Mardon Jewelers at the Mission Inn

We completed a most beautiful engagement ring a while back but weren’t able to post this blog till now. It was one of the most challenging projects we’ve ever done!

Our clients Megan and Mike, big fans of antique and period jewelry, fell in love with a 1920’s Art Deco platinum ring in our estate department, set with a dazzling one carat Old European cut diamond. We showed them several loose period cut diamonds, but this particular stone had so much life and sparkle they decided to buy the piece, use the stone for her new ring, and save the mounting for later.

Megan had a general idea of what she wanted– the design had to be lacy and delicate, with triangle-shaped natural blue sapphires on each side of the center. We asked her for design suggestions– she searched the web and came in with about 10 pages of pictures of period rings, all of which had elements that she liked! So the challenge was to get her to focus on what she really wanted.

After consulting with her, we concentrated on floral and ivy patterns, lots of hand engraving, and of course, the diamond and the blue sapphires, to create this first design. Read the rest of this entry »

Art Deco Jadeite Necklace

We’ve been working on an insurance appraisal for this wonderful platinum necklace with diamonds and jadeite from the 1920’s and realized the piece has a lot to teach about grading and valuing jade.

Jade is not well understood by many folks. If I told you that jade can be one of the most expensive of all gemstones, you would probably be surprised– some pieces sell for well into six figures. Even jewelers who really know their way around the faceted stones have a hard time with jade, so we don’t often see really good jade like this necklace.

Jade is actually two different minerals.  Nephrite is the one we see in ancient chinese carvings and artifacts, while jadeite, discovered in Burma (Myanmar) in the early 1800’s, is the more valuable type used in jewelry.

The more vivid and translucent colors of jadeite, especially the emerald green known as “Imperial” or “Kingfisher” are highly sought after, especially in Asia and can sell for truly astounding prices. When we grade jade as a gemstone, we are usually talking about jadeite.

We grade quality in diamonds according to the 4 C’s.  When we grade quality in jadeite, besides grading the color as we do in other colored gemstones, we evaluate what I call “the 3 T’s”– translucence, texture, and tone.

Our Art Deco necklace is set with jadeite stones that blend well for color, but we can see different examples of the 3 T’s. Read the rest of this entry »

Robert M. Shipley, Courtesy of GIA Library

We thought this would be a great post the week before Father’s Day.

Often at Mardon Jewelers, we’re asked to perform an expert service by a client. Such was the case recently when we restored the ring that originally belonged to Robert M. Shipley, the founder of GIA.

Early in his career, Mr. Shipley realized that the lack of good information about gems was a real problem for the jewelry industry. Without a good base in the science of gems, many jewelers of the time perpetuated misinformation, like using the trade term “Smoky Topaz”– a misnomer for a different mineral entirely, Smoky Quartz, that we still hear even today.

Shipley studied gemology in Great Britain, graduating as the first American FGA,  and became a firm believer in education as the proper foundation for a jewelry business. Besides establishing GIA and writing his famous correspondence course on Gemology, Shipley also founded the American Gem Society, a professional organization of jewelers dedicated to fair and honest business practices plus gemological education for both the jewelry professional and the consumer.

His achievements became models for today’s many gemological courses, laboratories,  schools, and professional groups– Shipley was truly the father of the modern gemological movement.

This writer is privileged to have been educated in residence at GIA in 1976, to have worked professionally at GIA in both the Gem Trade Laboratory and the Jewelry Arts Progam, and to have known Mr. Shipley personally.

Robert M. Shipley ring, before restoration

We had seen and known of this ring for a number of years– it had been passed down thru the Shipley family from father to son and was in the possession of our client Ed Shipley, grandson of Robert M. Shipley. The ring, a classic 14K yellow and white gold gent’s ring by Jabel, an old line jewelry manufacturer, was set with 3 Old European cut diamonds. Though well matched for quality and size, the two outside stones were badly chipped after years of wear, and the settings were very worn. Read the rest of this entry »

Carved Fire Agates

A service we offer is finding rare gemstones. One of my “quests” at Tucson 2010 was for an unusual stone for a client who owns a stable of Tennessee Walking Horses. One of his horses is a World Grand Champion, so he was interested in a ring he could wear that would bring attention to his stable and horses and allow a bit of bragging as well.

