THE BLING BLOG

Wearing Jewelry While Exercising: Yes or No?

Oh, bother.

This one has been on my mind for some time now.

I live in one of those cities where many of the women like to wear what seems to be the entire contents of their jewelry collection to the gym.  Rings on every finger, a diamond-crusted gold watch nested between a few diamond tennis bracelets on the left wrist, the right wrist dripping with gold chains, the neck and decollete heavily-laden with chains and charms, large hoop earrings, etc.  It's the walking definition of female hysteria.

Now, mind you, these ladies also wear about 1/4" of slap and liquid eyeliner, too, to the gym.  And hose themselves down in Thierry Mugler Angel perfume, which smells like a combination of cotton candy and chlorine gas.  Because one needs that for a proper workout.  I wonder what Kim and i am pretty nyc would have to say about that?  That cannot be good for the skin.  It just can't.  And I know the metals and the sweat can't be a healthy combination either.

Let's not even mention what it's doing to the jewelry.  Dirty, dirty.  Filthy.

Methinks it's a cultural thing, this being Texas and all.

I used to live in Newport Beach, and it was a similar scenario.  Less drippy gold bracelets and hoop earrings, though.  More large diamonds.  A nice pair of E-color, VVS 1, two-carat studs and a TechnoMarine with diamond bezel for an hour of Pilates Reformer and thirty minutes of Tai Chi.  Not me, but I've seen it.

Seriously, what does the personal trainer, the person who is being paid to help a client get in shape and prevent injury, do when their client shows up with a Mr. T starter set on that's bound to get caught up in the machinery?  How does this trainer pass said client a pair of 8-lb. hand weights and instruct the client to commence doing flat flys when said client cannot even close her hands around the grips of the dumbbells because of all the extra platinum and 18-karat and acrylic nails in the way?

Who knows?  Not my problem.  But it's comical to see it.

So what do I wear?  I wear small earrings, nothing that can dangle.  Or none at all.  And I wear a Polar heart rate monitor and wristwatch combination.

I don't wear my engagement ring to the gym.  It's too delicate with the pavé stones, and entirely inappropriate.  Further, when I sweat, my fingers expand.  Duh.  That's one of the more uncomfortable feelings, isn't it?  Trying to pry off a ring off a swollen finger?  Some people with sturdier rings and no stones on the shank who wear gloves can pull this off.  Not me.

Plus, why take the chance of losing something valuable?  Leave the goods at home.  It's a gym.  Not a show place for female hysteria.  They haven't gotten the memo yet here.

Weekend Reading - Hope Diamond By Richard Kurin

This weekend's reading nibbles will include Hope Diamond - The Legendary History Of A Cursed Gem by Richard Kurin.

I've been looking forward to this one for some time as it promises to weigh the facts against the legend and get to the root of many of the ancillary rumors and tall tales surrounding the blue diamond.  Is it cursed?  Did its owners suffer tragedy?  Was its provenance murky and questionable?

Answer these to some degree of satisfaction and I will be an instant fan.

As you know, so much about diamonds and gemstones are wrapped up in the myth of rarity and exclusivity.  The Hope Diamond is rare, to be sure.  But are all diamonds so very rare?  Of course the good people at deBeers would like us to think so.

Let's hope that by Kurin helping to demystify some of the process of the changing of hands, the trading, the hawking, the swapping, the stealing, the dropping, that goes on before a diamond gets into the hands of Mrs. Harry Winston (and then finally the Smithsonian, its final resting place), maybe the rest of us will begin to understand that the very same process goes on with each and every diamond in the window of the jewelry store.

That's right, every single one.  Even mine.  Even yours.

What Is Palladium? Wasn't It A Hipster Disco On The Sunset Strip In Hollywood?

Yes, indeed it was.

However, the palladium to which I refer today is a chemical element (remember that dastardly Periodic Table of Elements in the 8th grade?) in solid form that is considered to be a precious metal.  Its symbol is Pd and its atomic number is 46.  Other precious metals include our friends Ag, Au and Pt; silver, gold and platinum respectively.  There are others, but I refer to these metals as they have jewelry-making applications.  Okay, titanium, too.

Guess what?  Jewelry can be made of palladium, too.

Palladium is very similar to platinum chemically-speaking, and is in the platinum group of metals.  As well, it has a lower melting point than platinum, and therefore is easier to work with.  When it is cold, it is remarkably strong and hard and thus very desirable for jewelry.  Etching or deconstructing palladium is a lengthy process with HCl (hydrochloric acid), and it will only dissolve rapidly in more caustic acids.  And finally, it does not tarnish when worn (unlike some silver and gold alloys) as it has no reaction to oxygen.

Gearheads will recognize palladium for its use in catalytic converters.  It is thought that palladium will one day take the place of platinum in this process.

