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This thread has piqued my interest in possibly getting formal training, possibly using it to get into the jewelery industry someway. I'm doing research on schools and such, and I found this group which I'm curious about. http://www.schoolofgemology.com/ On one hand they are on the less expensive side (good for me, since funds are somewhat lacking). On the other hand, I know full well that you get what you pay for. They seem pretty legit, at least as far as using them as a springboard into further studies and a way to get some basic equipment. Anybody got any experience with them, or could recommend a better one?
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Oct 11, 2014 04:35
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I studied at http://ecoledegemmologie.com/ They give classes in both French and English. They offer their certificate from the school itself, but they also offer the GIA and, even better, the FGA courses and exams if you want to continue further with gemmology. I did the 2 year certificate and totally loved in, but since it is for pleasure rather than work I didn't do the FGA (which is like 10K) but some of the courses I took for my certificate will count towards it if I ever change my mind. They also offer the courses individually, so you could just take Gem 1 and the diamond grading workshop, for example. I really loved my classes and I love that I can still stay connected to gemmology because of having taken them, as I now have a ton of gem connections for when I want to buy things, I get invited to a bunch of sweet talks and events (including the big Tuscon trade show, gemmology field trips to Burma, Tanzania, etc.) and I have access to a fully stocked lab pretty much whenever I want to check something out. I am eventually going to go back and take the opal workshop one day. The guy who gives it is apparently this amazing character who moved to Australia to be with opals for like 15 years and has a bunch of crazy stories and gorgeous opals to show you. Everyone I have ever talked to who went to it can't shut up about how awesome it was.
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Oct 11, 2014 14:22
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Rorac posted:This thread has piqued my interest in possibly getting formal training, possibly using it to get into the jewelery industry someway. I'm doing research on schools and such, and I found this group which I'm curious about. Finish any of the industry programs and you'll be better educated than the average jeweler. I'm well acquainted with ISG and know Robert personally. It's a fine school. It's a distance learning program with a heavy emphasis on practical skills. I may be wrong, but I believe the curriculum is tailored towards identifying gems and their treatments. Which are very important practical skills to have if you're buying gems overseas or at trade shows. The GIA program has much better name recognition, but is more of a retailer's degree. Some GIA graduates are amazing and some can barely function. The Graduate Gemologist program is all what you make of it. The FGA program from Gem-A is considered to be the PhD of gemology. It garners more respect, is more difficult, and is more expensive than the other options. Their emphasis is scientific knowledge. I'd say they're a bit overkill for a retailer or general wholesaler, but specialists would definitely benefit from them.
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Oct 12, 2014 19:44
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Does the Crucible in the Bay Area have a goon discount? Looks like a sweet spot and my wife and I would love to learn to make some jewelry there. Or, you know, other places in the Bay area.
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Oct 14, 2014 06:05
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Shbobdb posted:Does the Crucible in the Bay Area have a goon discount? Looks like a sweet spot and my wife and I would love to learn to make some jewelry there. Or, you know, other places in the Bay area. I thought the Crucible was expensive for the Bay Area. I was looking at Silvera Jewelry School instead. Does anyone have any comments about these two jewelry schools?
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Oct 14, 2014 06:12
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To be clear, I'm looking more for a booj "making jewelry" class to take with my wife, not "training to be a professional" making jewelry class. I could see the Crucible being awesome for networking if you want to be professionally trained, but I'm looking more to pay a premium for someone who can put up with people who don't know what they are doing and are kind of OK with that.
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Oct 14, 2014 06:28
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I was digging through some photos and was reminded of one of my favorite rings today. It's a pinkish-red Rubelite Tourmaline from Nigera. 10 years ago a single 40 kilo crystal was found. One gigantic mass of gem material about the size of a window air conditioner. Just a stunning find, and when a crystal grows that large the center mass tends to have a very strong color concentration. So this material has a significantly higher quality than any other I've seen. I was able to buy the first five pieces from the collection. And of the five gems this five carat cushion is the finest one. 
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Oct 16, 2014 05:16
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You have the best eye for color, Johnny. Someday, after I win the lottery, I'm going to go on a shopping spree at your site.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:32
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JohnnyRnR posted:I was digging through some photos and was reminded of one of my favorite rings today. It's a pinkish-red Rubelite Tourmaline from Nigera. Oh myyyyyyyy 
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Oct 16, 2014 06:50
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Any idea if you can remove scratches from Vitalium?
