Old Techniques Brought Back to Life

I've been making jewelry for so long that I have done pretty much everything in the field at one time or another.  But I have also had certain techniques that I have done in the past and then they get pushed aside, either because I just haven't been moved in that direction, or I've forgotten about it, or I've changed how I do certain things, or just because I haven't gotten around to it.  Anyway I used to make jewelry with a certain technique that I kind of came up with on my own.  I'm not sure it's completely unique to me but I haven't seen it out there, at least not done in the way that I do it.  I recently had a customer who came in who had lost an earring that had this particular technique on it and she wanted a new pair of earrings with the same feeling, although a different shape.  I usually call it my 22k gold dust effect and that is kind of what it is.

Some of you may know that I use a special, often hand produced, 22k gold alloy that the recipe for was originally given to me by a school that taught antique jewelry techniques called the Kulicke Stark Academy of Jewelry Arts.  (I believe Jean Stark, one of the original owners is still producing her granulated jewelry.)  However, over the years I have made some slight personal alterations to achieve the effects that I want (mostly that I actually enrich it to a point where it is more like a 22 1/2 kt. gold). One of the reasons I like to use this mix so much is because I can fuse it together (heat it until it almost melts to form a bond) instead of using solder.   This means that the pieces are often pure 22k but more importantly I can get a particularly nice granular finish on the metal that I can't achieve in any other way. It usually looks like it came straight out of an ancient tomb and it's a great effect.  Also it's always a challenge because bringing something up to almost the melting point without having the metal slump down, actually melt and lose all of the design is difficult and once you screw up there's no going back.  But I like to make jewelry because it is often a challenge. If I wanted to do something boring with my life I would have done something like dig holes all of my life (not that there's anything wrong with digging holes but it doesn't exactly challenge the brain cells).  But the dust effect I do is even a little trickier because basically what I do is file a bunch of my 22k gold so that I have a pile of 22k gold dust. Then I take a sheet of my 22k gold, either with or without previously fused decoration on it, and drop the dust on it. Then I have to heat it until it forms a bond with the solid metal below, again without having the whole thing melt into a blob, or in this case just melt into the solid piece beneath so that it doesn't look like I have done anything.

So I had the opportunity to produce a new piece using this technique for this customer and having been reminded of how nice it looks I'm going to try to get something out in the case soon too that has it.  The  picture above is a picture of the earrings I did for the customer. There are small diamonds in bezels in them as well.

The picture to the right is another custom pair of earrings I made for a different customer at the same time using their turquoise beads.

Updated Blog Directory

I have updated my blog directory to include a new section of some of my favorite posts. For those of you new to my blog there is a link on the right side of the page to my blog directory article which is a handy way to get to the subject matter you want a little quicker. Unfortunately this took me so much time to do that I have no time left to write a new article so I'll save that for another day. The ruby and diamond earrings above are a new design that I just did recently. There has been a recent push to eliminate the ban on importation of ruby material from Burma recently due to their improving civil rights situation. It would be nice if this happened as fine Burmese ruby material has gotten harder to come by because of the ban.

SECURITY AND SAFETY

The other day one of my customers came in for a ring cleaning of the only piece of mine she had left after she had been robbed recently. Now ideally we would all have up to date appraisals and good insurance policies to cover ourselves in the event of a robbery but that never seems to be the case. So then the question of how to secure our valuables becomes even more important. This particular customer actually had a safe that they kept their valuables in but they only locked it when they went away on longer trips. But they got robbed when they were just out of the house for a little while.

Fortunately most of you will never have to deal with a robbery but there is nothing wrong with being prepared. I've had to live most of my life with this as a very real possibility so I tend to pay more attention to the topic than most of you have and I know a fair amount about it. So let's talk about security a bit.

Home security, just like it would in a store like mine, means setting up different layers of protection, that, when used together act as a deterrent for a criminal. Most criminals are looking for the easiest possible hit. Anything that puts up blocks in their way will help. All of the security is dependent, however, on proper use of it by you. If my customer had made it a habit to lock the safe every time they left the house (or kept it locked all the time and only opened it when they needed something from it) they wouldn't have had nearly as large a loss.