My client had seen a horse-shoe ring with a center diamond carved in the shape of a horse head and thought that might be a good place to start. My idea was that we could do something truly outstanding and noteworthy by using a colored gemstone, so he agreed to give it a try.

We were able to locate these extraordinary carved horse heads of fire agate by master fire agate carver Joe Intili. These are “quarter size” stones, ideal for a large and dramatic man’s ring or an outstanding bolo tie.

The stone on the right actually has been named by its owner, Bob Beaudry— he calls it the “The Strawberry Roan.” Like other famous fire agates, this one certainly deserves a nickname. This museum quality gemstone is one-of-a-kind, absolutely unique and irreplaceable, 100% natural and untreated, and of course truly American– it was discovered at the mine on Slaughter Mountain, Arizona.

Even if the artist were to carve the exact same shape, the nature of fire agate means that no two stones are alike or even close! Notice Joe’s deft touch with the material– the eyes on these carved gems look right at you!

My client passed on the Strawberry Roan– turns out he is color blind and couldn’t really appreciate the beauty of these gems. I guess diamond with it’s sparkle and dancing light is a better choice for him.

Even if you are not in the market for an exotic and rare gem like this (and these days, many of us are not!), Mardon offers many unusual gifts for Dad, from affordable items from our famous Raincross Collection or the William Henry studio starting around $150, to unusual estate pieces, and outstanding custom designed creations. If Pop is a sentimental old softie, give him your portrait or a favorite picture in precious metal. Just don’t forget dear old Dad- he deserves your best!

Gympie Gold in Quartz in Mardon Ring

For a very special gift for Father’s Day or perhaps an anniversary, consider this striking one-of-a-kind man’s ring, set with a gorgeous gold in quartz gemstone from the Eldorado Mine in Gympie, Queensland, Australia.  You can easily see the dramatic eruption of pure gold in the white quartz matrix– simply stunning!

I picked this gem out at Tucson a while back from the booth of an affable Aussie– Aussie gem dealers are alway a hoot to work with– they have such joie de vivre and a good sense of fun– he had absolutely the best selection of gold in quartz that I had ever seen. The current activity in the gold market got me to thinking about the stone again, and finally, inspiration struck!

Good quality gold in quartz stones are very rare on the market today– it’s actual gold ore, where native veins and crystals of pure gold are present in white quartzite, so it usually gets processed for the metal.  The only way we see gold in quartz  gemstones is when the veining is rich and picturesque and the quartz in very white as well as being stable enough to fashioned into gems.

The Sierra Nevada mountains of California produced a lot of gold in quartz during the Gold Rush days of the Forty-Niners, but most of that material I have seen is less dramatic than this Gympie material.

We created the ring with our JewelSmith CAD/CAM system– I sketched out the design concept which daughter Jenny skillfully executed.  We particularly like the contrast between the matte finish and polished veins on the sides of the ring.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a gemological consultation for a young man who had purchased a diamond solitaire from a diamond merchant’s Ebay site.  He was able to win a diamond auction and wanted my opinion of the stone.

I looked over the stone first before asking him about the price paid, the representation, documentation, etc.  What I saw was a fairly well cut light yellow round diamond, about 1 5/8 ct, maybe M to P color, that was obviously glass filled. I told him about the glass filling, that before being treated, the stone would have graded I1 or I2, and that the color was very obviously light yellow. I said a retail price for the stone and ultra light weight gold solitaire should be about $3.000-3,500.

The stone was represented by the online seller as SI1 clarity, H color, and weighed a bit over 1.6 carats. No disclosure was made of the glass filling, and the grading cert (from a lab I never heard of) stated SI1 clarity, H color. He told me he had paid $3,000.

We discussed the glass filling, and I informed him that GIA and other established labs don’t clarity grade glass filled diamonds because there is no way to tell what the clarity (and value basis for the stone) was before treatment. I also warned him about some of the durability issues with glass filled diamonds. I told him that he got what he paid for, but certainly not the much higher quality SI1 H the stone was represented to be.

He said he was able to return the stone and would bring the replacement for me to verify.  Sure enough, he showed up yesterday with another solitaire– and sure enough, another 1.6 ct light yellow stone with easily eye-visible face up inclusion, complete with “GRA” grading certificate stating SI1 clarity, H color.