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Oct 17, 2014 20:15
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Is there anywhere I can look for advice on buying an engagement ring? My life partner doesn't particularly like diamonds and wants something non-traditional. Edit: Oh hey, should've looked a bit further in the thread list. There's an engagement thread. I'll leave this here anyway. Darth Windu fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 19:19
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Red posted:Any idea if you can remove scratches from Vitalium? That's the problem with the more esoteric metals. Most jewelers won't have the proper setup to polish one without contaminating their precious metals polishing rig. It can be done, but you'll have to find someone that *wants* to do it.
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Oct 20, 2014 05:19
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Ahh, my wedding ring from Claes arrived.  He was fantastic to work with, really got me exactly what I wanted (and I was very picky and specific). White and Teal diamonds set in Palladium 95.  
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Oct 29, 2014 18:14
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Claes, you are The Business. That's so gorgeous! I love seeing talented people doing such beautiful work.
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Oct 30, 2014 02:30
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Rurutia posted:Ahh, my wedding ring from Claes arrived. Thank you so much! You were great to deal with, and I'm so happy you liked the ring.  errol _flynn posted:Claes, you are The Business. That's so gorgeous! I love seeing talented people doing such beautiful work. Awh shucks I had totally intended to open up another SA-mart custom jewellery shop this fall but got a wicked opportunity at a new store here in Vancouver. That being said when the dust has finally settled the SA-Mart shop will open again! And now I'll have more studio space to better accommodate peoples jewel needs!
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Oct 30, 2014 06:55
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My fiancé and I have been playing around with some simple jewelry making as we're planning on making our own wedding bands. She's keen to start experimenting with prong setting stones and I'd like to get her some tools and maybe a few stones (garnets and maybe some mossanite) to practice with. Do any of the jewelers here have any suggestions? Something you feel is absolutely essential or just makes things loads easier.
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Nov 14, 2014 11:10
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JohnnyRnR posted:I was digging through some photos and was reminded of one of my favorite rings today. It's a pinkish-red Rubelite Tourmaline from Nigera. It's funny to see that ring, because I got a cushion cut rubellite about 5 years ago (cut by Stephen Avery, I think) and set it in the exact same style. I went and looked in my old photos folder and I actually had a photo of the stone unmounted, which is pretty cool. It's on the dark side but I've always liked the cut and it's one of my favorite rings. Glad to see we have similar taste!  
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Nov 16, 2014 17:17
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Went shopping with my gf for an engagement ring. She fell in love with this setting from seeing it in a catalog. http://www.stuller.com/products/build/122003/?groupId=113553#/center-stone What sort of ballpark price should I be looking at for that (or similar) in white gold? What sort of price for a natural .9 carat ruby and diamonds? What sort of price for a good synthetic and CZ or whatever for the smaller stones?
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Nov 16, 2014 21:02
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BrainParasite posted:Went shopping with my gf for an engagement ring. The price will vary pretty widely depending on where you go and what sort of business practices they like to follow. I'll shoot you a PM.
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Nov 16, 2014 23:04
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Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I've recently gotten into gem faceting. Where would be a reliable place to get rough? The guy I'm learning from is old school and goes to gem shows but I can't really chase them around.
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Nov 16, 2014 23:07
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Loving Africa Chaps posted:My fiancé and I have been playing around with some simple jewelry making as we're planning on making our own wedding bands. She's keen to start experimenting with prong setting stones and I'd like to get her some tools and maybe a few stones (garnets and maybe some mossanite) to practice with. Congrats on entering the wonderful world of jewellery production Will she be getting the settings pre-made already? If she is, then a foredom flex-shaft, some gem setting burrs, and a magnifying headset would be very helpful. The added bonus of the flex-shaft is it can be used for polishing and finishing and grinding and a million other things to do with making sweet riiiiings (and other shiny things).Creating settings is another realm in itself. Most settings nowadays are cast, but people still do create high quality settings from wire. Some pliers are the start of that, but you really need a jewellers torch and all the things associated with soldering to put the wires together to make the settings. If you have any more info I will do my best to give more advice on starting equipment! Naerasa posted:It's funny to see that ring, because I got a cushion cut rubellite about 5 years ago (cut by Stephen Avery, I think) and set it in the exact same style. I went and looked in my old photos folder and I actually had a photo of the stone unmounted, which is pretty cool. It's on the dark side but I've always liked the cut and it's one of my favorite rings. Glad to see we have similar taste! It's a beauty all right! A nice simple and elegant setting for a very nice stone. Xun posted:Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I've recently gotten into gem faceting. Where would be a reliable place to get rough? The guy I'm learning from is old school and goes to gem shows but I can't really chase them around. I've been trying to figure this out too, and I'm still not sure. Some websites seem to have it but a lot of them look like they're straight out of the 90's. It will be pretty difficult I think to find any really high quality rough without the proper connections, but if I find a place with a steady supply of something to even practice on I'll let you know. Mostly it has just been meeting people who are faceters and say they have buckets of rough in their basement after years of collecting (like the guy teaching you and the one who taught me).
