of it on me. In my book, that's kind of stupid. Besides, it doesn't really matter what an appraiser says. If no jeweler is going to offer you more than $100 for a piece of gold, no appraisal in the world is going to change that.

So spend a little time doing your homework and a little time hoofing it to a few different places and take your best offer. If you're thinking about selling the gemstones in the pieces please read my prior posts on this subject. And good luck!

Aquamarine

2010-03-03T11:35:00.000-05:00

Aquamarine is the birthstone for March. (Actually an alternate is bloodstone but this isn't seen around much anymore.) Unfortunately what most people think of when they think of aquamarine is a kind of washed out very light blue stone. That, of course, is only because they haven't shopped at Daniel Spirer Jewelers. There are some magnificently colored blue aquamarines that are available if you'd like to spend a little more money for something that is actually blue.

Aquamarine is a member of the beryl family of gems which include emeralds, morganite, golden beryl and goshenite. With a hardness of 7 1/2-8 it is just below sapphire in hardness which makes it a relatively durable gem material. Almost all aquamarine is heat treated to burn off a green tone that is present in almost all material when it comes out of the earth. I have had occasion in the past to own some untreated aquamarine and the greenish blue color can be somewhat attractive, but it is hard to find.

Aquamarine can occur in huge sizes; of note is a crystal found in Brazil in 1920 that weighed in at a whopping 243 pounds and that yielded many fine cut gems. There are a number of notable pieces that weighed in at well over 150 cts. each.

In ancient times aquamarine (the name comes from Latin meaning "sea water") was supposed to impart the wearer with insight and foresight. Anyone out there who thinks they are psychic might want to try wearing one to help them see some of the future. It also was thought to induce sleep, and when soaked in water, cure eye troubles, stoppage of breath and hiccups. Potent stuff this stone!

Pictured above is a simple pendant I just made up with a very fine, medium dark blue aquamarine in it. If your birthday is this month come on in and look at it!

Birthstones

2010-03-02T11:45:00.000-05:00

It's the beginning of March and I've decided to start a new birthstone post that will run at the beginning of each month with some information about....you guessed it---birthstones. Today's will be about birthstones in general but tomorrow I'll give you some information on aquamarine, the March birthstone. As it happens it's my birthstone as well (not that I own one personally---well no wait, I DO own a lot of stones personally--I mean not that I wear one personally).

The birthstone lists do have some attachment to ancient history. There are biblical references from as early as the 1st and 2nd centuries that mention them. There are also very early astrological birthstone lists. Twelve is an important number in human life and twelve stones representing various things pops up a fair amount in ancient times.

Modern birthstone lists, however, are pretty much a marketing tool. They have been changed repeatedly, and often the lists bear no resemblance to the original ancient texts. Even recently there have been additions made to the lists. Also the astrological birthstone lists tend to have a lot of overlapping of months, further complicating the issue. The generally accepted birthstone list currently in use looks something like this:

January: Garnet

February: Amethyst

March: Aquamarine

April: Diamond

May: Emerald

June: Pearl, Moonstone, or Alexandrite

July: Ruby

August: Peridot

September: Sapphire

October: Opal or Tourmaline

November: Citrine or Topaz

December: Turquoise, Lapis Lazuli, or the newest, recent addition of Tanzanite

In ancient birthstone lists there were often other stones, agate, sard, etc. that were mentioned. Some of these no one is truly clear on what was even meant since early man used to call a lot of gem materials by different names or wrong names (most of the largest "rubies" in the Crown Jewels collection in London turned out to be spinels). Additionally they didn't even start the calendar with the same months as we use today. But the list above is generally what's acceptable today (unless you want to use your astrological list and then you have another whole set of parameters).

Personally I think birthstones are fun but somewhat problematic. Their most common use seems to be in birthstone rings for mothers. Now this is a great idea in theory but the problem is that if you have a bunch of kids you have to put all of these different colors of stones into one piece of jewelry. Frankly, most mother's rings I have seen (and even a few I have had to make) are pretty ugly because of the color combinations necessary. No matter what you do if you try to put a peridot next to an emerald next to an amethyst it's just not going to be attractive. It may represent all of those babies you've had but it's just ugly. Now with the more prevalent use of rings with stones that go all the way around a ring, it might be a little easier to combine some of these colors (four different colors placed equally around a ring won't be right next to each other and resolve some of the issues), but it is still usually a problem.

My personal solution for this quandary is to do a mother's bracelet. Make a charm style bracelet (check out my wife's here) and do it with charms that have the birthstones necessary. They aren't all right next to each other, you can space colors that don't go well together farther apart, and frankly they are a lot more fun! Of course if you only have one or two kids it may not be necessary to do something like this, but I urge people with multiple children to look at this as an alternative.

Tomorrow's posting will be on March's birthstone aquamarine. The picture up top is courtesy of the AGTA. For those of you who don't know who they are, they are the American Gem Trade Association and their goal is to promote the sale and use of colored gemstones in an ethical manner. Click on their name here if you want to learn more about them. And yes I am a member.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-11T11:25:00.000-05:00

Two posts in one day but this second one is somewhat time critical. It's almost Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is my most favorite holiday. What single day most represents expressing your love to another person more than Valentine's Day? It's a holiday that's all about love (at least in modern times). Additionally it's got the color red associated with it so rubies make great gifts for the day!!

