Platinum Ring with Tanzanite
We made this grand gent’s ring about 20 years ago, of platinum set with a stunning oval Tanzanite weighing 5.36 cts. It was interesting to see just how the platinum mounting and the Tanzanite were holding up– Our client Bill is a race-car driver by avocation, so we’re sure the piece got plenty of banging and bumping over the years. Read the rest of this entry »
Late Victorian Coral and Pearl Necklace
When we buy estate jewelry, some pieces need repair or restoration. The keys to a successful jewelry restoration are to use similar materials for replacements, to keep the original finish and patina intact, and to retain as much of the original design as possible
We just finished putting this lovely late Victorian “Swag” necklace back together–when we purchased it, the chains were in tatters, and several pearls were missing.
1.97 ct Irradiated Diamond, Fancy Vivid Yellow
We just appraised this beautiful bright yellow ~2 ct. round diamond for a client. She had inherited the stone, which was accompanied by an appraisal from a gemologist which described it as a “Canary Yellow” diamond, which implied but didn’t state specifically that the stone was natural-color. Our client said the diamond had originally been purchased at an estate sale for $1200, but this appraisal was for $43,000!
The antennae immediately went up! First, it’s very unusual to find round natural-color yellow diamonds of this size, especially in today’s market. Diamond cutters have discovered that the Radiant cut maximizes the intensity of color in yellow diamonds, so most of the large natural-color yellow diamonds you see nowadays are radiant cuts.
The clarity of the diamond was at least VS1, perhaps better.
And the color– very intense for a natural-color yellow and thus very rare.
The combination of round shape, high clarity, and bright yellow color meant that if the stone were natural-color, its appraised value would be well over $70,000! Our advice was to remove the stone from its mounting and send it to GIA for a full grading report to determine origin of color.
Royal Ring by Mardon
We’ve just completed this gorgeous sapphire and diamond ring, inspired by the engagement ring of Lady Diana and soon-to-be Lady Kate. This basic design, where a colored gemstone is surrounded by a circlet of diamonds, has been a favorite for centuries. Since everybody and their uncle has been doing versions of the ring, we might as well show off a well made quality piece by Mardon.
We studied the available photos of Lady Diana and Kate Middleton wearing the ring because we wanted to portray the Lady Di design as accurately as possible and get the exact structure and prong layout. It was challenging to keep the overall proportion and look of our ring similar, because we used a smaller sapphire– 3 ct vs the original 12. And where her stone is an oval, ours is similar but slightly different–the classic cushion antique shape often used for fine sapphires. Adjusting the stone sizes for the cluster surrounding the center, we were able get the same number of diamonds. We used a good match of VS quality diamonds, all recycled from estate jewelry!
You can see the gem report for the sapphire in our Gallery of Gems, I-17700. It’s a classic cushion shape, beautifully cut, eye clean, with a vivid velvety medium dark blue color. Although a Ceylon sapphire, the stone has a slightly sleepy appearance the softens its look, reminiscent of Kashmir sapphires. We think this stone is richer in color– the Lady Di sapphire seems bit dark, as you can see from the photos. We’ve surrounded it with over a carat of dazzling VS clarity diamonds of G to H color and set the gems in solid 14K white gold.
A Built Up Diamond
These days, we buy a lot of jewelry, used as well as new. Today, I worked with a young lady, a bit down on her luck and on the rebound from a relationship that didn’t work out. She was looking to sell her white gold solitaire ring that was set with the one carat round diamond graded on the cert above. After looking at her stone, I had to tell her that even though the stone had a GIA diamond grading report and the color and clarity were perfectly acceptable, I wasn’t interested in buying this particular diamond because of the poor cut.
This stone is what I call a “built-up” diamond, meaning that it weighs much more than it should for it’s apparent size. It’s important because although diamonds are sold for their beauty, they are always valued and priced by weight. In other words, this diamond looks like a diamond weighing only 9/10 of a carat but costs like a diamond over 1 carat. The consumer lost.
