Gold Buyers

Food for thought:

    When the economy went bad about four years ago,  I was just moving into my new store here in The Olde Ridge Shopping Village (great timing).  I got a call from a lady named Allison who asked me who my refiner was and I told her I thought she must have the wrong number.  Around here when you think of refiners you think of Marcus Hook.  Well as it turned out after she told me about buying gold and why I needed a good and trusted refiner she actually saved my business, for about that time sales were taking a very big nose dive.  Buying  gold jewelry from customers who were trying to keep their heads above water was about the only business there was outside of repairs.

    Then came the "I buy gold" guys on every corner and every other commercial on TV.  Many of them  were less than reputable.  A recent article in a trade magazine said by far, the customer will find the best value selling their gold jewelry by going to their family jeweler.

    We tested the market.  I paid a customer $200.00 for a gold chain then asked my daughter to go try to sell it.  I won't say where she went but the first guy offered her $60.00.  She said she was spooked by the guy and the place.  She said no to the offer and the guy told her its just gold to me.

    The thing that I wonder about is when the gold slows to a stop and the "I Buy Gold" guys move on to their next racket who is going to put a battery in your watch, repair a broken bracelet or even SELL you something like a diamond engagement ring, who are you going to go to?

    At the same time sales went down, gold went up, and about the only window of opportunity left for your family jeweler to stay in business was to start buying back the jewelry that he had been selling for so long to you, your Mom and Dad and Grandparents.  In the case of my family, jewelers for the last 109 years.  As a result of this trend we have an excellent selection of estate gold jewelry with some magnificent pieces.  All of our silver jewelry is new and mostly rhodium plated so it won't tarnish for years.  And lastly we sell that department store jewelry to Allison.

    If you want to get the best value for your gold and silver sell it to me or to your favorite family jeweler.

                       



   

Flyers Fans Rejoice

Welcome back Simon Gagne !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Watch batteries

    A lady came into my store yesterday for a battery for her Tag Heuer watch.  She first asked me how much I charge.  I told her $6.  plus tax.  She gasped!  Her husband just sent his back to Tag for a battery and they were going to charge him $150.00.  He called Tag and told them not to do it.  He is going to bring it into me.  We don't make a lot of money doing watch batteries and they can be a pain.  I do like selling watches however and if you purchase your watch from us the batteries are free for the life of the watch.  We sell Bulova Accutron, Bulova and Bulova Caravelle.  You can find them in the Jewelry Collections section of our web site.

Ain't no princess to me

Welcome to my first blog and Happy Valentines Day.

    The first thing I would like to talk about is the very popular princess cut diamond.  In the last two decades these square cut diamonds have grown to be the second most popular shape next to the round.  Our early experience with these cuts was that many of them came into our store to be tightened in their mountings.  It turned out there was a good reason for this, that being, the setters were afraid that if they applied too much pressure on the corners of these cuts they would cleave or break off the the corners.  After seeing many, many cleaved corners, naturally we stopped doing the work of tightening these diamonds and further I made the decision not to sell them.
    My cutter of choice is the Mason Wolf Co. of Pittsburgh.  For years my father before me chose, Mason because of their specialty, the American Ideal Cut Diamond, a round diamond developed by a man named Tolkowsky that is said to have the greatest reflection, brilliance and fire of all round cuts and all other shapes, by far.  As luck would have it Bob Mason, owner of Mason Wolf had the same concerns as I about the princess and was one of the very first cutting companies to specialize in the square radiant diamond. The square radiant has the corners cut off making it an octagon and much more durable. In comparison I will let Mason Wolf's broceure do the talking.


                             Square Radiant                                      Princess cuts

faceting                  traditional                                              Inverted
                              (like round brilliant

table                       smaller-designed to accentuate                 large-minimizes crown dispersion
                              the crown

crown                     higher-plays active role in appearance       flat-minimal visual impact

pavillion                   depth similar to other fancy shapes          deep

corners                    beveled - cut                                          pointed

ease of setting           routine                                                  somewhat difficult

durability                  excellent                                                marginal


Just off the phone with Bob Mason.  He said substantial amount of work he does is to repair broken princesses.

Moral of the story:  Don't disappont your princess with a princess - make her RADIANT from Dan Doubet.