Hints and tips 1

Wow! I didn't realise that it had been that long since I last posted!

I've decided to share a few hints and tips on occasion. Just little things I've picked up over the years. There will be no rhyme or reason to the order of them, but a friends need a little while back reminded me that not everyone knows this.

Improve you accuracy when testing the specific gravity of drilled beads with liquids:

Insert a needle through the drill hole of the bead, lower the needle and bead partially into the liquid and slide the bead off the end. This helps to avoid getting air bubbles in the drill hole and gives a better result.

Brushed finishes on metals made easy:

Satinising mops are very expensive and can leave an uneven finish unless they are the expensive "radial lap" type. For a cheaper, more reliable and easy alternative, buy a pack of nylon pan scourers. The green matting type. When these are dry they are very hard and sharp. Gently wipe across the surface in one direction in slow steady strokes to build up a brushed finish. Practice makes perfect with this. A jobbing jeweller I shared this with recently said it was a better finish than his polisher produces for a £20 charge!

Fitting a new screw in an old setting;

If you have to put a new shiny screw in an old clock, watch or even building, you can blacken it with relative ease. If you warm a little safety pickle or sulphuric acid (observing ALL the precautions as you should) and dip the head of the screw or bolt in it, it should start to fizz and go black. Take it out and rinse it thoroughly. Only immerse the head as this is a corrosive process and will affect the thread, causing binding. If this is for an outside use, you could also boil the parts up in water and oak bark pieces. The tannins colour the metal and also impart a rust inhibiting property.

That's all for this time.

Take care,

D

Brand Loyalty or Loyalty of Brands

Not my usual area but there are things afoot that I feel people should realise. Not a new thing, but its getting more silly.

If you whizz back in time to 50 years ago, there were very few jewellery and watch brands. The likes of Tiffany, Rolex and a few of their contemporaries stand out of course, but generally the shop was the brand and it stocked a variety of products from various manufacturers. Of course this has all changed now. Manufacturers, designers and importers have all become so "important" they feel the need to be a "Brand".

When Rolex first entered the UK market, early last century, they made watches for jewellers to sell (still do, but not in the same way). I have a watch supplied by a local, "small time" town jewellers that has been around since the 1860's with their name on the dial and a Rolex movement inside. Rolex provided watches for own branding as did Zenith, Omega and a few others. Omega for example was set up by a guy buying bits and pieces from farmers making parts and put a few together. I think it was about 30 years before Omega became Omega. Don't quote me on that as its tricky information to find out as they don't shout about it. Louis Vuitton a luggage manufacturer who now "makes" watches and jewellery.

Most brands are constantly reminding us of their history and heritage, but neglect to mention that they weren't always the powerful brand they are now. The UK trade is experiencing possibly its worst re-organisation of agents for brands that it has ever had, with many independent jewellery shops being abandoned by the companies that they have supported and nurtured from the beginnings through the bad times to their current success, only to be cast aside in favour of the shiny new shop, often a large national retailer with a high staff turnover and a worrying gap in their knowledge.

Just as an example. Where I work day to day, we stock a variety of brands, some of which we have supported from the beginning, some for longer than living memory and some fairly recently. If the range hasn't sold well, more effort has been made in promoting it and educating the customer about it. We ask advice from the supplier of how things could improve and generally "ride out the storm". I personally make it a mission of mine to try and have the answer for any query ready. I know the ins and outs of a particular brands watches that were made 70 years before I was born! And I'm not alone. Most people in an independent jewellers choose to be there as they are interested. This is a knowledge base that gets lost each time a brand adopts a fickle attitude to their agents.

I would like to end this with me asking for a big favour. Many brands use volume of sales and targets as criteria for closing an account and when one brand goes, it acts as a cascade for other brands to follow suit, harming the local jeweller you use when you need help. Many of my friends have been put in this situation. Wherever you are in the world, please don't be tempted by the Internet, the shiny new shop or buying abroad, help out your local jeweller if they have what you want. If its price, the taboo subject with branded goods, ask if they can get nearer to your budget.

Finally to the brands. Think about where you have come from and who helped you get there. Multiple jewellers don't tend to take a chance on something they go for tried and tested and where was it tested? Remember that. History and heritage? Keep agents going if you can. Its no good if your new agent turns something away as fake because they haven't seen and early piece of yours. It destroys your heritage.