So, when you want a white metal you basically choose from platinum or white gold.  Platinum is very expensive.  White gold is also pricey, but white gold is more of a hassle than yellow gold or platinum.  In order to get white gold, you must alloy the gold with either nickel or palladium first.  And then you get to rhodium plate it.  It's a hassle.  It's great metal, very sturdy indeed, but a big hassle.

Enter palladium.  Palladium was one of the big stars at this year's JCK show in Las Vegas.  Its price point is somewhere between white gold and platinum (although its trading price about half of gold, demand is up, therefore price goes up), but with none of the hassles.  It is much less dense than platinum, to be sure, but just as tough in its cold state.  It will look like platinum, it simply won't weigh as much.

Yesterday I saw a men's size 15 (!) ring of palladium.  The same ring in platinum would've been double the price as it would have weighed nearly one ounce.  And what is the price of platinum per ounce today?  As of five minutes ago, an ounce of platinum was $1158.00 US.  Palladium was $299.00 US.  You do the math.  Of course, it's not straight math.  "Precious metal math" is about as confusing and demand-driven as "diamond math." 

A piece of jewelry forged of palladium will have the nearly identical white, white metal look of platinum, but it will cost far less.  It is very workable.  It is said that palladium can be pounded into thin leaves of metal just like gold.  Jewelers are finding multiple uses for it that were otherwise prohibitively expensive to render in platinum.

By the way, palladium is mined in Ethiopia, both North and South America, in the Ural Mountains, and in Australia.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this unique offering.  Although it has been used for years in jewelry-making, its time is now.

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

I happened upon an amazing resource late last night.

It's called the Colored Diamond Encyclopedia and it is a wonderful resource about natural colored diamonds.  The site is credited to Arthur Langerman of Antwerp, Belgium.

The Colored Diamond Encyclopedia site is well worth seeing, as its focus is natural colored diamonds.  It covers topics such as history, geography, famous natural colored diamonds, the science of colored diamonds, the current market for colored diamonds, a pricing guide (very helpful per carat retail estimates), quality grading, etc.

The geography page is great for finding out, on a world map, where diamonds are mined.  It also tells you what colors are found where and in what quantities.  Very comprehensive and informative.

The quality grading page is a very good tool.  Whereas colorless diamonds have the full scale of the four (or five, the fifth being Cost) Cs, the colored diamond quality scale is different.  It essentially illuminates how color is more valuable than any of the other Cs when grading colored diamonds.  A colored diamond is less like a diamond and more like a colored stone in this regard.  Color is everything!

There are wonderful photos as well.

When you load the front page of the site, it scrolls through nearly thirty natural colored diamonds, telling what each one's color is.  It is a complete and very thorough color charting and is really beautifully executed.

There are excellent photos of many famous natural colored diamonds, incuding the Pumpkin Diamond (at left), a 5.54 carat fancy vivid orange diamond, the largest and most valuable orange diamond in the world.

Its price?  Well, if it was for sale, it would fetch about $3 million.  It's the Great Pumpkin!

Enjoy!

(photo from the Colored Diamond Encyclopedia)

GIA To Offer Free Diamond Cut Grading Seminars Nationally

The Gemological Institute of America will be offering free diamond cut grading seminars in select cities nationwide.  GIA believes that its new diamond cut grading system is essential to the business of buying, selling and certificating diamonds throughout the industry.

Two years ago my mother and I attended a cut grading seminar at the AGTA Gem Fair in Tucson given by the GIA.  At that time, they had their grading system in place for round brilliant stones and were hoping to apply those standards to be included in all GIA Diamond Grading Reports and Diamond Dossiers.

As of January 1, 2006, all Reports and Dossiers for all round brilliant diamonds color grades D-to-Z and clarity grades IF-to-I3 include a cut grading assignation as well.  Reports and Dossiers issued before that date will not contain this information, though it may be added.

Further, diamond cut grading has been incorporated into the curriculum for the Graduate Gemologist degree.  In diamond cut grading, a student learns how to best grade for the cut of a diamond.  And as you know, the "C" for cut is truly the most important one.  The cut grade includes accounting for fire, brilliance, proportions, a separate grade for polish and symmetry, and also for pattern.

Working knowledge of the GIA's International Diamond Grading System is imperative.  The idea is to educate the industry, in order to educate the customer.

What will this mean?  If the consumer gets wise to the cut grade assigned a diamond, the consumer will know which diamond is the better diamond.  Cut is, above all, most important, and sloppily cut goods or goods cut for size and not brilliance will lose points and may not move so fast in the market anymore.  Customers will demand finer goods.  They will want a cut above, so to speak.

So while this may just seem like an industry-specific topic only on its surface, it's not.  It has far-reaching implications for the consumer.  I don't know about the rest of the people in the jewelry business, but we like our customers to be knowledgeable.  A smart consumer makes a smart purchase, one with which they will be pleased.