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Nov 16, 2014 23:31
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Xun posted:Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I've recently gotten into gem faceting. Where would be a reliable place to get rough? The guy I'm learning from is old school and goes to gem shows but I can't really chase them around. In the past I've purchased from https://neweragems.com/ They're nice because you can buy single pieces of better material. The things I bought from New Era were at good enough prices to make money on. It's exciting to buy rough, but don't get in over your head. Until you get more rough buying experience only buy single pieces or very small parcels. If you start cutting finished pieces over a carat keep me in mind. I'm always a buyer of new production goods. That is a beautiful stone. I like that color quite a bit. Looks like we have similar taste in settings! 
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Nov 19, 2014 17:22
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JohnnyRnR posted:In the past I've purchased from https://neweragems.com/ What have you done?! This IS really exciting rip my wallet
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Nov 20, 2014 21:26
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I don't cut myself, but I bought some rough and outsourced it to friends. I remember the larger pieces of rhodolite garnet from New Era gems were very nice. And they're one of the few places you can buy pre-selected sapphire rough from.
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Nov 21, 2014 01:15
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JohnnyRnR posted:In the past I've purchased from https://neweragems.com/ Thank youuuu!
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Nov 21, 2014 03:49
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This is a ring I just finished. Unfortunately it came in too close to the holiday so I don't have time to get it photographed properly. It's a three carat pink sapphire. The sapphire is from Madagascar. It's very pretty.
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Nov 21, 2014 17:51
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Is there a good way to distinguish real lapis from fake lapis? Also, is lead a concern in cheap silver-looking jewelry? I'm stuck in "can't afford the really nice stuff, but I worry the cheap, fake stuff will poison my kid" limbo and I don't know enough to know whether the stuff in the middle uses lower-grade stones or is just crap extra marked-up. I have champagne taste and a beer budget. 
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Nov 22, 2014 06:59
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Unlike most gems, Lapis Lazuli is actually a rock, meaning that it is composed of several minerals. It is blue and has white (calcite) or gold (pyrite) inclusions. It is completely opaque. There are a lot of imitations. Some tips: The most common confusion is with Sodalite, which has a more greyish-blue colour than lapis. It has no pyrite inclusions, often has white or brown veins, can be more translucent, and tends to have a more even texture than lapis' rough rock look. It is also waaay less expensive. If the blue colour is really even across the stone, and the white areas look more like light blue it is probably dyed, but this is a really common and acceptable treatment. If the white spots are actually grey and not white, and you have no pyrite inclusions, you are probably looking at dyed howlite or magnesite. If the stone looks translucent rather than completely opaque, you are probably looking at dyed jasper. Gilson lapis (man made) will be quite a bit lighter in your hand, and if it has pyrite in it, it will look too perfectly distributed. There is also reconstituted Lapis, which is when they grind a bunch of it into a powder, and then stick it back together. It would feel heavier in the hand, the colour very uniform, and have a glassy shine. I don't know if that is useful to you, but hopefully it can be! I can only speak to the gem stuff though, a jeweller will have to answer the lead question.
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Nov 22, 2014 14:30
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If you think the lapis is dyed, you can just put a little acetone swab across it. If it comes away blue, you know it's faked. No reason to settle - the real stuff is super cheap right now. Nickel's a bigger problem than lead overall (if you're allergic). Most of the problems have been in the really low-end stuff - if you go with Sterling you should be fine, and it isn't that expensive. Anyway, I feel like I pretty much *have* to plug my store now. We've got a lot of good jewelry in the $20-$30 dollar range. We should be putting up some lapis in the next week. https://www.etsy.com/shop/angryturtle Coupon code GOONS for 15% off.
