I Kind of Cover a Wide Range and I Work Near MIT

Some people are surprised over the range of the type of work I do.  Even within what I have out in the store I do cover a fairly wide swath of types of work. Admittedly much of my work is easily identifiable as coming from me, but with custom work, I can pretty much take on any job (although if you're looking for a plain Tiffany style setting I'll probably send you elsewhere as I'll just charge too much to do something so readily available everywhere).  As I mention in the title to the post I work near that fine higher education institution MIT.  Over the years this has led to any number of unusual and interesting jobs. 

One of them started with a phone call we got late on a Thursday asking if we could solder platinum.  I said of course and the guy proceeded to tell me that he had a platinum piece that needed a precise soldering job, that it had to be done right away, that it was going up into space shortly and that he couldn't tell me what exactly we were working on (for security reasons, not because he didn't know). Now how could I turn down something like that?  I love space and all that has to do with it, it wasn't going to be the usual "can you fix my platinum ring" job and we could only guess at what we were actually working on.  To this day I have no idea what it was for.  But we did get the job done for them by their Saturday deadline.

Another time we got a young guy in who was a graduate student at MIT and his thesis was on how people perceived urban landscapes.  He had built a contraption that he wanted to wear over his head that had a mechanism that would cover his right eye when he took a step with his left foot and cover his left eye when he took a step with his right foot.  Again, I wasn't really clear what he was trying to achieve, but I told him I would see what I could come up with.  For this one I sat down and brainstormed with a very old and dear friend of mine (who happens to be an extraordinary bench jeweler) and we came up with the idea of using the loupes that we wear to see things close up.  We were able to attach his contraption to a loupe without the lens on it and it allowed him to move it up and down as he wanted to in front of his face.  Unfortunately he never came back and told us if his thesis was accepted!

So the picture above is of a recently completed pair of wedding bands.  We had to use CAD/CAM to do these because the customer wanted "logic gates" engraved all around the bands.  Unfortunately you can't truly see how they change as they go around the ring but you can get an idea of what they look like from the picture.  What are logic gates, some of you might ask?  I haven't got the foggiest idea, although I'm sure I could Google it and find out but I think I'll leave that up to those of you who would like to know.  These bands were done in platinum.


But on the bottom here are some earrings that I just put out that show the other extreme of my work range.  They are 22k and 18k yellow and white gold with freshwater pearls and carved labradorite faces.  I thought they made a nice juxtaposition against the interesting, yet completely different bands above!

 

Summer is Here and More On Why I Do What I Do

Summer has finally arrived, both technically and in reality.  We're in the middle of a short heat wave here and my faithful employee came back from a trip downtown for me complaining about how disgusting it is outside.  Fortunately we're well air conditioned here.


Because it is summer, I wanted to let people know a few things about upcoming schedules.  We will be closed the week of July 4 (June 30-July8) for a break (no trips planned this year) and for the months of July and August we will be changing our hours slightly.  During this period we will be open until 8 on Thursdays by appointment only.  Otherwise we will be closing at 6. Also we will be closing an hour earlier on Saturdays at 5. So our hours will look like this: Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri 11-6 and Sat 11-5 but open by appointment only on Thursday evenings until 8.

It's been an interesting month in a number of ways.  I saw my pearl/opal dealer again, and despite my vow not to buy anything from him, I still came away with some interesting strands of South Sea keshi pearls (pictures will follow as soon as they are strung), a beautiful pair of boulder opals and a strand of boulder opal beads (not round ones).  Unfortunately the opal beads seem to have been laid claim to by my wife so, while I will get a picture of them up at some point, this particular strand won't be available.

