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Category Archives: Precious Metals

Antique Jewelry Shows Fine Craftsmanship

This exquisite necklace from the Edwardian period, circa 1900-1915, exhibits the fine craftsmanship we associate with antique jewelry. The piece was made by fabricating and forming raw metals into the parts of the jewel. The main body and dangles began as thin sheets of platinum. The chain and bezels were made from hand-drawn wires and […]

A Three Graces Ring– Custom Jewelry is Challenging

We just delivered this beautiful 14K gold ring to a delighted customer. A new client, she had seen one of our custom ring samples over the Christmas holidays and had an idea– she loved cameos and had a particular affinity for the Three Graces of Greek and Roman mythology, the goddesses of beauty, creativity, and nature. Rather than […]

The Colors of Christmas in Gems

Every year for Christmas, we jewelers put our best foot forward, looking to make special pieces that will find their way into Santa’s sleigh. This year, I was able to find some spare hours to make these three special rings that feature one of the world’s most unique gemstones, the American Fire Agate.

Double Deco Delights

Recently, we’ve had the pleasure of working with some outstanding vintage Art Deco jewelry. We appraised this wonderful diamond and black onyx ring which features two large Old European cut diamonds, both approximately 1 3/4 cts, both eye clean, near colorless and well matched. Imagine some flapper gal dancing the night away in a Roaring […]

Let the Gold Rush Begin– $45 per gram for 14k gold

Last week, a young man, just graduated from dental school, came to the shop to sell us a small batch of casting gold leftover from his casting classes. We tested his gold as 14K, then weighed and valued it for him. He left the store to get his identification so we could make the transaction, […]

The Problems in Making Jewelry from Old Gold

Earlier this week, we delivered this nice 14K rose gold custom gent’s wedding band to a very happy client. It was made as a replacement for the original wedding ring belonging to her husband, to be presented at their upcoming anniversary. From what our client told us, two uncles had combined their gold jewelry, one […]

Fancy Pink Diamonds for the Holidays

The gem auction world is all a-twitter over this outstanding emerald cut diamond offered at the Sotheby’s Auction, November 16 in Geneva, Switzerland. Graded Fancy Intense Pink, the diamond is also unusually high in clarity, pronounced VVS2 by GIA. Described as pure pink with no secondary hues, the pre-auction estimate for this ultra-rare gem is […]

How Consumers Can Get a Fair Price for Their Gold

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 […]

Exquisite Japanese Metalwork

This wonderful panel, one of nine in a hinged link bracelet and less than one inch high, shows the superb craftsmanship and artistic vision of an unknown Japanese metalworker. We think the piece might be Meiji period or a little later-we’ve only seen this quality of work on samurai objects. After the Meiji Restoration, since […]

100% Recycled Gold

Mardon Jewelers has been an active gold recycler for many years.  Like many jewelers we purchase “old” gold from our clients and send it to our refiner for recycling.  See our Blog, Pharaoh’s Gold… We’re proud to announce our new relationship with the nation’s leading “green” refiner, Hoover & Strong, producers of 100% recycled precious […]