Some Changes Are on the Way

I know I have some regular readers out there (because they tell me they read this when they come in the store) and I just wanted to give a little head's up to some changes going on. As of September 1 we are beginning a new advertising program with Boston.com (the Boston Globe online site) in which they will be featuring us as one of a few retailers whose blogs will be featured (on a rotating basis) on their site. There will be some beginning lines from my blog and a link to the rest of the article.

I am hoping, of course, to expand my audience (and my customer base---I'm always honest here as you know) for my blog. However it is going to necessitate a few changes. We all know that everyone's attention span is short these days so I believe I am going to have to get new articles posted on a more regular basis. Due to the fact that I actually have to get a chance to make jewelery sometimes this isn't always possible so I may be pulling some of my older articles and simply rerunning them. I apologize to my regular readers ahead of time for this. I don't mean to bore you. I might also simply rewrite some of the articles or update them in some way. So if you start reading something that sounds familiar, you probably are. It may also mean that I have to curtail (at least for a little while) some of my more personal articles although I will probably just try to post two at a time with the personal stuff first and then a more formal article so that the Globe's feed pulls from the more formal article. I'm just not sure whether someone reading something that is ostensibly from a jeweler for the first time is going to care that I just got back from a wonderful vacation.

Speaking of vacations, I did just get back from one. We went to Orient, NY for a few days where my older son, the artist, is spending his summer. He set up a studio in the garage that came with the rental and the picture above is of him hard at work. There was a view from the wraparound porch every night of the sunset and it was quite nice to take a few days at least and enjoy a little nature. You never know when it might pop up in a piece of mine.

And once again I would love to get some feedback from some of you people who read. Given that I need to write more blogs what would you like to hear about???? Please send me some suggestions. I will be happy to get to them.

Tax Free Day Sale is On.

The governor has signed the bill for a tax free weekend on August 11 and 12 so we have sent out our emails about this year's one day sale at Daniel Spirer Jewelers. If you get one you're invited to participate! If you don't get an email, it means you probably haven't bought anything from us previously and you aren't eligible for our sale (it's for existing customers only but if you didn't get an email and you wear a piece of mine in that you own, you'll be qualified) however you can still take advantage of the tax savings (and then next year you'll get to participate in the sale). So Saturday, August 11, 2012 is the day this will be happening. However if you want to come in ahead of time and pick something out and leave us a credit card number we will run it through for you on August 11. Just don't look for the hematite from magnesite piece in the cases as it went to a new home today. However I have been working on making sure that my cases are stocked and I have a new "Black Hole in the Center of a Spiral Galaxy" pin out. It is pictured above. It has a magnificent black pearl with very strong green overtones, emeralds and diamonds.

Okay so I've been known to be wrong....occasionally!

In this posting I have to apologize for my erroneous thinking in my last post. I said that the material I worked with in the pendant was sold to me as hematite after magnesite, but that I had decided it was hematite after magnetite. Well, go ahead and slap me upside the head! Yesterday I had one of my gem dealers in who is also a gemologist and I showed the piece to her and we got into a little discussion about it. Initially she also didn't recognize the material but when I told her about my online findings and my current thinking she looked a little closer at the piece and saw a perfect little cube sticking out of the bottom of the piece. Well magnetite won't form cubic crystals, but, surprise, surprise, magnesite does! So in fact my original dealer was right. The good news is that no matter which material it is, it still doesn't change the price!

Speaking of rare material some of you who have been customers for awhile may know about rainbow moonstone. It's been a material I've been quite fond of since it first came on the market. Technically speaking the material is actually a form of spectrolite (moonstone, sunstone, spectrolite, and labradorite are all members of the feldspar family). A few years ago the major sources of rainbow moonstone in Sri Lanka dried up and there has been very little new material coming into the marketplace. But my dealer who was in yesterday had a friend who, when the material was first found, was so taken by it that she invested in a large quantity of the material. Her friend had decided to sell it off so I got first pick on the material being offered. If I had enough money I probably would have bought the bulk of the collection but it was a substantial sized collection so I had to stick with picking out a few choice pieces. This material is similar to the early material I saw in that it is slightly cloudy and has more inclusions in it, but the colors are stronger and more distinctive than in a lot of the later material I got.