I routinely sell a few gifts for the day but I really wish more guys would think about it as a great alternative to giving jewelry for Christmas. First of all, a stunning piece of jewelry is much less expected on the day (the usual gifts being chocolates and flowers) than it would be on Christmas or a birthday. Secondly it is all about showing love to that significant other. I love to make heart pieces for the holiday (check out my wife's charm bracelet that the charms were all for Valentine's Day) because I think hearts are just a great shape to work with. Traditionally I only make one pin or pair of earrings with a heart motif for the holiday. Also traditionally I never sell it for Valentine's Day but some other holiday (why, I don't know, but it seems to be a tradition). I am currently finishing up my one heart pin (with a small ruby in it) and plan to have it out in the cases by the end of the day today(maybe I can get a picture of it up here too) and it will go lovingly out into the case, most likely to sit there for a few months until someone who really loves someone else will give it as a present.

And guys it's also a great day to get engaged. So get out there and get going!

The earrings pictured are 18k yellow gold with South Sea black pearls. I made this design for the first time just before Christmas and sold three pairs for the holidays. This pair I just made up yesterday and my new friend Fred came in this morning and bought them for his sweetie for Valentine's Day. I'm sure that he will have a great Valentine's Day!!!

This comment is later in the day. I just added the new VDay pin picture above.

Reusing Old Gemstones

2010-02-09T10:38:00.000-05:00

I'm not really in the business of selling jewelry. I'm in the business of selling memories. There is so much associated with the purchase of most pieces of fine jewelry. Engagement rings. Wedding rings. Anniversary rings. Presents for special birthdays, Valentine's Day, etc. All of these events carry so much meaning behind them and as you age, the meanings can grow and expand. When members of your family die, often the most important things you have left from them is their jewelry. Something you saw them wear every day of their lives and that represented so much to them. Something that represented the relationship that may have led to your own existence. How can we not try to honor these things in some way?

I routinely get people in asking me to reuse their old stones. Some of these come from their parents or relatives who have passed away. Some of them are simply from earlier relationships or just pieces of jewelry that are no longer so fashionable or that don't fit in with a current lifestyle. As I explained in the last posting you retain the most amount of value by keeping these stones so I'm happy to reuse them, however there are some things you should understand about resetting your old stones in a piece of my jewelry.

When someone comes into my store and looks at my jewelry they are seeing it all with top quality, very fine gemstones. My diamonds are all ideal cut, top color, high clarity stones. My sapphires are all fine color, well cut, lively stones. I pick my merchandise very carefully, looking for goods that are going to be sparkly, with color evenly spread throughout the stones, without windows (I'll get to that in a moment), and as much as possible without any eye visible inclusions (although occasionally some fine stones will have some inclusions that a sharp eyed customer may see). When you put stones like this together with metal work of the quality that I do, the overall look is always fantastic.

Unfortunately what I sell is not what most people already own (unless, of course, they got it from me!). Many inherited diamonds are often so old that they are either old European cuts or old mine cuts (see this posting). While these stones can be pretty they will never look like the diamonds that I sell. Many colored stones will also be of varying quality. A lot of lower grade material is so poorly cut that it has what is called a "window" effect. This is when material is improperly cut and if you look in the center of the stone, the color (and sparkle) will appear to be extinguished in a particular area (usually the center but it can happen elsewhere). It looks like you can actually see through the stone (something you really don't want to happen), hence the name "window". Additionally there has been a huge amount of absolute junk sold over the years and often the colored stones simply are not a pretty color. This being said, it doesn't necessarily negate the emotions associated with the pieces.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because while I can still make a beautiful piece of jewelry to put your stones in, there is no guarantee that the overall effect will be like what you see in my cases. The metal work may look the same but I can't make stones look better than what they are. So if you are sentimentally attached to pieces then by all means, let me do something new with them. But if your goal is simply to save money the final look may not be quite what you see in my cases nor have quite the same impact. It's just something to think about.

Pictured above is a simple pendant I made with a customer's marquis diamond.

On Reusing Gemstones and Diamonds

2010-02-03T12:32:00.000-05:00

It seems that not a day goes by that I'm not getting questions about people reselling their jewelry. Obviously the economy has forced people into financial situations where they are often looking for any way to generate income, but it also seems to have a lot to do with the current high price of gold and the publicity associated with it. Some of the people who make inquiries about it tell me that they don't actually need the money but have heard so much about the increase in prices that they just think it's a good time to sell. For gold and platinum (as metal), this happens to be true. It is a good time to recoup some money on jewelry that isn't being worn anymore. On heavier gold pieces that were bought more than a few years ago, it's quite possible you could get more back than you paid for it because of how expensive gold has gotten.

But the problem now is that people think the same thing has happened with their gemstones and diamonds and, unfortunately, the prices have not gone up in the same way. There are also more problems involved with the reselling of gem materials. First of all quality is always an issue. Unfortunately so many people have bought so much low quality material over time (often told that it wasn't by the jeweler they bought it from) that there is somewhat of a glut on the market now. (By the way I was just this minute interrupted by another caller asking if I bought old jewelry--the second of the day). Also quality is a somewhat subjective thing. While a diamond with a recognizable certificate accompanying it is usually a pretty much known factor, it isn't always the case. Sometimes stones get damaged from normal wear and tear. That will immediately reduce the value. In the case of stones without certificates, the decision about the quality level is left up to the person doing the actual buying. Unfortunately far too many people either don't have the right credentials to do this, or they will simply make things up so that they can buy a piece for the lowest possible price. Plus, most consumers don't really know what the quality of their diamonds actually are. Many appraisals written by jewelers are inaccurate at best, and often downright misleading.

(An example of this is any store where they advertise that the jewelry you buy is guaranteed to appraise for more than you paid for it. Any legitimate appraiser knows that if the piece was sold for $1000 and the piece was stolen that same day that the next day the jeweler would sell you another piece just like it for the same price. The ONLY exceptions to this are when someone is having a true sale---not an ongoing year round markdown "sale" but one in which it truly is only an annual or one time event.)