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Nov 22, 2014 18:34
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Lapis is incredibly beautiful and is second only to meteorites in terms of "slightly unusual but still insanely cool" things I want as jewelery. My biggest issue with both of them is that I mostly wear earring studs, and it's hard to get studs that still look good and are identifiable without also being too big for my ears.
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Nov 22, 2014 18:50
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Tunicate posted:If you think the lapis is dyed, you can just put a little acetone swab across it. If it comes away blue, you know it's faked. No reason to settle - the real stuff is super cheap right now. Unfortunately nowadays in order to make the dye more durable, when lapis is dyed they then coat it with a thin layer of plastic afterwards, rendering the acetone test useless.
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Nov 22, 2014 19:59
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Zratha posted:Unfortunately nowadays in order to make the dye more durable, when lapis is dyed they then coat it with a thin layer of plastic afterwards, rendering the acetone test useless. There are ready ways to detect that as well. Hot pin (like you use with amber), emission of smoke or a foul smell would indicate any plastic content.
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Nov 22, 2014 20:36
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Zratha posted:Unlike most gems, Lapis Lazuli is actually a rock, meaning that it is composed of several minerals. It is blue and has white (calcite) or gold (pyrite) inclusions. It is completely opaque. Thanks, this is just what I was looking for. Also, I'm glad to see all the lapis love. It's a really pretty stone and one of the few I think looks good in a rough state. Tunicate, I'll keep an eye out for the lapis.
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Nov 22, 2014 20:36
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Tunicate posted:There are ready ways to detect that as well. Hot pin (like you use with amber), emission of smoke or a foul smell would indicate any plastic content. Sure, there are a bunch of lab tests you can run. Gilson lapis will effervesce in hydrochloric acid, for example, but that's not super useful when you're trying to buy a ring for your kid. If you try to put a hot pin through things at a jewellery store, you're going to get kicked out pretty quickly.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:09
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That was pretty interesting actually. Made me double check all my Lapis stuff to make sure treatments were being disclosed properly (Dyed in this case). Turns out they weren't! Luckily it was only 50 products or so. In my experience with 'semi-precious' opaque stones (e.g. larimar, turquoise, lapis) the common fakes are pretty easy to spot since they are literally plastic, or something with a plastic pattern printed on it. Obviously this is hard to spot for online only, but in the volumes I'm dealing with it's easier to get lapis and label it lapis than it is to get sodalite and try to fake it. RE: Silver/lead/nickel; it's >a< concern but frankly a somewhat overblown one. As said, Sterling hallmark stamp will take you quite a ways. That said, it's not a guarantee of avoiding nickel allergic reactions; a lot of stuff can come into the country as just 925 sterling, but a lot of guys put a rhodium plate on silver chain especially to increase shine/reduce tarnish. It depends where you're looking too.
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Nov 24, 2014 23:23
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Claes Oldenburger posted:Congrats on entering the wonderful world of jewellery production We have the plaiers, ring mandrel and a torch so i'll look into a flex shaft and some burrs. Do you think some gravers would be handy?. Any tips on getting loose stones? I've seen http://www.gemselect.com/ come up online alot on searches but don't know if they're any good
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Nov 25, 2014 06:54
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Tunicate posted:nyway, I feel like I pretty much *have* to plug my store now. We've got a lot of good jewelry in the $20-$30 dollar range. We should be putting up some lapis in the next week. I'm not usually a big fan of wire wrapped jewelry, but I have to admit that your pieces are very nice. I like the use of color and the designs.
