As I reflect upon the anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, I am so thankful that my business was not washed out to sea.
Still, everyone was affected. Many of my clientele were without power for up to three weeks. Most had trees down, some on their homes and some on their property which they would have to pay for out of pocket to the tune of thousands of dollars. Some even lost their summer homes.
While generator companies, tree services and hardware stores did well at the end of the year, the loss of sales hurt a lot of other small businesses last year. Even Bernardsville had a lot of empty st... VIEW FULL ENTRY
This past Monday saw the largest ever gold price drop. It did start to rise again on Tuesday. This is probably all my fault. I had a piece of 22K gold cast on the previous Wednesday, when gold was $1500 something, and sold all my scrap gold on Monday during the drop at $1390. So of course it went back up.
This got me thinking, how significantly does a drop or rise in gold price like that affect the price of a piece of jewelry? A $125 drop makes the price of 14K gold jewelry change approximately $6-$9 a pennyweight. A ring may weigh 1 to 5 pennyweights. The price drop was, however, short lived, so it will have little ... VIEW FULL ENTRY
We always tell people when they buy a new piece of jewelry, especially an engagement ring, that they should have it cleaned and inspected every six months to a year. some people remember, but most forget to have it checked after a year or two. I see a lot of engagement rings missing diamonds after 15 years or so. If you find that you can’t get in to the jewelers there are a couple of self diagnostics you can perform at home.
The first would be to inspect the prongs, the part of the jewelry holding the gem. On a center diamond or colored gemstone there should be a bit of gold sticking up above th... VIEW FULL ENTRY
With everyone selling gold and silver these days, we occasionally get a piece that we won’t make an offer on and instead offer to broker it.
Why do we do this? Partly, we do it to get you a better price for an item, and partly because we hate to see some pieces just melted down. We broker an item by taking the jewelry to multiple estate buyers and returning with the item and the best offer. These are companies that buy for reselling an item rather than scrapping the jewelry for metal content. Since we have a definite offer on an item that is over scrap v... VIEW FULL ENTRY
At the shop, all of us have designed one-of-a-kind jewelry. Very often we are using a customer’s gemstones for such projects. It starts with a design, requires a one-of-a-kind model to be made, and from that, the piece to be cast, the stones to be set, and the piece polished. It costs a little more to do things this way, but it creates a wonderful, unique treasure that will fit some of the beautiful gems a client may have.
Sometimes you just want a classic piece; a sapphire and diamond ring, for example. For this you can come in and just buy from what a jeweler... VIEW FULL ENTRY
Your hot tub IS a time machine... It will age your jewelry.
A customer once came in with every piece of her gold jewelry damaged at the solder joints. Her chains were broken, the shanks of her rings were missing where they were sized, and a diamond had fallen out of its mounting. The culprit was bromine. Bromine and chlorine both eat away at gold jewelry.
A while back a gold findings and casting company called Hoover and Strong did a controlled experiment to find out why diamond prongs were breaking. They placed platinum, 14K palladium white gold and 14K nickel white gold in various concen... VIEW FULL ENTRY
The four main jewelry metals are platinum, gold, palladium and silver. They have long been treasured due to their rarity, malleability and with the exception of silver, their resistance to corrosion. Precious metal prices have been on the rise and although they are the best option for most jewelry applications, a number of designers have started designing in “alternative” metals such as stainless steel, titanium, tungsten, and cobalt chrome.
The biggest disadvantages to alternative metals are the difficulty of working the piece, the inability to size or a... VIEW FULL ENTRY
Beware of national companies buying gold! Television and online reports have found that a number of these companies are paying much lower for gold than many local jewelers, even the ones that claim to “own” their refineries. A local retail jeweler from Massachusetts sent gold to one of these nationally advertised companies. He received a check for $18.73. I would have offered $84 for the same amount of gold.
Pharaoh’s Gold A legend suggests that there is a little Pharaoh’s gold in every piece of jewelry; that is, gold from thousands ... VIEW FULL ENTRY
As I reflect upon the anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, I am so thankful that my business was not washed out to sea. 
This past Monday saw the largest ever gold price drop. It did start to rise again on Tuesday. This is probably all my fault. I had a piece of 22K gold cast on the previous Wednesday, when gold was $1500 something, and sold all my scrap gold on Monday during the drop at $1390. So of course it went back up.
We always tell people when they buy a new piece of jewelry, especially an engagement ring, that they should have it cleaned and inspected every six months to a year. some people remember, but most forget to have it checked after a year or two. I see a lot of engagement rings missing diamonds after 15 years or so. If you find that you can’t get in to the jewelers there are a couple of self diagnostics you can perform at home. 
At the shop, all of us have designed one-of-a-kind jewelry. Very often we are using a customer’s gemstones for such projects. It starts with a design, requires a one-of-a-kind model to be made, and from that, the piece to be cast, the stones to be set, and the piece polished. It costs a little more to do things this way, but it creates a wonderful, unique treasure that will fit some of the beautiful gems a client may have.
Your hot tub IS a time machine... It will age your jewelry.
The four main jewelry metals are platinum, gold, palladium and silver. They have long been treasured due to their rarity, malleability and with the exception of silver, their resistance to corrosion. Precious metal prices have been on the rise and although they are the best option for most jewelry applications, a number of designers have started designing in “alternative” metals such as stainless steel, titanium, tungsten, and cobalt chrome.