Thats all,
Take care.

Its treated, naturally.

Gemstone treatments have been around for a very long time and, being a bit of a purist, I used to think that all treatments were evil things out to deceive. I think I'm slowly changing my mind, at least in part. If you know where you stand, what's the problem.

In November I attended a seminar in London by the "Masterchef of Gemstones", Ted Themelis. If you can heat a Ruby or Sapphire in a particular way to get a different effect, he'll know how. When I attended this seminar I knew we would be covering many aspects from the traditional treatments such as heating, which has been performed for centuries to lighten or darken colours, sometimes producing a different colour altogether, as well as remove some characteristics, through to the bang up to date, "add a bit of this and a bit of that" types, some of which can even start to alter what you would call a particular gemstone. I am really trying not to make this too heavy, but it is tricky.

In his seminar, Ted pointed out that not all treatments are bad as long as you know what you're dealing with. He's right of course. I was recently offered a collection of untreated rubies at  more affordable prices than those you see come up in auctions such as Sotheby's and such like. Most members of the public wouldn't have recognised them as Rubies. The colour was a subdued pinkish red, there were obvious black inclusions in the stones (you can't just scrap them if they have inclusions of this size due to the limited quantity of stronger colour material, untreated material) and they were cut in a way to maximise the weight as wasting this untreated material to get a more pleasing shape loses money. Compared to the heat treated Rubies I handle every day, they were awful.........but rarer.

To give an example. In an untreated Ruby, I could offer you a stone 4mm round with a very dark inclusion, almost black, on one side of a very pinkish red stone. I could also offer you an oval 5x7mm rich orangy red heat treated Ruby with a colour rich enough to hide all but the most dark inclusions. These two examples are the same price. In a shop window the two stones would look totally different and most people wouldn't recognise the untreated stone as a Ruby. I doubt that I could sell the round one.

We do get people coming in and asking for untreated stones because they are "as nature intended". If it was as nature intended we would being selling crystal that have been un-cut,  "as nature intended". Not that this would bother me as first and foremost, I am a mineralogist, and find the vast array of crystal forms and oddities fascinating and beautiful. Lets just pause on that thought,  "as nature intended", if this applied to everything in our lives, how boring would it be? Most fabrics are not brightly coloured and need dying. You would only be able to eat apples from late summer to winter and the prospect of no synthetic materials, plastics and things is just to scary for me to deal with!

Back to what Ted was talking about. Some treatments are a bit more scary. Diffusion treatments, where another substance of chemical is packed around gems and some of this chemically bonds with the gem altering its colour whilst being heated. Not so nice. A fair number of countries in the world are obliged to tell you of this treatment (disclosure) but not all. Surface or sub-surface diffusion produces a skin of intense colour that does not penetrate the whole stone (normally, see later). Think of a watermelon, red inside with a green skin. A yellow Sapphire could be colourless in the middle but a bright yellow "skin" covers the outside making it look yellow. I was told that this treatment can now go as deep as 2.5mm into the stone. On a 3mm round stone that means all the way through! Not a great treatment, but if you have a good looking colour that hasn't cost much and you know its treated wheres the harm? Just make sure if it gets scratched over time and needs re-polishing, the jewellers knows what it is as it will save a heart attack. You can just imagine someone polishing the stone and noticing the colour getting lighter and the colorless as the layer of treated stone gets ground away!

Really scary now. Flux or glass filled. Sometimes stones have cracks an fissures that need fixing. If you heat up a stone, Rubies are the most common to receive this, with certain chemicals, they melt a bit and start filling the cracks. The most common material used at the moment is a lead "glass" PbO lead oxide. To start with the stone can look great, but its short lived. Over time the glass will get eaffected by abrasion, chemicals and even lemon juice. If one of these goes in an ultrasonic cleaner that jewellers use after an hour it will degrade a lot, and this is cumulative six, ten minute blasts will have the same result. They are even now producing "composites" of Ruby and glass. Think of it as making a biscuit base for a cheesecake. Crushed or bits of biscuit (ruby) stuck together with butter (glass). Not good and should be very cheap.