I tried to convey to him that he was again getting a stone that would retail for about $3,000, and that a 1.6 round diamond of SI1 clarity, H color should retail for over $10,000, since the current wholesale for a well cut stone of that size, color and clarity, with a GIA cert, is very close to $10,000.

He kept going back to the fact that he had “won” the Ebay auction and didn’t understand that no diamond dealer in his right mind would sell a $10,000 stone for $3,000, regardless of the circumstances.

Even though many other types of merchandise may be heavily discounted on the Internet, diamonds, gems, and precious metals are essentially commodities where prices stay within a narrow trading range set by a trader’s market. When the gold market is $1,100 per ounce, you may be able to buy it for $1,050, but you just can’t buy it for $300, and the same applies to diamonds and gems.

The other issue is that many consumers don’t know the difference between a diamond with a high quality grading document from an established laboratory like the Gemological Institute of America, the institution that invented the modern diamond grading system vs. a diamond with a piece of paper that looks very similar but is essentially just misrepresentation and nonsense.

Ebay site and online seller url available upon request

Shortly after the above episode, we were able to conclude a diamond purchase with one of our clients. They had purchased a beautiful “Naked Diamonds” engagement ring from us several years ago, but hadn’t been able to afford a center stone. Their budget initially was $4,000 but the ring really needed a one carat round, and a nicely cut white eye clean stone would be more like $5-6,000. We counseled them to buy quality, and settled on an SI1 G color target.

We worked with one of our better vendors who had 3 stones that fit the 5-6K budget– all 3 had GIA grading reports of SI1 clarity, with G, F, and E color to boot! When we received the gems, I noticed immediately that the G color stone had faint clouds throughout so that its face up appearance was somewhat dull.  Even though GIA graded it SI1, I personally would have graded the clarity as SI2 because of that fact, and decided not to show that stone to my client.

The 1.01 ct round, GIA graded SI1 F color with excellent cut grade, was our client’s perfect choice– good clarity, great color with a touch of blue flourescence, and excellent cutting, just a gorgeous diamond! Not only that, it has a one year warranty against loss from our vendor and it was the least expensive of the three– we sold it to our client for $5,360 + sales tax. We compared it with 22 similar diamonds available thru Blue Nile, the biggest Internet diamond retailer– the average price of their stones was $6,157.64, and our offering was less than the least expensive of the 22!

PDF of this search available on request

The moral of this story is that diamond grading is an expert field so work with an expert and don’t try to figure it out by yourself, that you shouldn’t buy a diamond solely by a certificate, and that your local jeweler can compete with the biggest diamond retailer on the internet. If you are shopping for a diamond, give us a try– we’ll apply our years of expertise to get you the best value for your dollar!

28.79 ct. Deer Creek Fire Agate in 18K Gold

My mission this year at Tucson included re-establishing some of my connections to the fire agate community– last year I finished this fire agate ring which has been drawing major compliments, so I figured it's time to try a few new pieces in our market.

Over my three decades in the gem business, it's been my good fortune to associate with many gem miners, traders, dealers, and aficionados who specialize in truly rare and unusual gems. In fact, I seek these folks out– I call them “The Brotherhood of the Stone.”

Often obsessed and infatuated with gems, in some cases fixated on one gem, sometimes to financial detriment, we are all bound together by our love of gems, but you don't qualify for the “Brotherhood” unless you're slightly crazy about them. To be of the “Brotherhood” doesn't mean you have to follow this particular gem, but one of my favorites/infatuations is the fire agate.

Fire agate is a rare form of cryptocrystalline quartz often characterized by a botryoidal formation (like clustered grapes), a rich brown or black body color, and thin iridescent films of other minerals which produce wondrous and mysterious colors within the agate. The best material comes from Arizona and northern Mexico. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Fall, we were contacted by a long time customer whose daughter had a real problem. Her daughter, Kirstyn, was engaged to be married September 2010. Kirstyn and fiance Alastair, a British citizen, were working in the Cayman Islands where they had a local jeweler make a custom engagement ring using her one carat family diamond.

Problem was, the ring was nothing at all like she wanted. She had asked for something delicate, naturalistic and flowing– the picture shows how her new ring was a completely different style, so she was very disappointed and upset. An engagement ring is very important to a young couple, especially the bride, because it symbolizes true love and commitment.

Wrong!

Kirstyn’s mother wanted advice as to what could be done– could the ring be remodeled? I told her that remodeling this particular ring would be difficult to carry off successfully because of it’s heavy construction and the way the small diamonds were set.  Our opinion in this case was that the best solution would be to start over.