But now let's assume you have found a legitimate diamond/gemstone buyer who actually knows what they are doing. Here is your next problem. They are NOT going to pay you what you paid for the stone (unless you got it a REALLY long time ago and it's in good shape), nor are they even going to pay you wholesale prices for it. Why not? First of all because everyone in the business has to make some money on what they sell so by the time you buy something at retail, the pieces have been marked up a number of times. (Incidentally this is ABSOLUTELY NOT limited to the jewelry business. All businesses need to make money on what they sell. Actually the markups on clothing and quite a few other things are far higher than that on jewelry.) Additionally you are paying for labor costs somewhere along the way---the labor to make the piece (and all of the associated labor costs---making the machinery to make the pieces, managers involved in the production, accounting costs, etc.), the labor to locate and purchase the pieces (assuming you are dealing with a traditional buy/sell type of jeweler, not someone like me who actually makes all of the pieces) and the labor to sell the pieces.

Secondly, they can go to their normal suppliers and buy the same product wholesale (and usually they have some time to pay for it too) that you are trying to sell them. Why should they pay you as much for your product as they pay their suppliers? There is no benefit to them.

Thirdly, they need to have a market to resell the pieces. If their usual stock in trade is H-J color, SI clarity goods and you are trying to sell them a D color, Flawless diamond, they may have to hold the stone for months, or even years, before they can find a buyer. The longer a jeweler holds onto inventory, the more it costs them. If they didn't have the money tied up in your diamond, they could take it and buy something else that they could sell much more quickly.

Fourth, there is the overall market to look at right now. The economy is, shall we say, struggling. There are a huge number of people out of work. There are, consequently, a huge number of people trying to sell their possessions for desperately needed money. This all means that jewelers have an opportunity to buy pretty much whatever they want (assuming they buy used pieces) and they simply don't need to pay as much as they might have five or six years ago.

This all leads to the overall point of my posting today, which is that you retain the most amount of value in your gemstones by holding onto them. In most pieces that have center stones, the bulk of the value is in the stone itself. Perhaps in another 50 years when there are no more truly fine diamonds or sapphires being found and mined, your heirs will have a good opportunity to cash in on your purchases. But for now, it's far better to hang onto them. And if you are going to hang onto them, then the best thing to do, in my humble opinion, is get them reset into something that you will wear and enjoy. So take all of that old gold jewelry lying around that you haven't worn in years and sell it for scrap value. Then take the money from that and the stones that were in the pieces and make something new, fun, and exciting up to wear.

My next posting will be on what to expect if you reuse your stones in my jewelry. The piece pictured above is a pendant I made using a customer's tanzanite and her diamonds.

A Different Kind of Recycled Gold Question

2010-01-26T11:38:00.000-05:00

Of late, I have been getting a lot of questions about reusing customer's gold to make up my work. This in part seems to be because of the economy out there right now, but it also seems to be fueled by everyone's awareness of how high gold prices have gone. Unfortunately there are a number of problems for me with this concept.

First of all almost all jewelry is made up using solder in it. While some cast pieces may not need solder to finish them, some errors in the casting processes are often corrected with solder and pieces are often sized, or altered in some way that brings in the use of solder as well. There is often no easy way to determine this (finding a sizing seam is usually fairly easy but the rest isn't). Repouring gold with solder in it will yield a metal that has porosity (holes) in it and will never be of the quality that one should use in a fine piece of jewelry. Solder is not made only from gold so once it gets mixed into the batch it impacts the metal in a variety of negative ways.

Additionally, every manufacturer has different alloys they add into gold. Remember that almost all gold is an alloy: gold is mixed with copper and silver for yellow gold, nickel, copper and silver for white gold, palladium, copper, silver and some other metals I'm not at liberty to reveal (the alloy mixture that I use is patented by my gold supplier and although I know the mixture I'm not allowed to reveal it) for palladium white gold, etc. When you take two different alloys and mix them together you never quite know how they are going to work together. So if you try to combine different pieces to make something you just can't tell what it is exactly you're going to end up with nor can you tell how workable it will be.

Now I know that there are some jewelers out there who will, in fact, take your gold and create a new piece from it. Some of them are able to do this because they have more serious manufacturing (read: refining) setups than I do. If someone can take your gold, refine it to pure gold and then realloy it, they can get a decent result to work with. I occasionally alloy my own gold but I don't have refining capability here (nor do I want to since there are a lot of environmental issues involved). Some of them, however, just don't really care about the quality of what the end product is and will melt down anything handed to them and attempt to make something out of it.

At Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, I try to produce a high quality product at all times (one reason that I offer lifetime guarantees on everything I make) and I have found it simply isn't possible reusing a customer's gold. The only thing I can use is pure gold coins (like Krugerrands) that I can alloy down to the karat and color I want. However, there is not always a large savings on this. Because of the time and work involved, often you end up using so much more of my time that the cost will be virtually the same as if I use my gold. This is particularly true with a smaller piece like a ring, but less so with one of my handmade chains.

There are some other options if there is a strong sentimental attachment to the piece and you really want to use some of an original ring because of that. I have, in the past, made up pieces for customers in which I cut out parts of an existing piece and solder it onto something I have made up, or I can melt some small pieces down into gold beads that I use in my designs and that can be just soldered onto my own work. And I am always happy to use your diamonds or gemstones in my pieces. There are a couple of issues with that as well, but I'll talk about that in my next post. Thanks for reading!

