Blogging Course

A friend of mine from whom I have taken some meaningful courses has just decided to write a blogging course and is offering free copies of it to those of us who post about it on our blogs.

Since it is obvious that I need help with my blog I am going to share this information with you.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Seems pretty cool to me, so here it is, and I hope you enjoy it.

Wink

How to Tell Quality Jewelry from Cheap Imitations Chapter 5

Milgrain

Milgrain should be straight and even, not wavy and uneven. Here is a picture of what it should look like.



Bezels

Bezels are generally pretty easy to judge. They should be smooth and not wavy. They are sometimes hard to photograph well due to the reflections and the way that the light plays over them. What looks like a small burble at 2 o’clock is actually where the reflection of the ceiling light stops.




Conclusion

We have looked at many quality issues in this report, how to judge the weight and heft of a ring, the finish, the prongs and their many issues, what makes a quality channel set, bezels and milgrain.

Obviously there is more. It is important to the long term satisfaction of a piece that you take the time to inspect your purchase and ask questions. Oftentimes jewelry is purchased with a first impression, heart reaction. To enjoy your jewelry for years to come and see it as a treasure for a lifetime, take the time to carefully inspect it prior to purchase with these things in mind. You will be far ahead of the average shopper in determining if the jewelry you are looking at is of high or low quality. If you find problems, give the jeweler or manufacturer the opportunity to make it right. Remember, mistakes do happen and many can be repaired easily if being done by someone used to dealing in quality. However, a poorly made piece is something no quality bench or reputable jeweler wants to revisit. Be an alert, discriminating shopper.

Enjoy your shopping.

Wink Jones

How to Tell Quality Jewelry from Cheap Imitations Chapter 4

Channels

Channels should be even, with straight lines and nice crisp corners. There should be no waviness to the line of the channel. The stones should be close to one another, but not actually touching girdle to girdle unless they are square or rectangular cut. Round diamonds that are actually touching are a recipe for chipping at the contact points. They should look to the eye as if they are very close to one another or even like they are touching, but they should not actually be touching. A big problem when one stone is jammed slightly overlapping another is this requires tilting one or both stones and is very likely to result in chipping of one or both stones with wear.


Good channel work







In the above pictures notice the straight sharp edges of the channel, the slight gap between the round cut diamonds and the absence of a gap between the princess cut diamonds.

If you look closely you can also see the sharp square corners at the bottom of the channel in the ring with the princess cut diamonds.

In the pictures on the next page you will see some rings that were NOT as nicely done.







Poor Channel Work:











And the UGLY!

The following ring was incredibly poorly done. This ring ended up being completely remade by a different craftsman. This ring is a perfect example of all the “little” things that can go wrong with a good design. It is important to ask a jeweler about their system of quality control. This ring was actually delivered to a customer. It came from a source indifferent about quality control both from the bench that made it and the jeweler who sold it to the client who brought it in to us for appraisal.



Next is one of the worst rings I have ever seen. We had a bench that wanted to do some work for us, so they sent us this piece. Needless to say, they never did any work for us.

It does not pertain to channel setting, but it is a “Perfect Storm” of monumental screw-ups that are worthy of being seen just for the “knowledge” that this “stuff” is out there.



Just to aid your recognition. The problems of this ring start with the entire shank being wavy and not straight; the bead set diamonds are not set evenly; the center stone is set crookedly from the top and at a tilt from the side; they used a round head for the square stone, letting the head be visible from the top; and it has the ever present porosity and poor finish that is often seen on lower quality rings.

How to Tell Quality Jewelry from Cheap Imitations Chapter 3

Prongs

Prongs are another thing to check. They may be difficult to see in photos. It is something worth looking at up close, either at the store or when you receive your ring. You may want to invest in an inexpensive loupe to look at prongs, or if at a store, use theirs. (By the way, any store that will not let you use their loupe is probably a good store to leave.)