Since KIrstyn and Alastair had already spent money on the first ring (more about this later), they were understandably concerned about the cost of a new one. Because of our experience doing custom jewelry for over 30 years and our use of state-of-the-art CAD/CAM technology, we knew we could make the ring she wanted at a price they could afford. With our upfront quote and commitment to make the ring the way she wanted, they decided to go ahead.

Read the rest of this entry »

Golden Fishes Adorn a Cuff Bracelet of Pure Gold

From an article by Nitin Kumar of Exotic India,  “The Golden Fishes symbol consists of two fishes, which usually appear standing vertically with heads turned inwards towards each other. The pair of fishes originated as an ancient pre-Buddhist symbol of the two sacred rivers of India, Ganga and Yumana.  Symbolically, these two rivers represent the lunar and solar channels, which originate in the nostrils and carry the alternating rhythms of breath or prana.

In Buddhism, the golden fishes symbolize happiness, as they have complete freedom in water. They represent fertility and abundance as they multiply very rapidly. Fish often swim in pairs and in China they represent conjugal unity and fidelity where a pair of fishes would often be given as a wedding present.”

Mardon is fortunate to be able to offer these very affordable handmade cuff bracelets from Nepal.  Read the rest of this entry »

Shangri-La is a romantic name that evokes a vision of a heavenly land where people live nearly immortal lives in total happiness. Our friend, Michael Schofield, discovered a jeweler's version of Shangri-La while visiting the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, nestled high in the Himalayas.

Guided by his interest in indigenous forms of art and jewelry, Michael was exploring some of the nearby mountain villages when he was fortunate to make the acquaintance of a family of traditional jewelers reputed to be the best in Nepal. He and the family soon established a working relationship — Michael would supply gems and metal, they would hand fabricate jewelry to his exacting specifications. Now Michael makes an annual pilgrimage by pack train to these remote workshops, delivering gems and precious metal, then picking up the year's jewelry production. We are fortunate to be able to bring these fabulous hand fabricated jewels to Mardon.

An especially welcome feature of these Shangri-La gemstone jewelry pieces is their very reasonable price. Amazingly, most of these silver rings sell for only $75, the pendants are usually $95 including chain, and the matching earrings are $125!

This jewelry is interesting and unique for many reasons. It is completely hand crafted using traditional techniques and designs that have evolved for centuries. In fact, Michael told me that when he first began working with these Nepalese craftsmen, they did not polish their jewelry, instead burnishing it by rubbing with smooth stones. Burnishing produces a rather satiny finish rather than a bright high polish– Michael thought their silver jewelry looked like it was made of aluminum. When he introduced them to more modern methods of polishing, the Nepalese were much amazed at the totally new look of their silver work!

An outstanding characteristic of our Shangri-La jewelry is the very precise and exacting craftsmanship. Many of the pieces are decorated with twisted wires and applied beads, like the granulated jewelry made famous by the ancient Etruscans. This photo shows how carefully the twisted wires and the graduated beads are applied– you can see all the decorative elements clearly with no excess solder clogging the design.

This result is possible because the craftsmen of Kathmandu use a blowpipe torch, a time honored method of soldering which produces a perfect flame. The blowpipe technique requires the craftsman to continuously exhale a stream of air thru the blowpipe into a kerosene flame, creating a very hot yet sharp flame. By carefully heating both base and applique to the perfect temperature, the artisans bond these tiny pieces of metal precisely together with a minimum of solder– all done miles high in the thin air of the Himalayas!

Mardon has about fifteen styles of Shangri-La gemstone jewelry available in silver, each design a set with matching ring, pendant, and earring. The matching earrings are made just like high end boutique jewelry, where each side is the reverse of the other so they look proper on the left and right side of the face! Interestingly, even though the silver jewelry is marked sterling silver– i.e. 92.5% silver, they are actually fine silver– 100% silver. Michael has his pieces marked sterling because people are more familiar with sterling than fine silver.

And, you can get any of these styles in your choice of the following gems– Amethyst, Garnet, Blue Topaz, Citrine, Opal triplet, Peridot, Moonstone, Black Onyx, Pearl, Black Pearl, Lapis Lazuli, & Turquoise– If we don't have it in stock, we'll get it for you!