Sapphire Engagement Rings

2010-01-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

So you've had a couple of vague discussions with the person you intend to propose to and you've found out that diamonds are not an option. Perhaps they don't like the way diamonds look, or they are uncomfortable with the conflict diamond issue or maybe they just want an engagement ring like Princess Diana had. What can you use instead? Unfortunately most other gem materials are not anywhere near as durable as diamonds are. That's just a fact of life. However sapphires are the next hardest gem material and they can make fine engagement ring stones. They will wear over time. Depending on how hard you are on your jewelry they may start to get scratched up in a few years or it may be more than 20. (This is true with any jewelry. I have customers who have worn pieces of mine for 20 years and when they come in for their cleaning the things look like they've never been worn. I have other customers who wear something for a few months and it looks like a truck ran over it.) And, of course, if you whack a stone hard enough you can break them, but sapphires are a much better option than an emerald, and far better than garnets or members of the quartz family (amethyst, etc.). Actually when you get down to the hardness of quartz, there is so much quartz in the Earth, that there are some particles of quartz in the dust around us and the stones can actually be damaged just from wearing them around.

The most fantastic thing about sapphires is that they come in this incredible range of colors. You can get them in blue, bluish purple, purplish blue, purple, pink (both pastel and hot pink), orange (brownish orange, pinkish orange, reddish orange), yellow, white (although they always tend to be bluish white---they aren't like diamonds), green (although it'a a really ugly green for the most part), black (usually only as star sapphires) and if they're red they are rubies. Additionally there is one very famous color of sapphire called padparascha which is an orangey pink and extremely rare. What a great range of choices this allows for!

The other nice thing is that you get a wider range of shapes than you would have for diamonds. Well actually you can get diamonds in just about any shape but the reality is that they always look best in rounds, and the only reason you will see diamonds cut to other shapes (for the most part) is because the crystals don't lend themselves to good weight retention if they were cut into a round stone. But sapphires can look just as nice in ovals, rounds, antique cushion cuts (squares with rounded corners), triangles, squares, etc. This opens up the possibilities in terms of ring design tremendously.

Personally I love fine sapphires. I would always rather have someone walk out of my store with a beautiful purple sapphire engagement ring than a diamond engagement ring. Why? Because they are truly unique. Almost no one else has one. You also can get more bang for your buck. A 1 ct. fine sapphire will always be less expensive than a 1 ct. top color/clarity diamond (although a fine sapphire might be more expensive than a lot of the junky diamonds that are sold out there). So if you have a budget you're trying to stick to, a sapphire can also be a fine choice.

Then there is also this: every colored stone is truly different. A diamond is a diamond. Unless you have a fancy color one, they all pretty much look the same (well a better cut stone will look more sparkly, and a high color stone will always look better too but they are all pretty much just white). Each sapphire will have slightly different hues and depth of color. Each one is truly unique. And after all, your intended is a unique person too. Wouldn't you like the engagement ring you give her to reflect that part of her?

So guys, let's think outside the box a little. Obviously if she really only wants a diamond then that's what you should get her, but it wouldn't be the end of the world to show them some other options as well!

I'm Back

2010-01-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

I have returned from my brief vacation, gotten most of my year end business issues taken care of, I'm starting to replace some stock (my cases, especially my ring trays, are looking very light), and get back to work on some of my inhouse orders. Honestly I could have used another week off but that will have to wait for the summer I'm afraid. I love to work, but the run from mid November to New Year's when I get no days off (except Thanksgiving and Christmas) is trying and it always takes me a bit to recover. But here I am. I want to talk a little about my vacation in this posting, then in the next one I'm going to talk about alternative stones for engagement rings.

My wife Kathy and I went to New York for our vacation. I like New York City. It's always wonderfully alive, there are so many great restaurants, nobody drives a car there (taxis are everywhere) so you can start the cocktail hour as early as you like, it's a wonderful walking city and there are always people and things to look at. People know how to dress there more than any other city I've ever been in. I think it's important that people do, first because people who are more conscious of their attire tend to be more aware of what jewelry can do for them, and secondly because I like to dress up myself a bit. I seem to have inherited this from my grandfather who always considered himself a snappy dresser and in his own strange way I suppose he was (he certainly had a way with the ladies) although I wouldn't wear anything he did.

There is also such an immense variety of places to shop in New York City. My wife likes to shop downtown in Soho and Nolita so we always make the rounds there and continue to find new shops to poke into each time we go. We also usually go uptown on Fifth Avenue (Bergdorf Goodman has a great bar and restaurant on their top floor that looks out on Central Park and I can go have a drink or two there while Kathy shops) although the stores are much bigger name shops up there.

On the latest trip we took a walk down Madison Avenue (from about 80th Street down to the mid 50's). There are quite a few high end boutiques up there, both big name and somewhat smaller places as well. This time I stumbled on an extremely interesting small shop that I had no idea existed.

I don't normally pay a lot of attention to other jewelry shops because I kind of do my own thing (although in New York you do get the opportunity to look at some truly huge gems---usually in boring settings, but boy, they can be big) but I happened to glance into a window and I saw some of the handmade double loop in loop chains that I make (pictured above or for some other handmade chains I make look here). They had some antique coin pendants hanging from them. When I looked a little closer at the other pieces in the window I realized that, with the exception of the chains and the coin holders which were obviously new, everything in the shop was old. I don't just mean old like the 1930's or 1920's. I mean REALLY old like the first century BC and AD. I had to go in. The salesman was a little snooty (especially when I told him I was a jeweler and that I wasn't going to buy anything) but I did manage to pry a little information out of him. Everything in the store was, in fact, ancient pieces of jewelry (well they had some other cool artifacts too but most of it was jewelry). It was almost all like the pieces you would see in a museum and yet here it was for sale to anyone (well anyone who had the money---most of the pieces I asked the price on were in the $20,000 range and I didn't ask about any of the larger items). I was truly flabbergasted. They had as much stuff as any single museum display I had ever seen. It was great to be able to look at so much of this kind of work. All of it was high karat gold, handmade, and as I said, like what you would find in a museum. If the salesman hadn't been quite so aloof, I would have asked to hold a few pieces but I got the feeling I was pushing my luck already. Unfortunately I didn't get the name of the store but if I can find it online I'll post it sometime. It's worth looking at if you're in the city.