For more information on Diamond Cut Grading and dates and locations for seminars, see GIA's site.

So You Want Something... Green For St. Patrick's Day?

Here are some suggestions for getting your green on this St. Patrick's Day.

Forget about the rancid green beer, the boiled corned beef, the cabbage and the mash.

And some blotto guy named Sully O'Sullivan and his blotto girlfriend Patty O'Furniture chundering said rancid green beer, boiled corned beef, cabbage and mash on the bumper of your car.

Put the car in gear and run over their stupid hats and noisemakers, and celebrate with something that won't give you a hangover or add to your waistline.

All of these stones have unique green hues.  The best way to see what something looks like is to hop over to Google images and type in the name and hit the search button.

I'll put a star(s) by my favorites...  let me know what your favorites are.

Green Diamond  ********
Green Sapphire  *
Green Beryl (Emerald)  *
Green Tourmaline  *
Mint Green Tourmaline  ********
Chrome Tourmaline
Watermelon Tourmaline
Unheated Aquamarine  *
Tsavorite Garnet  *
Merelani Mint Grossular Garnet  *
Green Grossular Garnet
Demantoid Garnet  *
Color-Change Garnet
Green South Seas Pearls  ********
Alexandrite
Green Amethyst
Teal Zircon
Green Zircon  *
Green Topaz
Peridot  *
Aventurine  *
Chrome Diopside  *
Green Chalcedony  *
Chrysoprase  *
Uvarovite Drusy
Opal
Ammolite
Malachite
Jade  *
Ruby-in-Zoiscite
Gaspeite
Azurite-Malachite
Jadeite
Variscite
Moldavite
Moss Agate
Jasper
Bloodstone

The Price of Gold

If you're wondering why it seems like the price of jewelry is steeper in recent months, consider the high price of gold and other precious metals.  As other markets continue to seem unstable, gold is steadily rising.

You can check the price of gold daily, and also learn what factors contribute to rising gold prices and thwarted attempts at stabilization.  Today gold closed at $547.10 (USD) per ounce.

Also, you may find this site interesting.  Gold mining can be a toxic process.  In the interest of attracting more Earth-conscious and "green" buyers, some of the big boys (Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier amongst others) are pledging their support to only do business with "clean" gold mines.

Interesting, no?

Carat? Karat? Which Is Which?

Let's see.  You are buying a one carat diamond set in 18-karat gold.

"Huh?" you might say.  "Is that a typo?  You'd think at this price they could run the spellcheck."

So what is the difference between a carat and a karat?  Aren't they the same thing?  Why are they spelled differently?

CARAT - as weight

The carat, spelled with a "c," is a unit of mass used for weighing gems.  It is equal to 200 milligrams.  The word carat is derived from the Greek word keration, meaning "fruit of the carob," and went through Arabic and Italian permutations before it reached its final spelling.  Because of their uniform size, carob seeds were used as weights on precision scales.  Long ago, many different countries had their own carat weight unit, which was roughly equivalent to a carob seed.

At one point the carat was roughly the weight of the grain in the Troy pound system of measurement, under which the standard was close to 205 milligrams.  Countries employing the metric system used this measurement despite its limited range.  Finally, in 1907, the metric carat of 200 milligrams was established, and is universally used today.

The carat can be divided into points.  There are 100 points to a carat, therefore a half-carat stone (0.50ct) can be called a "fifty pointer," a tenth of a carat stone (0.10ct) can be called a "ten pointer," and so on.  Even tiny stones weighing less than a point (<0.01ct) are commonly used in intricate pave work.  A stone called a "half pointer" (0.005ct) or a "quarter pointer" (0.0025ct), if fully cut with 58 facets and in a good color, can add a lot of flash to a piece of pave jewelry.

Further, when dealing with strictly diamonds, a paragon is a diamond weighing 100 carats or more, and is therefore 20,000 milligrams or 20 grams.  In other words, a paragon is a big sucker.

KARAT - as purity

The karat, spelled with a "k," is a measure of the purity of gold and platinum alloys.  If you have 24-karat gold, you have very nearly pure gold, about 99.99% pure.  If you have 12-karat gold, it is only 50% pure, and so on.  Therefore, if you have 1-karat gold, you have material that is one twenty-fourth (1/24) purity by weight.

In the US and Canada, the karat system is the established measurement of purity.  Internationally, however, the karat system is complemented (and in some cases superseded) by the millesimal fineness system.  This system measures the purity of precious metals by parts per thousand of pure metal in the alloy.

For example, 24-karat gold has a millesimal fineness of 999 and 14-karat gold has a millesimal fineness of 585.  Whereas in the past you might find a stamp inside the shank of a ring that said "18K," you are more likely now to see the numbers "750" instead.

Knowledge is power.  Good luck!