I tried to take a picture with my iPhone but I couldn't get one that truly showed off the material to its best advantage so I went on line and did an image search to see if there was something I could use there as a picture. However, while there were a lot of pictures of material that had a blue sheen across the top, none of them showed the oranges, pinks and purples that are so apparent on the pieces I got in. The piece pictured above had a freshwater pearl and a rainbow moonstone but you can't truly see the colors that were in this moonstone either. So really you should come by and look at the material I got in if you want to see how beautiful it is. This is one of those gem materials that we are, quite simply, running out of. If you want to own some, now is the time.

On Strange Gem Materials

Pictured above is a new pendant I made recently and it has a title ("A gold stream oozed out of hematatia"). For those of you who know me a bit, you are aware that I make up new imaginary planets for different gem materials (hence the title). So what is this material? Well apparently not even my gem dealer was aware of the proper name (I believe). It was sold to me as hematite after magnesite but after doing a little research I believe it is actually hematite after magnetite. The word "after" means that at some point there was magnetite there but it chemically morphed into hematite over a period of time. As a gemologist I am always intrigued by materials like these. I don't get as much opportunity these days to work with pieces like this (it wouldn't exactly make a good engagement ring stone!) but occasionally I see something I like and can see the possibilities for it. It's hard to see in this picture but the gold wire in the center does actually come out from a hole near the top of the stone. There is a .10 ct. ideal cut, "E" color, VS clarity diamond at the top as well.

On listening to your loved ones

So I had a young woman come back into my store for the third time today. She had on an engagement ring she had just gotten from her lady love. Unfortunately it wasn't one of mine! Truly unfortunately it wasn't one of mine because she had been lusting after this one of mine. Not only had she been lusting after it but she had brought her partner in to see it, she had used it as a screen saver, and she "thought" she had been pretty clear that it was the one she wanted. Alas and alack, not quite clear enough unfortunately. So in 5 or 10 years they will come back in and I will attempt to take the diamond she got and put it into a similar design.

So the question becomes how do you clearly express to your partner that THIS design is the one you want??? And it isn't an easy one to answer. I mean, this young woman had done everything she could think of to convey that, if someone was going to propose to her, that this particular ring was the one that she wanted. Now admittedly, it might have been that I was a bit more expensive than the one the partner chose.

But, I believe it was more that, for some reason, her partner may not have been listening closely enough. I'm somewhat used to this with guys because, let's face it, basically they're clueless when it comes to women, but I think that women should have a somewhat clearer idea of what they want for their partner in life. And when the partner pretty clearly points out what they want, I kind of think they should be listening.

Of course I think guys should be listening as well because it's always upsetting to hear someone express disappointment in what they receive as one of the most important pieces of jewelry they will ever get. I mean, if you get a 33rd birthday present you're not thrilled with that's okay (you can always exchange it!)---but an engagement ring is a piece that says: YOU ARE THE PERSON I WANT TO SPEND MY WHOLE LIFE WITH so this is what I want you to have to represent it! And if you're not listening to the person to begin with then....where are you going anyway???

Now I'm not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that these two young women are not meant to be life partners, anymore then the guys who don't get it either. Everyone has different things they value in a partner and understanding and appreciating what is most important to you is critical in a relationship. Someone may be perfect in so many other ways that it's easy to overlook certain things. And we shouldn't forget that we all have different tastes and, inevitably, our own tastes will influence what we buy.

What I am saying is that the most important part of our intimate relationships is that we should make an attempt (hey even after 25 years I don't always get it right either but I try) to LISTEN to our partners about what it is that will make them the happiest. Because after all, what we all really should want to do is make our intended, or our already committed partners, as happy as possible because that is what being in a relationship is all about: MAKING OUR PARTNERS HAPPY (well without completely losing ourselves!). Why bother being in love if that isn't the case?

My job as a jeweler is to make YOU happy. But if you aren't listening to your significant other, I might make you happy but not your significant other happy. And if they aren't happy, I can assure you that you aren't going to be happy. So let's try to listen up folks!!!

The picture above is of a custom piece I made for a customer using her design idea, coin, and spinels (personally I would have used a somewhat higher quality, more regularly sized and colored stones). She wanted me to do a Tudor rose on the bail to match the one on the coin . I cut out the base piece and then had my hand engraver do the details on the rose. Yes it's a very strange piece but I get asked to do all sorts of things and I just like people to see all the possibilities.