We follow the gold market pretty carefully these days since we buy gold on a daily basis. One of our resources is Kitco, a company that sells all forms of metals, and also offers daily market prices and other infomation and commentary about the metals market. Today’s posts at the Kitco website included this excellent article from the Montreal Gazette about how to go about selling gold.
We’ve published several blogs over the past couple of years offering similar information and advice about selling your gold, and it was good to see how well our blogs matched the information in this piece by a major newspaper.
We noted that the first tip is to work with a reputable company–we qualify. With our long history of service (since 1961) to our community, Mardon is known for fair and honest dealing.
We were glad to see that the second tip recommends consumer education. Our mission as members of the American Gem Society is to educate our clients. An example of this is our free gold value calculator and the blogs mentioned above.
If you have gold to sell, we suggest reading the complete article and the blogs noted (links above), and then come see us.
We buy gold by the daily market price– we’ll weigh the gold for you, determine the karat (gold content), and value it based on the total gold content. Bring all that you are looking to sell– since most of what we buy will be recycled, the more you sell us at one time, the better price we can offer because we can recycle it faster.
At Mardon, you’ll get 20% more value by exchanging your gold for store credit– a 20% bonus over the cash price. You can buy a new piece of jewelry, have us repair or appraise jewelry, or make a brand new custom piece. By exchanging the gold, you’ll get more value for your gold and you’ll get a better product– remelting old gold usually creates problems in the new piece.
We are always happy to weigh and value your gold, at no charge or obligation– and we are always looking for interesting heirloom and designer pieces. Items that can be resold just as they are have more value than simple gold content.
Give us a call or come by the shop– we’re open for business Tuesday thru Saturday, 10 am to 5:30 pm.
"Sliding"
It’s a real privilege to make gifts that have true significance in the lives of our clients. We made this gold pendant for our client as a special Christmas gift for his wife, a riding enthusiast who loves performing in the competitive sport of reining.
Sometimes described as a Western form of dressage, reining involves numerous maneuvers of precision and control, requiring complete communication between rider and horse. One of the more famous maneuvers is known as “sliding.” Read the rest of this entry »
Our beautiful Pink Star Pendant, of 14k white gold set with a 1/5 ct. round natural pink diamond, accented with 3/4 ct. tw. of white diamonds, is yours for just $2995– that's $46,155,679 US dollars less than the price paid for the 24.78 ct. emerald cut pink diamond that just sold at the Sotheby's November 16 auction in Geneva.
Custom Gold Dog-Tag Setting
Just in time for Veteran's Day, we completed this great looking setting for a dog-tag. Our client's husband rarely wears jewelry, but she heard him remark about a dog-tag he saw David Hasselhoff wearing on TV. She brought us his original dog-tag from his military service days and asked us to make a nice piece of jewelry that he would wear.
She loves jewelry herself, so it was easy to suggest things that would make the piece special and unique. She wanted diamonds on the piece, and we thought what better way to space the gems than with military style stars! A nice thin bezel, complimented with milgrain style beading along the edge completed the treatment.
Then we decided to add decoration to the back. Repeating our theme, we made reverse stars and beading– it worked beautifully. He had a heavy 4 mm rope chain, so a simple oval loop of 10 guage gold wire completed the piece. Read the rest of this entry »
24.78 Fancy Intense Pink Diamond
The gem auction world is all a-twitter over this outstanding emerald cut diamond to be offered at the upcoming Sotheby's Auction, beginning 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 is a sizzling hot 27,000,000–38,000,000! Wow!
For an affordable natural color pink diamond, consider this just-completed Mardon pendant, designed by Jim and Jenny Sweaney. We created this one-of-a-kind jewel with all re-cycled gold and recycled diamonds, including the .19 ct. center round, a very nice natural pink we discovered hidden in a flush setting of an estate ring we purchased. Read the rest of this entry »