Last Fall, we were contacted by a long time customer whose daughter had a real problem. Her daughter, Kirstyn, was engaged to be married September 2010. Kirstyn and fiance Alastair, a British citizen, were working in the Cayman Islands where they had a local jeweler make a custom engagement ring using her one carat family […]
28.79 ct. Deer Creek Fire Agate in 18K Gold My mission this year at Tucson included re-establishing some of my connections to the fire agate community– last year I finished this fire agate ring which has been drawing major compliments, so I figured it’s time to try a few new pieces in our market. Over […]
Filed in Gemstones, Jewelry Industry Information, Jewelry Making
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Tagged Bob Beaudry, botryoidal formation, Deer Creek, fire agate, Guy Paul, Howard Imboden, Larry Grey, Ryszard and Lynn Krukowski, Safford, Slaughter Mountain
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Shangri-La is a romantic name that evokes a vision of a heavenly land where people live nearly immortal lives in total happiness. Our friend, Michael Schofield, discovered a jeweler’s version of Shangri-La while visiting the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, nestled high in the Himalayas. Guided by his interest in indigenous forms of art and jewelry, […]
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
It’s that wonderful week when the gem trade focuses on Tucson, the little desert city that could. For over 50 years now, our friends and colleagues in the colored stone business have been getting down to business in convention centers, under tents, in parking lots, and of course, hotel rooms. Merchants present everything from the […]
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Check out our blog for this post about gold buying, “Gold Parties Pay Cheap Prices for Gold”, where we present anecdotal evidence of what happens at gold parties. In our example, our client was offered $600 for the gold lot we would have willingly bought for $1000. In these hard times, that difference could have […]
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Yes, it’s that time of the year again. We retail jewelers all look forward to having a busy and profitable holiday season, but dread the long hours and hard work. Our open air walking mall was the perfect place for a kickoff party for the upcoming holidays. Lots of folks in the store, schmoozing and […]
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
We just finished this challenging ring in time for Veteran’s Day. 50 diamonds pave’d into white gold accent this rose gold ring that celebrates the Famous Flier’s Wall of the Mission Inn in Riverside. Follow the whole project on the Mardon Blog
Saturday, October 31, 2009
In our latest post to the Mardon blog, we discuss the classification/grading/description of the various play of color patterns in precious opal, focusing on the main pattern types, Pinfire, Flash, and Harlequin. Of course, a picture is worth a thousand words, so we show more than tell. Here are a few morsels, photos that we […]
Along with record prices for gold, we in the jewelry industry have had to contend of late with bad press about the bad gold buying practices of some in our industry– The Consumerist has run a series of articles blasting Cash4Gold, and Consumer Reports just published the results of tests they ran this last summer […]
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Don’t miss this photo gallery of $200,000 worth of opals from Mexico and Australia. ‘Nuf said!