Mardon Jewelers at the Mission Inn

We'd like to thank all of you who voted Mardon the Best Jeweler in Riverside for the second year in a row! Your support and patronage makes our work most enjoyable and enriches our lives in many ways.

Look for the Press Enterprise Reader's Choice magazine in the Thursday, November 11 issue.

We like to think of our shop as small but mighty! We focus on the things you just can't get at the big mall type stores and we try to provide quality, value and service second to none.

As always, we are constantly creating new designs– check out the latest addition to our famous Raincross Collection, our fabulous Technicolor Raincross earrings!

We added a special selection of gems to the pack train that visits the villages around Katmandu, Nepal– the incredible silver and gold smiths of the region will set them into unique new handmade pieces for our stock. With beautiful gemstone rings starting at only $75, the affordable jewels of Shangri-La have been a big hit this year, and are sure to find their way into gift boxes and stockings this Christmas.

In the coming year, look for exciting new creations that we'll design with our new digital stereolithography system.

Technicolor Raincross Set

They’re here! Our dazzling and very popular Technicolor Raincross Pendant in now joined by matching earrings! As with the original, these are high quality champleve enamel fired on fine (pure) silver by Magick!

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Enameled Art Nouveau Sweet Pea Pin

Every now and then, we see something that really excites us. Today, while working with a client on her new custom ring, we were discussing what to do with some pieces of jewelry that she doesn't use anymore.

We buy cast off and damaged jewelry to recycle, as well as consigning resalable pieces. As a big fan of all things Art Nouveau, my heart skipped a beat when she laid this enameled Sweet Pea pin in front of me and asked about consigning it.

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Daughter Jenny Sweaney and I are attending a 2 day ArtCam User Group session in Las Vegas. We will be getting the latest info on our CAD technology– ArtCam released the 2010 version of JewelSmith in August, so we’ll get a chance to discuss the new features and troubleshoot with crack DelCam staff– DelCam is the British parent company that created ArtCam.

The user groups are always fun and interesting because we get to meet a wide range of folks using CAD technology– last time, we met a woman from Seattle whose business is cake decorating. She uses ArtCam to create custom molds to form colored sugar decorations used by professional cake decorators and bakers!

Currently, we at Mardon use a CNC machine to create many of our custom pieces. CNC means Computer Numeric Control, a fancy way to describe the small mill/lathe we use to carve the wax models which we then cast by the lost wax method.

Mardon is in the process of acquiring another state-of-the-art technology for the creation of jewelery, a digital rapid prototype machine. This technology uses a blue ray laser to solidify resin compounds into models suitable for lost wax casting.

I find it fascinating that we are combining the very latest “space age” technology with an ancient technique developed in several cultures independently- evidence shows this technique of metal working in Indian as early as 5th century AD, and in the Pre-Columbian cultures of Central and South America.

Our use of these technologies, both old and new, allows us to create almost anything you can dream of– don’t wait any longer for the jewelry you’ve always wanted.

8.65 ct. cuprian elbaite tourmaline, before heat treatment

This tale of woe illustrates some of the risks and challenges we jewelers face in our fascinating business.

Last year, I had seen this lovely and large reddish purple tourmaline several times. Gem dealer Jack had tried mightily to tempt me with it, an unheated stone from the country of Mozambique in East Africa, an area that is producing controversial vivid blue and green tourmaline gems.

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Our old friend and former colleague at GIA, Gary Roskin, has published an absolutely fascinating account of a major event at the pinnacle of the gem world. Under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institute, the most famous of all gems, the Hope Diamond, was brought together for the first time with the Wittelsbach Blue, now known as the Wittelsbach-Graff diamond, for the purpose of research and comparison. Part 1 is featured in Gary’s “The Roskin Gem News Report” at this URL, http://www.roskingemnews.com/Master_Page/Diamonds.aspx. Gary promises more to come in part 11. This is an outstanding read for those of you who love gems– don’t miss it!

We published a blog explaining some of the characteristics of blue diamonds in April 2009 when the 7.03 Cullinan Blue sold at auction for a world record price per carat for any gemstone, hammer price just under 10,000,000!

There's No Place Like Home

The desire and ability to exploit our environment and to utilize and improve the natural materials we find is rooted in our deepest past, and is in fact, part of the reason we are here today.

I was absolutely fascinated by an article in the August 2010 Scientific American, When the Sea Saved Humanity, that describes findings from an archaeological dig on the Horn of Africa. According to author Curtis W. Marean, his excavations in caves near Capetown show the presence of a small band of early humans during the Ice Age known as Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS6).  Somewhere between ~195,00 to ~123,000 years ago, because of the cold dry climate, early Homo sapiens on the mother continent of Africa suffered a severe population crash– the population plummeted from more than 10,000 to a few hundred breeding individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you who have contemplated, mulled, dawdled, or just plain procrastinated about buying something during our Annual Clearance Sale, be warned– The sale is over Saturday, August 14, 5:30 PM. Don’t miss your chance to buy our first line jewelry at bargain basement prices! Get your christmas shopping done in August and save bundles! You’ll find drastic reductions on colored stone and diamond jewelry, designer jewels, estate jewelry, and Mardon Originals. Sorry, Raincross Collection and custom orders are not on sale.

Look for fabulous values during our Famous Annual Sale, Tuesday, August 3 thru Saturday, August 14. You'll find great designer pieces, classic estate jewelry, and unique Mardon originals drastically marked down at true clearance prices up to 60% off.

5 ct. Ceylon sapphires

These two sapphires are both from the island of Sri Lanka, both are heat enhanced, both are from the same vendor, both weigh about the same.

5 ct. Ceylon sapphires, v2

Here's another photograph, same stones, same photographer (myself), same camera, same photo stage, similar macro lens, slightly different lighting. Can you guess which one costs more?

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