I also recently spent some time with a new customer working out what she wanted for an engagement ring.  This was her second marriage and her first husband had died awhile ago.  She wanted to use some older diamonds she had and I was happy to accommodate her. What was interesting about it though was the long discussion we had about how the diamonds had come to her, why she wanted to use them, how good her first marriage had been (despite the fact that much to her dismay her original engagement ring was a family piece that she didn't like---but she wore anyway because, as she said, sometimes you just have to give up some things for a relationship to work), and how excited she was about her new relationship.  During a good deal of this conversation I had another customer waiting.  When the first one had left the store, the second one said to me: "I had no idea how much like a therapist you are!".  And in some ways, truer words were never spoken.  Sure I make and sell jewelry and run a small business as best I can, but because of the product I deal in, there is a tremendous amount of emotion, sentiment, love, and memory involved, and as someone who is assisting customers with their pieces that carry these feelings, I tend to hear a lot of it.  However, not only do I not mind this, I actually really enjoy it.  I get a chance to learn about new people, and to hear stories of important events in all of their lives.  It always makes me stand in awe of what meaning is attached to my pieces as well.  And that kind of sums up why I do what I do. 

Speaking of meaning, love and emotion, the picture above was given to me recently by a couple whose engagement ring and wedding bands I custom made for them. They were made of 18k white and yellow gold and her engagement ring has a blue sapphire in it. 

I'm back!

 

 

To my regular readers (one of whom was in yesterday and reminded me that I hadn't written anything in awhile---thanks Dawn!) I apologize for being remiss in my writings lately.  I have gotten myself entangled in another jeweler's news group on the web lately and I find I only have so much time (and energy) to write.  The problem with the news groups is that once you write something people respond to what you've said and then you're forced to write again and by the time the thread has ended you're pretty much written out (I'm not sure that's proper English, but it's how I feel sometimes).  Of course it wouldn't hurt if a few of my readers would actually respond to what I've written on here once in awhile.....and the end of this posting asks specifically for just that!

So onto a few varied topics. The first is that I just read an article by a noted gemologist who was discussing ruby treatments, and specifically, composite rubies that have entered the marketplace.  I have discussed here ruby treatments in the past but it appears from what she has written that there is a wrinkle in the discussions on ruby treatments even I wasn't clear on. While there are different amounts of heat treatment in ruby material, and while some glass flux may have seeped into treated stones (with those more heavily treated having more flux in them), there is, in fact, another material currently in the marketplace being misrepresented as treated ruby when in fact it should be called a composite material.  Apparently this is exceedingly low grade corundum that is cleaned of all of the potch (material that isn't corundum) in the crystals, which leaves a relatively small amount of material actually intact and then a lead glass is purposely added to it to fill in all of the areas where the potch was removed.  This is NOT simply a heat treatment. This is the PURPOSEFUL addition of a second material in order to make a product seem like something it isn't.  The problem is that a lot of manufacturers are buying this material for pennies and then setting it in jewelry, marking it up huge amounts and then selling it as heavily heated material as opposed to composite material. Besides the obvious ethical issues around this, the material is extremely fragile and can be easily damaged simply through cleaning processes that jewelers use, no matter the processes that are used to repair jewelry (such as heating the pieces---something I won't do, but a lot of jewelers believe it's safe to heat ruby in pieces they are repairing--and putting the pieces into the acid baths needed to clean them after work is done).  This then leads to customers thinking the jeweler has ruined their "ruby" when in fact it wasn't a "ruby" to begin with.

So this leads me back to two of my favorite statements about how to do business.  1) Know your jeweler (or in my case my suppliers----there is a reason I have been using the same ones for 30 years) and 2) If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.  If you see a 2 ct. ruby in a ring and it's priced at $1000 or less, it is most likely a composite material, no matter what the seller tells you.