Next posting will be in a day or two and I promise to get back to that engagement ring thing.

Happy New Year

2010-01-02T17:35:00.000-05:00

I know I'm running way, way, way behind on my posting but it was the season and, fortunately, I was extremely busy. I didn't even finish my last Christmas order until 10 pm on the night before Christmas Eve and as it happens I had a fair amount of work as well in the week after. Not complaining, just explaining. Anyway, I'm off on vacation for a week as well now, so my next postings will have to wait until my return. I'm probably going to start up with some information on alternative engagement ring stones like sapphires and rubies. So look for something new in a week or two! Now I'll stop rhyming too.

Giving an Engagement Ring

2009-12-21T21:06:00.000-05:00

I should really be working. I am completely inundated and it is three days before Christmas, but I want to get this post up while I am thinking about it. This is intended for all of you guys who intend to give your intended an engagement ring for Christmas (three intends in one sentence, not bad). And I have to say that I have had a quite a number of you this year.

I had one of my regular customers come in last week looking for his annual Christmas present. When he said he had no idea what he was looking for this year, I suggested (as I knew he had been with this one woman for awhile) that perhaps it was time to give her a ring. Immediately, of course, sweat began to pour out, hemming and hawing began, and I generally got him completely aflutter. However what then transpired (or tranSPIRERed in this case) was a conversation about whether or not it was appropriate to give an engagement ring (I had initially actually suggested a sort of "promise" ring) as a Christmas present. He related how he had actually had a discussion about this at work and that he worked with quite a few women. They had ALL said that an engagement ring was NOT a Christmas present. For that matter it isn't a present at all.

The fact of the matter is that they are right. An engagement ring is a statement of commitment, a declaration of your love for this ONE person, and something to be worn as an indication that this person is no longer available to the general male public (or female if you happen to be gay). It is NOT a present. That is just cheaping out and trying to kill two birds with one stone. Now if you want to give an engagement ring on Valentine's Day, that's fine as there is nothing more romantic in this world than asking, and being asked, to marry someone. But to give it as a Christmas present (or birthday present) and then pretend that you don't need to give them anything else is simply not the right thing to do. And who wants to be remembered as a betrothed who cheaped out at the very beginning of the new and exciting path you might be embarking on. So fellas, face up to it. Give an engagement ring as a sign of your commitment but DON'T give it as a substitute for some other present. (Ideally of course, if you are commited to giving it to them for one of these events, you should first give them a beautiful pair of earrings or a necklace and THEN surprise them with the ring.)

Sourcing of Diamonds

2009-12-09T11:08:00.000-05:00

Conflict diamonds. Blood diamonds. These phrases are used more and more these days although the reality is that the three conflicts that were taking place in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone when the phrases originally came into being, have ended. They referred to diamonds that were used to help finance rebel groups dedicated to overturning their governments. Often the miners were forced to work and turn over their production to the rebel groups.

I get asked about this more and more lately but I think a lot of people aren't trying to look at the whole picture. First of all, it should be noted that in many areas diamonds have brought great wealth and opportunity to nations desperate for income (Botswana is a notable example). When you decide not to buy the product you actually end up hurting countries like Botswana far more then you are hurting any conflict areas since 99%+ of the diamonds out there are conflict free. You should also be aware that currently more people are dying over the search for and mining of tantalum, a product used in every single cell phone in America, then in any current diamond mining areas. Are you willing to give up your cell phones? I lived for 40 years without a cell phone and got along just fine. And what is our excessive use of oil doing to the environment and how many lives have been lost to guarantee the steady flow of oil?

I understand that jewelry, often considered a luxury, is an easy target. But I firmly believe that if you can't stand to live with the idea that a dear price may have been paid for you to get a product, then you simply shouldn't buy it at all. Everyone seems to want the product, they just want to figure out a way to get it guilt free. But here's the real truth to the matter: NO MATTER WHERE YOU PURCHASE A DIAMOND, WHETHER IT'S CANADIAN, AFRICAN, RUSSIAN, AUSTRALIAN OR ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD THERE IS ALWAYS A CHANCE (ALBEIT SMALL) THAT SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE PAID A PRICE TO GET IT INTO YOUR HANDS. Whenever there is a large amount of money involved, particularly where it is concentrated in small, easily transportable objects there will be crime associated with it. PERIOD. You can't get away from it. It's been like this since mankind first emerged from the forests and it's stayed that way ever since. My firm belief is that, with the Kimberly Process in place, and with the new information age meaning that bad news spreads incredibly easily and quickly, only a very, very minute amount of diamonds are actually conflict stones but NO ONE can absolutely 100% guarantee that the one they are selling isn't. You should also be aware that all diamond mining, no matter where it takes place, leaves some amount of environmental damage (although they have gotten much better about trying to minimize this).

I know that the Canadians heavily promote their diamond product as conflict free, but who's to say that some material from other countries isn't finding it's way into Canada and being cut there and sold as Canadian goods? After all, there's big money involved, THERE IS NO WAY TO IDENTIFY WHERE A DIAMOND COMES FROM, and all you can do is depend on the dealer's word.

So what's a consumer to do? Well you can live with the fact that the odds of your getting a conflict diamond (especially from companies like Lazare Diamond who were instrumental in setting up the Kimberly Process) are extremely small, and that you are helping many developing nations earn some amount of money from their natural resources. Or you can buy a colored stone, something I strongly recommend because, personally, I think a fine blue sapphire is both more striking and is far more rare than a diamond (plus you get more bang for your buck). Or you can simply forget about getting a stone altogether. There is nothing wrong with having an interesting, but stoneless, band for an engagement ring.