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Nov 25, 2014 07:57
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I don't know how many of you guys are actually looking to buy jewelry instead of talking about it, but we're having our big Black Friday/Cyber Monday thinger starting now. Unlike Johnny/Claes we're more of a premade volume business (over 200,000 SKUs), but we do work with some of the better suppliers out there; some have been mentioned in this thread. All are based in the US, no shady factories in China or anything like that, though obviously some of the product comes from China. The web site has some problems, especially since we're in the middle of switching to another platform entirely, but if you have questions about any of the products shoot me a PM, or if you don't have them I guess ask here. I don't want to take over this thread though so if there's a lot of traffic I'll probably start something in SA-Mart. Also as a note; I'm not really 'plugging' this because we're desperate to get goon sales. Obviously more sales are good but we do hundreds a day between the various marketplaces and our site, so you guys buying some stuff isn't going to make or break us  I just wanted to throw it out there to help you guys out if you need any jewelry.As I said, we've got a lot of stuff, so it's hard to summarize everything in a message, but I'll give some examples: - Silver anything. We've got so much silver. Silver charms, bracelets, cuffs, earrings, whatever. - Reasonable gem set stuff: Blue topaz, amethyst, garnet, quartzes, all the rocks. If you want it in silver you can get a gem ring for probably $50-$100 - Diamonds: Lots of those, not a lot of 'huge engagement ring' style pieces, but pavé diamond pendants/earrings - Yellow/white/rose gold out the yin yang If you have any questions about the products (e.g. country of origin, additional diamond info, gemstone treatments, expected metal stamps) drop me a PM. If there's interest maybe I'll talk to the boss about getting a GOONS set up Web site is: http://www.icecarats.com Piece of advice: Don't use the top menu/left category system; it's hopelessly out of date (which is why we're switching platforms). Use the search box to find your stuff instead. PS-There's an unadvertized coupon going around that gets you 5% off, it's ICE5. If your thing is above $500 I can arrange more better ones. Apologies in advance if anyone is offended by my naked marketeering; I'll edit it out if anyone asks. EDIT-Sorry forgot this. Canada ppl we do ship to Canada and yes the shipping is still free. However due to limitations in the platform (switching etc) you will be charged in >us dollars<. However this is kinda to your benefit since we should be charging >more< for CA due to border/tax but aren't going to until we switch. UK, Europe and aus can be arranged on request but we'll have to charge ya for the shipping. Scaramouche fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Nov 28, 2014 |
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Nov 28, 2014 05:04
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Hey man, just so you know, your search page seems to be returning a few spurious results. Those $0.00 things just return a 404 page, so it isn't major, but figure you should know about it. EDIT: You can see them by searching for 'thin bangle'. DoubleEDIT: Also, looks like your customer feedback thing is having an issue? Doesn't seem like the stars are matching the comments. Tunicate fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Nov 28, 2014 |
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Nov 28, 2014 06:36
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Tunicate posted:Hey man, just so you know, your search page seems to be returning a few spurious results. Hey man, thanks for taking a look. I swear those $0 products are my white whale or something. Short explanation: products that can come in multiple sizes have 'parent' products, a kind of meta product designed to contain the 'child' products that come in various sizes. Popular example being ring sizes like on this rose gold pave eternity ring: http://www.icecarats.com/14k-Rose-Gold-2mm-pave-set-diamond-ring-4-593715.aspx (note the dropdown above the Add to Cart button, that's where you pick size) But what happens when a parent product doesn't have children anymore (because they're deactivated etc.)? Well they stink up the search results and show up as a $0 product and my boss yells at me. I was deactivating stock today in preparation for Black Friday/Cyber Monday, and I have a script that runs every midnight that goes and kills 'reverse orphaned' products. So you caught those in that perfect window of me deactivating the children, and my automatic script killing the parents. There was something hinky about these ones though, they weren't marked as parents properly so I remoted in and manually kicked them (there were 17 in total; man 17 out of 200,000, you have a gift). They'll still show up in search results until the SOLR search re-indexer runs, but after that they'll be gone daddy gone. FYI for anyone who wants to ask/report about a product, you can just tell me the ITEM: number found under the title. Tunicate couldn't in this case because of the 404 but the clever among you will notice in the URL above the last 6 digits; that's the item number. The customer feedback thing? Totally legit. I have no idea what is going through these people's heads sometimes. Here's one we got today: quote:website is very slow so can be time consuming and frustating (5 stars) Amazon is where the real crazy is though. I'm paraphrasing because I have no way to look it up but one was: quote:i asked my girlfriend to marry me with this ring but she said no and broke up with me (1 star) Another was: quote:SLUG (3 stars) Regardless, thanks a lot for looking Tunicate and taking the effort to screenshot things and actually do some follow on work. Are you in the web-dev biz in addition to the wire/crystal biz?
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Nov 28, 2014 07:47
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