And this leads into another story and why those two statements are so important.  I had a customer come in recently with a ring she bought on line awhile ago.  It had, she said, a black opal in it that had broken and she wanted it replaced.  Now mind you this was a large stone and when I asked her how much she had paid for it, she said something around $2000.  The ring had been purchased as an antique (or at least as a used piece) a few years ago.  The stone definitely looked like opal and it was black but it wasn't quite "right" and the pricing seemed way too low.  So I originally told her I couldn't get her a true black opal in a reasonable price range but I might be able to get her a boulder opal that would be pretty and wouldn't set her back quite as much. She was quite attached to the ring and she wanted something that looked as close as possible to the stone she had.  So I called my opal dealer and went through the usual difficulties of trying to discuss color over the phone with him.  He sent out some stuff she didn't like so he asked me to send him a picture of the original stone, which I did.  He immediately called me back and asked me to take a closer look at the stone under the microscope as he believed it was a sugar and acid treated opal.  Sure enough it was!  This actually made finding a replacement easier as we were able to get another piece of treated opal that was quite similar.  However it also opened up the question of what the jeweler selling the ring actually knew.  Apparently it had been listed on his website as a black opal.  He wrote black opal on the receipt. But this was by no means a black opal.  If my customer had wanted to, she could have gone back to him and insisted that he replace the stone with a real black opal (I suspect that would have set him back a good $10,000 in this size) or give her money back (or if she really wanted to push it take him to court where he would be liable for triple damages).  The guy is fortunate that she really liked the piece and it wasn't so important to her what the piece was so much as just that she could keep wearing something that looked like it.  But if it had been me I would have gone back after the guy.  Again, my two caveats above should be followed.

Now I want to talk about something that I would really, really like some feedback on because I'm not sure what to do about the situation.  I recently went on line to check my presence out and when I went to Yelp I found I had three recent reviews.  One of them (a 5 star review) was immediately relegated to the filtered pile (an issue I've been trying to talk to them about for years since I have one of the highest filtered to unfiltered reviews of anyone I've been able to find on Yelp but to which they just tell me it's out of their control).  However I got two other reviews that were negative.  Unfortunately, because they filter so many of my reviews, the two negative reviews have dragged down my rating.  Now mind you neither of the reviews had anything to do with my product.  One of them complained that it was foreboding walking into my store because of all of our security signs, that we had a dog who bothered her (those of you who have been here know Ziggy and know that while he may bark his hellos and goodbyes to you but he's a sweetie pie once he settles down) and that I was grumpy.  Now some of you who are regulars know that I have been having some health issues in the last year, and I am the first to admit I can be grumpy when I'm exhausted and out of sorts.  I responded to this customer both privately and publicly on Yelp and apologized and told her that if Ziggy bothered her I was always happy to remove him from the room.  Privately I mentioned the health issues as well.

I'm not really so concerned about her review. It was the other one that I am unsure what to do about. This one was from a young lady who apparently (although honestly I don't recall exactly who she was) came in with a new ring to be sized and she claimed I insulted her ring, the place she got it from, her hands and I wouldn't size the ring the way she wanted. I'm pretty certain (as I get them in regularly) that it was a piece purchased on line (and probably from Etsy), that wasn't well made (while it is possible to purchase high quality, well made jewelry on line, the bulk of it simply doesn't fall into that category since pricing is usually paramount with on line purchases).  I believe I may have also explained to her that she didn't have knuckles (a common thing among hands---everyone's are different and some people have quite distinctive knuckles and some don't---and it has nothing to do with your weight---I have had extremely skinny people in who just don't have much in the way of knuckles; maybe they don't crack them enough when they are kids (-; ) and that it impacted how I had to size her ring (hence her statement that I had insulted her hands).

Now I admit I get a little irritated by people who buy things online and then only come to a bricks and mortar store to get problems with the pieces resolved. This was a new piece.  Any bricks and mortar jeweler would have resized the ring for free as the product came from their store. In this case the customer either didn't want to be bothered with sending it back to get it sized, the place she got it from wouldn't resize it (I get people in all the time who tell me this), had resized it wrong already (I get that all the time too) or she felt it was too expensive to ship it back.  I get irritated with this because if people only use bricks and mortar shops for looking at items and then buying them for less on line or for cleaning up the messes that on line shops leave their customers with, then the bricks and mortar stores will all soon be out of business.    And I am sure that my irritation shows through occasionally.  I'm pretty much the whole show here and no matter how I'm feeling, or what I'm thinking, I'm the one who has to work with the customers.