You want to look for several things when looking at prongs. One, they should be nice and thick in proportion to the stone that they are holding. The prongs need to be properly cut to provide a good seat for the stone. That is to say, they should nestle up to the stone without large gaps. The seat must not be too big or too small, and the cut must not extend too far into the prong, or the whole tip of the prong is at risk for popping off and allowing the stone to go free. Here is a picture that depicts both proper and improper seating.




Check too to ascertain that the stone is actually set straight. Hold the ring perpendicular to the girdle of the stone and look to see that the stone is level with the ring from both front and side angles. While a small variance may be acceptable because stones are set by hand not a laser guided machine, a large variance is not acceptable. Look for side view photos whenever possible.

Here is an example of a difficult setting job - three stones, each needing to be set at a different angle, by hand. While the visual look is perfect, it is possible to see a slight variance on the angle of the two outside stones. This variance was deemed acceptable to all concerned as the visual affect of the ring is stunning.










Lastly, prongs should sit flush with the top of the stone, without leaving a gap to catch hair or snag fine knits and silk items. This ring was sent back to the bench for repair. Mistakes are going to be part of the fact of every day life. Catching those mistakes and making prompt repair is an indicator of the mark of a good jeweler. We do our best to catch and fix any mistakes and take our bench to task when necessary. Jewelers who ignore or deny their mistakes or are unwilling to repair them may be someone you would be best off not using.

How to Tell Quality Jewelry from Cheap Imitations Chapter 2

Finish

Finish is another of those things that you can look for. Here is an actual picture taken from a website of one of the rings offered for sale.



As you can see even in the photo, there are many defects that can be seen in the finish. As long as the web site is using real photos of their rings, you may be able to disqualify many of the rings from their photos. Many sellers mislead potential customers by using “stock photos.” These can be pictures of similar designs done by other manufacturers, or themselves but with larger stones or better craftsmanship than the piece being offered for sale. Unscrupulous vendors may also use CAD or computer generated images as stock photos. These do not show the finish or craftsmanship because they are hypothetical drawings versus actual images of the finished jewelry.

Contrast this to the high polish and quality finish on the ring below. Both the outside and inside of the shank surfaces are polished so highly that you are seeing reflections of the lights and windows of the room that the picture was taken in.



No question here which ring was better quality, but also which offered the better value for your dollar.

How to Tell Quality Jewelry from Cheap Imitations Chapter 1

This is the text of a free report I will be offering in exchange for signing up for my newsletter on my sites http://www.winkjones.com/ and http://www.freecz.com/. I will share it with you on my blog chapter by chapter. It should be on my sites in a few days if you want to read the whole thing...

What to look for when buying fine Jewelry

This short guide is intended to be a resource for you to use when looking at jewelry, whether in a bricks and mortar store, or on the internet. It will help you to quickly separate the obviously bad from the good, but may not be sufficient to allow you to separate the good from the better and the better from the great. You may need the help of a professional appraiser to make those distinctions.

As a jeweler/appraiser I am constantly asked to look at something purchased elsewhere, and often must be the bearer of bad news. This report is the result of having to tell people far off often that it will cost more to repair their poorly made jewelry than it will to build another piece correctly.

I hope that armed with this report you will be able to make better informed decisions, before you spend any of your hard earned money.

Weight

One of the most obvious things to look for is the heft or apparent weight of the piece. Here is a typical offering from some of the home-shopping networks and their web sites:

Poorly manufactured, lightweight rings

Rings made by Designs by Vatche

Notice in the first picture how the shanks are hollowed out and that the prongs are thin. The pieces poorly made, will be light in weight and, in this case, they are a complete rip off of a popular design house, Designs by Vatche. Notice how much thicker the shank of the Vatche ring is, and that it is solid with a slight comfort fit curve to the inside of the shank. Notice how much thicker the prongs are, and how much better built they are. Even the cathedral portion of the shank, rising up to meet the diamond is much heavier and better formed. The Vatche ring not only has far superior quality but will wear better, be more comfortable on the finger and will withstand any future necessary repairs much better.

