On the Timing of Things

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

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

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

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.

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.