Recently there has been a lot of press about synthetic diamonds coming into the marketplace. While fancy colored diamond synthetics have been available for quite some time, colorless diamonds are still extremely rare. The companies producing them regularly come out and make big press announcements that they are soon going to be producing massive quantities of colorless synthetic diamonds, but it has yet to actually happen. Are they producing some? Yes. In quantity? No. The other issue with these stones is that it takes a huge amount of energy to produce them as they are produced under high temperature and high pressure over a long period of time. So you may be avoiding the conflict diamond issue, but personally, I believe that you are inflicting more environmental damage.

My personal goal has always been to achieve some balance in my life. I bought a hybrid car before the gas prices went up because I felt it was the right thing to do. I recycle. I buy my gold from a refiner that sells me only recycled metals. I started disclosing gemstone treatments over 20 years ago, long before any other companies were doing it. I try to minimize my impact on the environment. I try to contribute to as many good causes as possible. But I also know that I am not going to give up a car altogether, nor am I going to stop using diamonds and colored stones in my jewelry. The choice of course, is yours. I just ask that you think about all of the things you are doing before focusing in on only one issue.

More on Diamonds

2009-12-01T20:57:00.000-05:00

Okay so we understand a little bit about the cut of diamonds. In fact, it is the single most important feature when looking at a stone. You can have a D (top) color, flawless diamond and if it's poorly cut it will look like garbage and you can have a low color, low clarity diamond and if it is ideal cut it will still look good. However diamonds are truly a dime a dozen. There are millions and millions of diamonds out there available and already in jewelry. So what is it that keeps the price so high?

It used to be that DeBeers, the world's largest diamond producer, had a virtual monopoly on the market and they were able to influence the pricing of diamonds by simply stockpiling goods if things were slow, and releasing them when they saw fit. Now mind you, DeBeers being a monopoly actually helped most people (yes even you consumers out there). They were able to pretty much guarantee that diamonds would increase in value at or slightly above the rate of inflation every year. How was this good for the consumer? Well it meant that someone buying a diamond engagement ring in 1940 would be able to resell it in 1980 when either the husband or wife might have died for more money than they paid for it (even taking retail markups into consideration). It wasn't an investment (far more money could be made in the stock market or property) but it generally increased in value.

Additionally DeBeers was first formed because when diamond mines were first found in Brazil the prices plummeted until the mines were pretty much mined out and then prices went sky high. Then when diamonds were found in Africa the prices plummeted again until the first mine was played out and then they would skyrocket again and so on every time a new mine was found. It wasn't good for the miners, the dealers or the buyers as no one had any idea of what to expect or how to price a product that fluctuated so wildly in price.

Recently however, DeBeers has reduced their control of the market to below 60% so that they could be allowed to operate in the United States (which doesn't allow monopolies to operate here---although I'm not sure that our oil companies don't constitute just that). But strangely enough diamond prices did NOT plummet after this happened. Why not? Because all of the producers recognize the fact that if they start undercutting each other endlessly they eventually will make no money at all on the product and how can they stay in business if they do that? The retail price of diamonds has gone down in the last few years but that has to do with the Internet. The wholesale prices have continued to rise (although this year, due to the economy, a small drop occured).

But here is the interesting thing about diamonds. There are millions and millions of stones out there. But what there are NOT is millions and millions of top color (this means colorless D, E or F color stones), top clarity (VS or better) that are also ideal cut. I routinely appraise customer's jewelry and I can assure you that the bulk of the diamonds people own are mid range (H or I) to poor color (O or worse) and SI clarity or worse. A huge amount of material is in the marketplace (especially today as people become more price conscious and are willing to pay more for junk as long as it's got a designer's name attached to it) that wouldn't have even been sold as gem grade diamond thirty years ago. A lot of it is truly industrial grade diamond. One out of every two to three hundred stones I appraise is top color and top clarity.

Why am I telling you this? Because it is my belief that if you are going to buy a stone that is truly rare then you should get one that is, in fact, rare. You wouldn't come to me looking for a fine sapphire if you could find one at Kmart or Walmart or any other mass manufacturer (actually you won't find them there). You would come to me because you want something that is truly rare and desirable and that very few other people actually own. So, in my humble opinion (I'm not really humble, but what the heck), if you want to purchase a RARE diamond then you need to get the following: A stone that is D, E or F in color (or lack of color as these are actually colorless stones), VS2 clarity or better (preferably VVS2 or better) and is an actual American ideal cut diamond. These stones constitute a very, very small percentage of all the diamonds out there.

Admittedly if you're looking for a 2 ct. diamond you are going to be talking about some significant outlays. Stones in the VS clarity and top color range, ideal cut, are going to start at about $20,000. But it is my belief that it is far better to have a much smaller, high color, high clarity stone that is truly rare then to simply buy something because it's big and in your budget range. I would rather have a half carat D color, Flawless stone than a 1 ct. SI1 clarity, H color. After all, almost no one else has stones like that, and unless they're all shopping at Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, none of your friends will have one either.

If you would like some more details about the color and clarity grading of diamonds there are a ton of websites out there but you might check out the GIA website or the AGS website.

Pictured above are some new custom earrings I did recently for some customers. Other than having a few small diamonds on them they have nothing to do with diamonds but they came out real nice so I thought I'd post them (albeit one of my mediocre pictures).

Lots of New Stuff

2009-11-27T18:00:00.001-05:00

This is an interruption in my normal flow of topics here to let anyone who is reading know that I have a bunch of new stock out for the holidays; earrings, strands of pearls and opals, and even a new pin. Pictures will follow but if you want an early pick this holiday season, next week will be a great time to take a look (although the end of the week will be better as I have some more new things in process this week). A couple new William Henry knives in next week too!!