Vatche rings are designed to last, versus the short term wear you’ll get from light weight imitations. They will cost more, but in my opinion, if you are looking for something wearable for more than a few months, the extra durability, comfort and life expectancy is actually the greater bargain.

Cutting matters!

Here is an interesting photo, taken by a friend of mine who has graciously sent me a high resolution copy along with permission to size it for use on my blog and websites.




It is an excellent visual representation of what actually happens when light enters a poorly cut diamond like the one on the left, and what happens when light enters an extremely well cut diamond like the one on the right.


I know which one I want to own. Which one do you like? REMEMBER, your fingers can not sense or enjoy the light leaking out the bottom of the poorly cut stone. Neither can your eyes!

Wink

Intricasies and risks of diamond cutting

I received this from my cutter the other day. It has since been published as an article on Pricescope. Since I ended up buying a large part of this parcel I though you would enjoy knowing about how these bargains came to be.

The intricacies and risks of diamond-cutting

This is the story of a parcel of rough diamonds, which we bought in February.

1. The beginning – assessing the value of rough

This February, we were offered a very nice parcel of Botswanan rough. The size of the stones ranged from 2.60 up to 4.60 Carats, 42 stones in total. With most of the stones being makeables, thus returning only one polished stone, we were looking at the possibility of cutting about 42 stones with a finished weight between 0.70 and 1.75 Cts.

The color of the stones was very hard to estimate, since the rough seemed to have a lot of colors in the surface. Talking to other cutters, we learned that this is normal with rough from Botswana. However, we tried to estimate the exact color of the stones. If we would give a D color the value of 1, E the value of 2, and so on, up to J the value of 7, we estimated an average color of this parcel of 4.58, or an average of G-H in color.

These stones also contained a lot of naat, and inclusions, which were difficult to judge, and we estimated the average clarity of the parcel as SI1. Figure-wise, with IF being 1, VVS1 being 2, and so on, we thus estimated this parcel at an average clarity of 6.

Quickly estimating the weight of each finished stone gave us a final estimated weight of 47.90 Carats, thus a yield of 34.65% from the rough.

2. The decision – to buy or not to buy

On the basis of the above estimation of the outcome, we calculated the final value of the polished, and compared it to our cost. Seeing that we would end up with a lot of stones with a highly desirable color-clarity-combination, and that we foresaw a profit of 15% on this parcel, we gladly bought the parcel.

The decision was quickly made: we had to buy this parcel.

3. The result of cutting

After cutting the stones, we always estimate the stones ourselves before shipping them to AGS. These were the results.

In weight, we ended up with a total finished weight of 48.94 Carats, thus a yield of 35.40%, which was a tad higher than the expected 34.65%.

In color, we estimated the final color (in our figure-system) at 4.53. We had estimated a color of 4.58. Roughly, we could say that we ended up exactly with the average G-H-color, which we had predicted.

In clarity, we had predicted a clarity of 6, which stood for SI1 in our system. After cutting, we estimated the final clarity at 6.21, thus a little lower than SI1.

All in all, we were very happy with the outcome, although the slightly lower clarity already lowered the $-outcome of our parcel by 6%. Still, we did consider this a good buy, especially since we are very comfortable with our estimates before sending to AGS, and we generally get the same results on our grading reports.

4. The final grading of AGS

To our astonishment, the grading of AGS seemed to have become a tad stricter than we were used to in the past. These were our results.

In color, in stead of the predicted color of 4.53, we received an average grade of 5.12, thus an average of H in stead of G-H. Generally, we have the experience that AGS gives a slightly better color-grade than our estimate, and this difference is very surprising to us.

In clarity, we predicted a clarity of 6.21, and AGS graded the parcel at an average grade of 6.58. Normally, we are used to AGS grading clarity slightly stricter than our prediction, thus this does not surprise us at all.

However, where we generally get a somewhat stricter grade on clarity, and a slightly better grade on color, we now got a stricter grade on both.

When looking at this dollar-wise, the picture becomes problematic. Before sending the stones to AGS, we estimated our return to be 94% of our original prediction. With the resulting AGS-grades, our return now is only 83% of our original prediction.