So when you think about security for your home, you should first take a look around outside and try to put yourself in a criminal's shoes for a little while. Is there a tree that would allow easy access to a second story window? Is there a bush that blocks the view of your cellar door? Is it easy to access a backyard where someone could break in without being seen? The harder you make it the less likelihood you'll be robbed.

For your indoors, obviously it helps to have an alarm system installed, preferably one that connects to a central station or the police station (although most city police departments don't allow this anymore). But you have to remember to use it! There are more things that you can do as well indoors. You can have a safe, although please remember that a small safe can simply be picked up and taken out. The safe either has to be so large it can't be easily moved or secured to the structure of the house. A simple gun type safe is just about useless because anyone can open one with a crowbar. Preferably you should have one with a UL rating of some sort (you can look up UL safe ratings if you want a better understanding of them).

Dogs also act as a great deterrent. Any size dog that will bark will tend to be something most criminals simply don't want to deal with. Again they don't want to face the unknown. Given two houses, one with a barking dog and one without, they will always choose the one without.

Finally, if you can't afford a safe you need to find someplace to secure your valuables that most criminals won't think to look for. Anyplace you think of that comes to mind immediately is the wrong place (and yes they all know to look in the freezer). Find someplace even you take awhile to come up with: a duct vent that can be relatively easily removed for your convenience, buried in some innocuous looking storage closet (not in your bedroom), maybe in a suitcase, or some other equally unlikely place.

There is a vast wealth of information on the Internet today about setting up security in your home and I urge you to look at it. Just remember that the criminals can look it up too!

While I am on the this topic I want to bring up one other issue that deals not only with your security in not being robbed, but your personal safety as well. I can't tell you how many (especially young) women I see walking down the street at all hours of the day and night with earphones on listening to music. THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST DANGEROUS THING YOU CAN DO IN YOUR LIFE, ESPECIALLY AT NIGHT, ESPECIALLY IN A CITY, BUT ALSO AT ANYTIME. When you have no idea that someone is coming up behind you, you leave yourself at great risk to be mugged or attacked. If you can be somewhere like a subway where you are sitting down and can watch everyone around you it's fine to put those headphones on. But once you get up again and start moving around it is the worst thing you can possible do. You may think you're safe, but the criminals know you have no idea what is going on behind you until it's too late. There were recently a couple of instances of this in Cambridge, but it can happen absolutely anywhere!

I would urge you all to read my recent posting on insurance, so even if something does happen to you, you should have some coverage for it.

The earrings above are 18k gold with tourmalines.

Some new pictures!

The new pair of earrings above are a variation on a new theme I have been pursuing of late. They have some of the beautiful blue sheen moonstones that I got last year. I'm rapidly running out of this batch of stones and I'm not sure if I'll see more anytime in the future so if they thrill you as much as they do me, it's time to come in and pick out some of what is left. The earrings also have .03 ct. diamonds in them.


This piece is a variation on another theme. I have previously posted pictures of the original pendants like this but it had a black South Sea mobe pearl in it. I have been unable to procure these anymore (I have talked about that subject previously as well) but the customer loved the picture of the original design so much (it's up on my wall at the store) that we decided to do it with a more traditional (albeit purple hued) mobe pearl. This piece was 18k and 22k gold with the mobe pearl, pink sapphire, emeralds and diamonds.

And the last picture of the day is a very old piece I made a long time ago. The customer who had bought it (along with a whole bunch of other stuff she has bought over the years) was in recently and had it on and I grabbed it so we could get a picture of it. It was 18k and 22k gold with a freshwater pearl, multicolor tourmalines and a diamond. The tourmalines aren't quite reading right, color wise, in this picture but you get the idea.

I also recently got in a strand of beautiful Ethopian opals from a new find. I'm calling them Ethiopals, because, as many of you know, I have a pretty strange sense of humor. They have a yellowish body tone but with very strong color flashes running throughout and are very reasonably priced for what they are.

I also have a new pair of ruby earrings out and I'm hoping to get a picture of those and the beads up on here very soon.