Diamonds in Engagement Rings

2009-11-25T14:19:00.000-05:00

Diamonds, diamonds, diamonds. There has been so much information and misinformation available over the years and it only seems to have grown exponentially with the growth of the Internet. There are so many different topics to discuss when talking about diamonds that it's hard to know even where to begin.

So let's start with a little history. Diamonds have been known almost since man became civilized (assuming you can say that man is actually civilized even today). But when diamonds were found in ancient times they were extremely hard for the people to cut or polish, what with their hardness and all and no modern technology to help. Some of the oldest known historical diamonds were simply polished with a few facets on the top and left flat on the bottom. It was about the best that could be done at the time.

However, over time, man, in his never ending quest for wealth finally figured out how to take such a rare (at that time) substance and actually cut it into something that sparkled a bit, particularly in candlelight. Most diamond crystals occur in the form of two inverted pyramids and early cutters figured out that they could lop off a piece on the top, and then add some facets around the still somewhat square stone to get some nice light reflection. These early cuts are known as "old mine cuts", almost always have a squared off outline, high crowns (tops) and either excessively shallow or deep pavilions (bottoms). Their facets were almost always lopsided, poorly placed and there were often naturals around the girdles (a natural is a part of the original diamond crystal skin that was never polished---you see this on some modern cuts as well because in a cutters' efforts to retain as much weight as possible they would often not even finish rounding up a diamond's girdle on the narrower spots on the crystal).

In the early 20th century, cutting techniques improved and they figured out how to actually round off the outlines of the crystals, achieving round stones. They also began to realize that if they didn't leave such a large crown on the stone they could actually cut a second stone from the same crystal. These early stones, which are still usually top heavy, have very small tables, are not very well cut either, but have rounded outlines are known as old European cuts.

Then in 1919, a diamond cutter/mathematician who's name was Tolkowsky worked out a formula for what angles to cut a diamond to in order to maximize the brilliance and light reflection from the crystal. This cut became known as the American Ideal Cut and was the standard against which all round cut diamonds were judged until just fairly recently. Tolkowsky had a cousin/apprentice who's name was Lazare Kaplan. Lazare Kaplan was the first person to adopt and popularize the American Ideal Cut and has continued to cut it ever since. The company Lazare Kaplan is now known as Lazare Diamond and they were the first in a number of other important advancements in the diamond industry, including developing the first lasers that could be used to imprint numbers (or words) on the girdle of a diamond (I believe they still own the patent) and a new high pressure high temperature treatment used to change the appearance of certain types of diamonds (not marketed under their own name).

Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers has been selling Lazare Diamonds for close to twenty years. The best thing about them is that every stone they sell will absolutely be an ideal cut diamond. Unfortunately a lot of people today sell stones they claim are ideal but often they are just better cut than some other stones and they don't actually have the proper angling on the facets or the correct table size to actually be called ideal. In my book it's a little like being pregnant. You can't be almost pregnant and you can't be almost ideal. The stone either meets the criteria or it doesn't.

I don't want to overwhelm you all with information at one time so I'll leave this here. Next posting, I'll talk a little about quality and rarity of diamonds.

Engagement Rings II

2009-11-20T11:42:00.000-05:00

I just had another newly engaged couple in yesterday. He had picked out a band from me and she was thrilled with it. It was a completely nontraditional engagement ring as it didn't even have a center stone. In the picture to the left it's the bottom ring. But the young gentleman seemed to have a very good grasp of what his intended would like from the moment he walked in. Remember that it is the intent behind the ring that makes it what it is, not the actual piece.

So now you (the proposer) has figured out what kind of style your intended would like (well hopefully) and you have to deal with another issue. What kind of stone are you going to put in the ring? Diamonds, obviously, are the traditional choice but they are not the only option. Durability, however, is an issue that must be raised immediately. This is a ring that is going to be worn every day for a very long time and consequently it would be nice if it would hold up well. For this reason I usually recommend either diamonds, rubies or sapphires because these are the most durable of gem materials. Now mind you any stone can be broken (diamonds included---their hardness refers to scratch hardness not breakage) and, over time, most will show signs of wear and tear but usually these three will hold up better than most others. Stones like opals, tanzanite, pearls, etc. are extremely fragile and are definitely not good choices. Emeralds also tend to break fairly easily (although their scratch hardness isn't so bad) and are not a good choice.

The good news is that sapphires do come in a wide range of colors so the palette of colors available to you is fairly broad. For those of you concerned about the sourcing of diamonds (more on that in a future post) sapphires offer an excellent option. Personally I think they are far more interesting, but I think there is such a strong feeling about getting a diamond by many women that it shouldn't be ignored. My wife, who has a 10 ct. tourmaline in her engagement ring and numerous sapphire rings, still wanted a diamond for her 20th anniversary present and I was happy to oblige.

The question of diamond vs. sapphire however is something that should definitely be felt out beforehand. While I don't know many women who would refuse a diamond, some people, for a variety of reasons, just don't want one. On the other hand I routinely get women in who say that they don't want a diamond, until they actually start trying on rings. Maybe it's just my ideal cut Lazare Diamonds that sparkle so much that changes their minds or maybe it's just that tradition thing kicking in again. Or perhaps they realize that diamonds just can go with anything else they put on.

My next post will talk a bit about the diamonds I sell. The one after that will discuss the issue of diamond sourcing.

Engagement Rings 1

2009-11-17T10:24:00.000-05:00

Engagement rings. Oh my. What one other thing do you give to another person that is imbued with so much meaning and substance? All other purchases pale by comparison. Here you are saying I want to spend the rest of my life with just this one other individual. And you have to actually give them something that represents that, both to them and to you.

