Archive for January, 2010

A New Star– the Spessartine Garnets

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

As we mentioned in our recent blog, we're always excited to see the latest gem finds displayed at the upcoming Tucson gem shows. In recent decades Africa has been the biggest producer of wonderful new gemstones and gem materials. The heavily mineralized Great Rift valley along the eastern side of the continent was one of […]

A Quest for the Perfect Ruby-The Rest of the Story

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Relating to our recent post about our quest for an unheated Pigeon’s Blood ruby entitled “A Seinfeld Holiday, Episode 2” , we just received this very nice testimonial. “Jim, thank you for your hard work and dedication in finding the perfect engagement stone for my fiancĂ© – it has been a pleasure to do business […]

Tucson Gem Shows– Here We Come!

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Every year for the first two weeks in February, gem dealers and buyers from all over the world converge on the small desert city of Tucson, Arizona. The annual Tucson event has become the Mecca of colored stones, fossils and gem minerals where dealers display such sophisticated and extremely valuable gems like this matched suite […]

A Seinfeld Holiday, Episode 2

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

As promised, here’s a story that should get some chuckles– it’s an episode that turned out to be a long and winding road, so typical of the gemstone and jewelry business. Several months ago, I was contacted by a gentleman residing in London, England. He was impressed by my series of blogs about Pigeon’s Blood […]

Gold Parties Pay Cheap Prices for Gold

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

True Story- One of our local police officers stopped by early this week with this group of assorted gold items she owned and wanted to sell– jewelry she no longer wore, broken pieces, etc. We sat down, I examined her gold for karat content and weighed it up. Our offer for the lot that day […]

The Natural Colors of Garnet

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Yes, they are all garnets. The January birthstone is usually thought of as a dark red gemstone, but like the sapphire, garnet occurs in colors we don’t expect to see. In fact, garnets can be purple, red, orange, yellow, colorless or green, almost all the colors but true blue. There is even a garnet that […]

Member - American Gem Society Member - American Gem Trade Association Polygon - The Jewelers Information Highway Harmony Recycled Precious Metals Firemark Diamonds