New Pieces and Let's Talk Insurance

In my last blog entry I mentioned a young gent in with his fiancee who simply wanted to make her happy. The ring pictured above is the band they ended up with. It's a variation on one of my favorite and best selling designs with a combination of a prong setting and bezel settings. As it happens I have another order in house for the same band in platinum with all diamonds but it was set up a little differently and I'll post that when it is finished.

I've also been busy trying to get some new stock out. I haven't had a chance to catch up from the holiday season until now and I'm happy to report I have a number of new earrings out right now. The picture above this paragraph is one of them. I'll be posting some more pictures of new pieces in the days to come.

I have had a number of people in recently who have either lost or had pieces of jewelry stolen and are trying to deal with their insurance companies about the matters. What always seems to come out in these discussions is that the customers seem to have no idea of what the insurance company's rules and coverage limitations are----at least until after they lose a piece. So I want to give you a few tips when insuring jewelry.

1) If you are insuring jewelry through your homeowner's or renter's insurance policy you need to look into how much is automatically covered with their general policy and what you will need to add riders for. Most insurance policies carry some small amount of general insurance against jewelry theft or loss without the need for appraisals or riders. But you need to know how much that is!!! Because of today's metal markets it becomes even more important because a piece you bought ten years ago is worth so much more today that even if you didn't need a rider when you bought it, you might now. So YOU NEED TO ASK IF YOUR POLICY COVERS YOU WHEN PRICES RISE AS THEY HAVE RECENTLY or whether you need to update your appraisals.

2) INSURANCE COMPANIES WILL NOT ALWAYS TELL YOU WHEN YOU NEED TO HAVE JEWELRY VALUES UPDATED. Most insurance companies want to pay out as little as possible under any circumstances and if they've been collecting on a $2000 piece for ten years and then suddenly it's worth $6000 and is lost they don't want to pay out the higher price.

3) You need to clearly understand their deductibles. If they offer you $5000 in automatic coverage but you have a $2500 deductible on jewelry then you are going to be out a lot of money if you want to replace the piece.

4) Most insurance companies (not all) will no longer pay out cash to the customer in the event of a loss. They will only pay a jeweler directly. You need to know if this is the case, especially if you are insuring pieces that might be irreplaceable (true antiques).

5) Most insurance companies try to make you go to a jeweler they work with for replacement pieces. This doesn't work well for you in the event that you own a piece made by someone like me or another designer jeweler. The reason they do this is that they have deals cut with the jeweler for highly discounted prices because of how much business they send them. In my opinion this is unfair to the client as you are paying insurance as if they are going to replace it at full stated value but they aren't going to do that. It may be fine for you if you own fairly commercial jewelry but it just won't work if you have something unique.

6) In the event that you own a designer's piece you have to be prepared to fight for your right to get the same piece (or something equivalent) made by the same designer. Insurance companies (along with much of the general public) don't believe that jewelry can be copyrighted. Because of this they will often try to get quotes from multiple jewelers even when the piece is a distinct, unique, copyrighted piece. Copyright is inferred automatically upon production of a unique piece and it does not need to be registered with the Federal copyright office to have all the protections accorded under copyright law. Consequently if you tell them you have a unique designer piece and you want to replace it with the same thing, it is ILLEGAL for them to demand you go to another jeweler (unless it's a designer who sells his work at a variety of locations---but you still are entitled to a piece by the same designer). So you need to check on what the insurance company will do if you are insuring a designer piece with them before you agree to their coverage policies.

7) It is my general advice that you find an insurance company that will allow you to go to the jeweler of your choice. Jewelers Mutual, the insurance company I use to cover my store, is a company dedicated solely to insuring jewelry. Consequently they know more about the industry than any other. They offer a personal insurance plan for your jewelry known as Perfect Circle and you can access them by going to www.PerfectCircleinsurance.com/Moments.
They allow you to go to the jeweler of your choice.

So remember ask questions! They won't volunteer the answers and it's up to you to know what is and what isn't covered.

The ring at the top is 18k gold with a purple sapphire, orange sapphire and diamond. The earrings are 18k gold with natural color grey baroque cultured saltwater pearls that come from old stock and, to the best of my knowledge, cannot readily be found anymore.