We had estimated to turn a profit of 15% on this parcel. Now, it turns out to be a loss of 5%.

5. Conclusion

It is frightening to see how a slight error in the estimation of rough can make such a big difference in dollars.

Now, this is not something to mourn too much about, since sometimes estimates can be incorrect in the other direction too, and this would lead to unexpected profits.

And, the good thing is, that we now do have a number of very interesting stones available, in highly desirable colors and clarities, and these should be very easy to sell.

I have many of these stones, from .93cts to 1.56cts and they are all of them incredibly beautiful and great values in hard to find sizes. We will be sending the list out to our email newsletter clients and putting the list on our site in the next few days. If you are looking for diamond in these sizes that is affordable, you will want to call us at 1 800 524-7904 in the near future!

Wink

P.S. Look at the incredible dispersion in the the 1.56ct shown above. One of the things I love about Paul's stones is the fantastic dispersion.

I lost a Dear Friend today

I know that this is not jewelry related, but it is Wink related and I feel like sharing.

I had to put down my old black lab, Flusher, this morning. I have known for months that our last hunting season was going to be the last for us. He was fourteen or so years old, which is pretty old for a lab and although we walk him a couple of miles or so every day he has been slowing down more and more.

Last year when coming out of the cattails with a duck you would have thought a train was coming through, his breathing was so loud. Still, he taught the new pup how to find a bird that went down in the thick brush, which might have taken her another year or two to figure out by herself.

My wife always worried that he would die in the swamp where we hunt, I always secretly wished he would so I could just bury him there where he spent the happiest hours of his life. Alas, it was not to be. This morning he could not even walk all the way back to his pen to eat breakfast after his walk and my wife called to tell me it was time.

I left work, came home to find him again ambulatory, threw the bumper for him a few more times. He would hustle to it in his awkward semi-rigid hobbling gate, winded after even the five yard tosses I made, stand over it for ten to twenty seconds then pick it up and slowly walk back to me with his last retrieves.

This once proud and commanding speciman of all that is good about a labrador was all done on this plane and I shall miss him. I have many wonderful memories though.

One year for Thanksgiving I went alone with him to the swamp where we sat and waited paitently for hours for a duck or two to come by. Nothing. Nada. Suddenly he stood up and looked behind me. A lone mallard had set its wings and was coming in. It was the only duck we saw all day, and without Flusher I would not have seen it until long too late.

Another year we were sitting quietly with my wife and a friend looking out in front of us to a beautiful empty blue sky. He started looking around, first one direction, then another, and acting very strange. At first we saw nothing, then a few specks here and another few there and suddenly the sky was full of thousands of ducks, two, maybe three or even four thousand ducks decending towards the large swamp that we were in. As they came lower and lower the sound of their feathers whistling in the wind became first a distant whisper then an almost tumultous vocal singing. The song would change, raising and falling in tempo and in sound depending on whether they were decending, turning, circling for one more look, or raising to look here and there over the swamp for that perfect landing place. Birds were landing all around us, and eventually on us. Swoosh, near silence, shish, sigh, swoosh, swoosh, sigh, splish as they finally settled into the water in a short skid to sitting from flying.

When the birds took flight and dissapeared we sat and talked long after the retrieves were made about what an incredible experience it was to have seen so many birds all at one time and in one place. What an exciting moment, and what a treasure that I have this memory of my friend to warm my heart as I think of him now that he is gone...

Winkie don't do that!

Just got a phone call from Fedex.

Our client in (country name deleted) had us send him a new Vatche ring. Told Fedex that there should be no customs since it was a repair, not a new ring. Fedex called us to verify.

Dang Dude! I am not going to risk fines, bad publicity and possibly jail time to help you not pay your fair taxes.

Wish I could say it was the first time such a thing had happened, or that I thought it would be the last, but if I would lie to your government, why would you think I would not lie to you?

There are a lot of things Winkie don't do, helping anyone cheat the government of their city, state, or country are three of them.

Wink, who likes to sleep nights