This is usually the time you start to figure out if you really know the person. You walk into the jewelry store and the jeweler (in my case) or the salesperson starts to ask you questions. PERSONAL questions. Does your intended like white or yellow metals? Do they want a diamond (how can you even know this if you haven't actually discussed what you're doing with them)? What colors do they wear. Do you know their ring size? Do they like simple things? More unusual items? How do you know they'll say yes? What's a guy (or gal) to do?

Unfortunately this confusion often leads to picking out something incredibly simple. Guys, in particular, tend to feel it's much safer to choose the simplest, most straightforward design that they've been told through advertising (and, because most of their friends aren't much more adept when they propose, what they see on their friends' girlfriends) is the right way to go. Hence the somewhat absurd popularity of what is commonly known as the "Tiffany setting". This straightforward design with a plain band and a four prong setting was originally popularized by Tiffany And Co. (although it is unlikely it was actually created by them as it is such a basic design) and a version of it is made, and sold, by just about every jewelry store in America---well except in Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers.

This is a fine way to go if you're pretty certain that is what your intended really wants. After all, the goal is to make them happy. However if the guys actually knew how many women I get in here on their 5th, 10th, 15th, or 20th anniversary who say to me: "I really wanted something more interesting, but I couldn't say anything to him at the time. He had just proposed to me!! NOW I want you to make me something I really like because we've been married long enough I can tell him what I really like."

It's also a fine way to go if you really understand your intended and their style and it fits into that. Unfortunately, most of the time, most guys pick out something they like (or think they like), as opposed to thinking about what their intended would like, and let's face it, most guys tend to be pretty conservative in what they themselves wear. There aren't many out there like me who actually wear clothes that aren't off the rack and that represent my own sense of style!

So what is a guy (or gal) to do??? Well one thing is to simply propose without a ring and say let's go ring shopping. Women today are not what they were 40 or 50 years ago and many of them want a real say in something they are going to wear every day for the rest of their lives. Another is to make sure that anytime you're passing by a jewelry store with your significant other, stop and look at the stuff. You can ask what a person actually likes without giving anything away. You can also always give them some jewelry for other occasions (oh you know, like birthdays, Christmas/Chanukkah, Valentine's Day or my personal favorite giving holiday July 4!) and you'll get a feel pretty quickly if they like what you're picking out. Actually looking at what they already wear is also a good starting point. If your intended tends to wear big, wide rings with a bunch of work on them, you can probably be pretty assured that a simple four prong setting isn't going to work.

My belief is that you shouldn't be restricted to what is "customary" unless the intended makes it quite clear to you that is what they want. People like to be different and express themselves in ways that are different from every other person out there. Additionally, our lifestyles today don't lend themselves as much to a ring where a big stone is sticking up all over the place. How many rock climbers want to have their engagement ring sticking up all over the place as they grab onto various sharp ledges? What is most important to remember is that it's okay to do the unexpected these days.

Pictured above is my idea of an interesting engagement ring. My next posting on engagement rings will be on stones for them.

Platinum The Other White Metal

2009-11-10T11:19:00.000-05:00

I always wanted to do one of my ads in the Boston Globe with a picture of a platinum ring and the headline: The Other White Meat...Metal (with Meat with a line through it). In fact it isn't the other white metal, as it really is a white metal as opposed to white gold that is actually yellow metal posing as something it isn't.

Platinum is normally worked as either a 900/100 platinum/iridium mix (platinum is almost always alloyed with a member of the platinum metals group) or a 950/50 platinum/ruthenium mix. The numbers refer to the parts of platinum relative to the parts of alloy. There are other alloys available and recently some companies have started to work with a 585 mix (14k yellow gold is 58.5% pure gold) although they aren't allowed to call it platinum as the metal quality laws don't allow anything less than 900/100 to be called platinum. Personally I like that platinum is used with such a high purity level (I only sell 18k gold or higher for the same reason) and it seems foolish to cheapen it so much. but there is always someone out there looking for a way to make a buck.

Platinum is a more expensive metal than gold for a variety of reasons. One is that it generally is more per ounce than gold is (although they are getting incredibly close in price at the moment as gold continues to rise due to the value of the dollar falling so much). It is also worked purer than gold (90/10 or 95/5 as opposed to 75/25 for 18k gold) normally. It is also a much denser metal so the exact same piece in platinum weighs far more than gold does. And to top it all off it is a much more difficult metal to work with. While hand constructing platinum is certainly possible, casting is a far easier option normally. Platinum is soldered or fused at such high temperatures that protective eye gear is necessary whenever working with it and it takes far longer to attain a suitable finish than gold.

There is some confusion about the durability of platinum. Depending on who you talk to you'll hear that platinum scratches much easier, that it is harder than gold, that it lasts longer, doesn't hold up as well, you name it. In fact all metals scratch, especially when used in rings. Platinum does, in some cases, seem to scratch a little easier but it builds up a nice patina as it does. However, the difference between platinum and gold is that when you scratch a gold ring you actually remove metal from it. When you scratch a platinum ring most (although not all) of the metal is simply moved from one point on the ring to another. Hence it is actually a more durable metal as it will wear away more slowly.

So the question becomes should you get platinum or should you get white gold? In my belief, you should get the one which has the color that pleases you the most. This is a little tricky when buying commercially made rhodium plated white gold as it starts out looking almost the same as platinum, but you do have to remember that it will change in time. My 18k palladium white gold has a different appearance altogether than platinum. There is nothing wrong with it. It is just different.

Personally I believe white metals were put on Earth only to accent yellow ones and anyone asking me would be told, get a yellow gold piece. But I'm not the one who's going to wear it. For those of you who love white metals, get the one who's color you like and enjoy!

Pictured above is one of my platinum rings with a color shift purple/blue sapphire and diamonds.