However, because of Yelp's unexplainable filtering system (I have 45 5 star reviews that are filtered), it now looks like I'm a horrible guy. Those of you who know me know that my quality standards are high in all the work I do and that I do try to service all of my customers as best I can.  So my question to all of my customers who read these long blogs I write is: Should I respond on Yelp to this customer's comments (I'm allowed to do that) and if so, what should I say?  Is honesty the most important thing and should I say that the ring was poorly made to begin with.  Should I just ignore it?  Should I just say I'm sorry and leave it at that?  Any thoughts and comments are appreciated. You can either comment on here or email me at my regular email address: daniel@spirerjewelers.com.

 Pictured above a two sided clasp with a diamond and a green tourmaline made up for a customer using her diamond.   

Jewelry Safety Part 3: Insurance

18k gold and blue/green tourmalines

No matter how much you do to protect your possessions it can still be the case that someone actually manages to steal something (or that you lose something).  And that is why you should always carry insurance on your jewelry if you have enough value.  Usually you can get coverage on your jewelry with any home owner's or home renter's policy. There are also companies like Jeweler's Mutual that offer coverage only on jewelry (I'll get back to them in a bit).

The problem, however, with many jewelry policies is that you won't be paid any money if you have a loss. Most of the time the insurance company insist that you work with a jeweler that they have an agreement with to get a replacement. This can be problematic for a number of reasons, The first is that if you have a unique and/or designer piece, the jeweler may not be able to truly replace it. The second is that you are somewhat dependent on what that jeweler sells quality wise.  Not all "E" color, VVS1 clarity diamonds are created equal.  Some are better cut than others.  If the jeweler doesn't specialize in better cut stones you may end up with something that doesn't look nearly as good.  Additionally, different grading labs issue certificates with somewhat different standards.  The European Gem Labs (EGL) routinely overgrade almost every stone they give a certificate to.  For this reason, an "E", VVS1 diamond with an EGL cert will invariably be priced lower than one with a cert from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).  So if the jeweler you are being forced to use buys mostly stones with EGL certs you won't necessarily be getting back what you originally had.

Despite the idea that insurance companies are supposed to "make you whole" in the event of a loss, they are really in existence to make money. That means that they will do everything possible to pay out as little as possible on any claim.  And that means that you have to have a clear understanding of what they are agreeing to do in order to make you whole again.  I run into very few people who actually read their policies (or at least more than the first page or two), and I think sometimes the insurance companies write their policies the way they do in order to make sure you don't read (and fully understand) them.  However, if you have a lot of jewelry it is critical that you do actually read the applicable parts so you understand what the companies are willing to do.  If the only thing that will make you happy is a cash payout, you may have to change companies to find one that will actually do that, or pay more with your company so that they will.  If you want to make sure that you are allowed to use your own jeweler, then you'd better make sure that they allow you to do that as well.  

Jeweler's Mutual is the company I am insured with and the only product they sell is insurance on jewelry.  Consequently their knowledge of the field goes far beyond what most insurance companies have.  They guarantee that you can go to the jeweler of your choice in the event of a loss. This can help tremendously if you have designer pieces as it means you can go back to your original source.  They also are a mutual company and have routinely over the years paid out rebates on their policies to policy holders (although there is some restriction on how they do this on individual policies so please make sure you read the fine print on that).