Many countries in the world are obliged to tell you what something is, if its treated and how. Many countries don't, hence I spend a lot of my time breaking the bad news to people when they've bought things on holiday. Ted summed it up in one little example at the end of the seminar, which I've expanded on.

If you come into my shop looking for a Ruby I will tell you its weight, its heat treated its a natural (produced by nature) Ruby. £1000 is the asking price.

In many countries, they place a red stone in front of you and £1000 is the asking price. Is it treated? Whats the weight? Is it man made? And even. Is it a Ruby?

Nature does a great job, but we don't always appreciate it, hence treatments. This brings affordable stones to the masses, but the important thing is, knowing where you are. If its treated, pay a treated price and accept it.

P.S. If anyone has a few pictures I could use to liven this up, please get in touch.

Chin up and carry on.

A friend of mine, who reads this blog, was recently on the receiving end of an armed raid. He was and is quite badly affected by this. It improves but it doesn't get better. This is the first time I have spoken out about my experience of this type of crime and I hope it will provide a little support without the "rose tinted" "you'll be fine in a few weeks" speech.

My experience was over a decade ago and still affects me today. It was a normal morning at work, we were all putting the stock in the windows as usual and I was just thinking that the Rolex stock was looking healthier than usual. It seems that Rolex were releasing a little more stock than was their normal. It took about 20-25 minutes to display these watches nicely.

The morning proceeded as usual and I dealt with a few customers. I was in the middle of taking in a repair form an old lady in a wheel chair and her carer, when the door opened and what I thought was a "big bloke" rushed in. It was actually two men, one with a handgun. They started shouting and waving the gun around, more with abuse than instruction. Then it happened, I started moving forward to do as they asked. As I moved closer to the gunman he grabbed my arm and pressed the gun against my temple, taking me to unlock the window. I then had to lie on the floor as the other members of staff. My heart was pounding with rage, not fear as I would have thought, that came later.

It took them less than one and a half minutes to come in, clear the display, and leave. But that time is with me until the last breath I take. Some people reacted straight away, I didn't.

On my way home that night, well actually afternoon (there one upside to having a raid in the morning, we all got the afternoon off) I drove along a rural route with a 60mph speed limit. You would never ordinarily go above 40mph on that route as it's a very uneven and twisting road. I wanted to provoke a reaction as I hadn't had one, not a tear, I didn't shake or anything. I've had a guy hurling abuse at me, pointing a gun at me and pressing it against my temple and I haven't reacted. What's wrong with me? Is it shock? Should something happen by now? Nothing. To date I haven't had a reaction.

But this has affected me very deeply. I've always had a sense of paranoia being in the trade I'm in, but it has been heightened since this. I need a change of underwear if I see someone wearing a balaclava (ski mask for my American friends)! Guns I have no problem with as I grew up with them and treat them with respect. The worst bit, that affects me every day is a personal space issue. When someone steps the other side of the counter my heart skips a beat, but not in a good way. When people come in for a continental greeting (mwah mwah air kisses by the cheek) I panic. Even yesterday a customer was so pleased with what I had done for her, she gave me a hug and I stood there frozen to the spot. It must have been like hugging a frozen plank. I don't like physical contact and it takes a great deal of will power not to flinch, draw back or even run. This never was a problem until that day.

Maybe if I had some professional help things would be different. I think the most important thing to do is talk. If you come up against the occasional plonker that says "you've got to expect it in your job" either ignore them or say as I do " No. I expect to go to work add a little bit of something positive to someones life by saying yes we can fix it, or I've got just the thing you need, and go home in one piece". A scary statistic is that in the U.K. jewellery trade you are more likely to be confronted by a gun than the U.K. police! Even the Health and Safety Executive recognise this as a legitimate risk.

If it does happen, do as you're told, don't try and be a hero (or heroine), get help afterwards, even if you don't think you need it and most importantly, talk about it, to loved ones, family, friends and strangers. Talking will draw things out before they fester and turn into fears and problems. If you have thought about making an exit from the trade, think carefully. Think of the positive influence you've had on so many lives.

If you go you will be missed. You have been there from birth to marriage of many people and every special occasion inbetween.

Take care and chin up.
Damian