There is also a peripheral issue that is a little less frequent now than it used to be but still occurs.  Often jewelers, in an attempt to make you think you're getting a bargain, will give you an appraisal on a piece that is much higher than what you paid for the piece.  This is actually unethical (except in the case of a "true" sale and by true I mean one that really is only an occasional event, not a department store type sale where everything is permanently on sale) and it happens to be bad for your pocketbook as well.  If you buy a piece for $10,000 but the jeweler is hustling you and says this piece is really worth $15,000 so that's what I'm going to put on the appraisal you have to understand what is going on.  If you went back the next day and bought the same piece again, the jeweler would sell if to you for the $10,000 again.  And if the insurance company comes to the jeweler and asks for a replacement piece, they are going  to pay less then the $10,000 because they have deals cut with the jewelers to get large discounts based on their volume of business with them.  In this case you end up spending more on your insurance than necessary because the value has been inflated on the appraisal.  Appraisals of new pieces should ALWAYS reflect actual prices paid (except in the case of a true sale or occasionally when the metal markets are as wild as they are right now and a piece was purchased at older metal prices).

The earrings above are 18k gold with some beautiful blue/green tourmalines.

Jewelry Safety Part Two Alarm Systems

Alarm systems are generally a good idea these days, not just to secure your valuables, but for personal protection as well. There are a plethora of alarm companies out selling their products these days and many of them can provide decent protection, however you should generally look for larger firms to deal with.  This is because they will have both better response times (i.e. staff on duty all the time)  and better resources to deal with alarm problems.  Some fly by night guy who comes in and sets up something and you never see again just isn't going to give you proper service no matter what.  I normally (as my regular readers know) encourage you to buy local and buy small but this is one time where it is much better not to. There area local alarm companies that are larger than most (I use one at my store) and they can be fine but make sure you're dealing with a company that can meet your needs. 

The first question is how sophisticated an alarm system do you actually need.  This, once again, goes to what you are trying to protect.  If, from a jewelry standpoint it's a relatively small amount then a more basic system is fine.  If you are trying to protect a lot of stuff including jewelry, artwork, electronics, etc. it's better to have a higher end alarm system. 

A basic alarm system will usually have sensors on doors and windows that will trigger an alarm.  Add motion detectors in and the system is much more reliable (albeit problematic if you have pets).  Add cameras and you are going to have more protection.  Add things like motion sensitive cameras, digital recorders, etc. and you're dealing with a jewelry store quality system.  The alarm system world has been growing by leaps and bounds lately as the technological advances have made things possible that never were before, both in terms of recording incidents and notifying people (since everyone now has a cell phone).  Again the more you have to protect, the better system you'll need.

 If you're are concerned with personal safety as well you will need things like panic buttons and you will have to make sure you have a system that will allow you to be in the house with it on.  The problem with these systems is that you need to remember about them constantly as you can set them off by accident quite easily.  And if you make too many mistakes in setting them off, you tend to stop using them regularly and then you're right back where you started.  So if this is something you want your system to incorporate you need to think long and hard about how careful you are going to be in using the system.  And again, if you have pets, or kids, these types of systems get vastly more complex to use and stay on top of. 

There are, as I said, great advances being made in the security world.  Here is a link to an alarm system using your iPhone:  https://www.ismartalarm.com/ that has raised its funding through a crowd sourcing venture but looks like it would be an excellent reasonably priced alternative for someone who wasn't trying to protect a lot of stuff and wants to be able to control their alarm system themselves.

One other note. Most alarm companies give you a sign to put up outside your house saying that the house is protected by their system.  The thinking goes that if the criminals know you have an alarm system they will be less likely to try to get into your house. (The alarm company has the additional thinking that it is a great, and free, way to advertise.)  I am of two minds on this topic.  The first is that when you put a sign like that up it immediately says "I have something valuable to protect" and will make you more of a target.  On the other hand criminals tend to look for the easiest opportunities and the more barriers in their way, the better you are protected.  I think using the signs depends somewhat on where you are located. If you live in an obviously expensive area, the criminals are going to know you have valuables and you might want to use the signs. If you live in a dangerous part of town, it will also help as you want as many barriers as possible.  On the other hand if you live in a somewhat typical middle class neighborhood, it might just draw the wrong kind of attention.

Next article will be on insurance which is the third (and sometimes most important) part of jewelry safety.  The rings pictured above are some of my 18k yellow gold wedding bands.