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This guy at work is on the process of scrapping his mother in laws jewelry(gallon zip lock bags full of the stuff). He has 2 chains I'm interested in 1 is a 28 gram 24" Figaro in 14k white gold. I don't like white gold and in not big into Figaro chains. The other is a 20 gram 22" rope chain in 10k yellow gold. I like yellow gold and I like rope chains, but it's only 3mm and it's 10k. I can get either of them for a little under scrap value but I can't decide which I want. The Figaro is 14k and heavier by a few grams but it's a Figaro and white gold. I can't afford the chain I actually want right now so I guess I'll get one of these to hold me over till I find a sweet deal on a used 24" 6mm rope. Which should I get?
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Sep 7, 2017 01:30
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Soo anyone know if there will be an issue with a white gold pendant on a silver chain?
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Sep 7, 2017 15:19
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Xun posted:Soo anyone know if there will be an issue with a white gold pendant on a silver chain? The silver chain can wear through the thingy on the pendant. Someone posted a picture a while ago of an 18k medallion that was on a 10 or 14k chain. Looks l9ke someone took a round file to the loop that the chain goes through.
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Sep 7, 2017 19:04
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Adding another anecdote to the pile. It might not matter much for occasional use, but I've had a silver chain eat right through the bail on a white gold pendant that I wore daily for a year. So yes— definitely match metals.
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Sep 7, 2017 20:32
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fps_bill posted:The silver chain can wear through the thingy on the pendant. Someone posted a picture a while ago of an 18k medallion that was on a 10 or 14k chain. Looks l9ke someone took a round file to the loop that the chain goes through. This is absolutely accurate. You'll want to avoid putting a gold pendant on a silver chain, Xun. fps_bill posted:I can get either of them for a little under scrap value Really, buy them both. You can try them both out and always scrap the one you don't like. When you're buying under scrap value EVERYTHING is a great buy. 
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Sep 8, 2017 04:27
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I can get em for about what a gold buyer would give him for them. Yeah it's under scrap but if be lucky to break even. I wish he had them a months ago, I would have just bought them both. Now golds up a little. E: I guess I could get them both and try to flip them. He has a really nice 40 gram 14k yg curb chain too but it's only 20" and fits me like a choker almost. fps_bill fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Sep 8, 2017 |
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Sep 8, 2017 04:45
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I've started taking a cabochon class, and I was surprised by how fast it goes compared to faceting. It's really fun to just go, do something a little more free-form, and come back with a handful of them. Here's what I've done so far: I'm going to try to get a better picture of this later, there's a lot going on in there.    This was the first one I did, and I'm really happy with it.  These kept sort of a waxy texture no matter how much I polished them, not sure if it's the composition of hte stone, or a technique thing I'll figure out later. 
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Sep 10, 2017 02:16
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I also had some stones I was told were sapphires, and while they were obviously "enjoy the novelty of saying you have a sapphire" quality sapphires, I was curious to see what was inside. They each had some sort of chatoyance/star. I had just polished the tops without trimming them down, I think I will try to get each one a bit rounder ( and see if I can possibly polish down past the holes and pits without ending up with just dust ) but I kind of like the rough vs polished look and how weird they are. the most reddish one, kind of potato shaped because it was 2 crystals fused together  bluish gray, this one had the least resolved "star" more of just a flash. Don't know if I could improve it with a rounder surface, but the grain was not a hexagonal "ring" shape like the others inside  My favorite, looks lavender with little bits of pink, has the most defined "star." I think I will definitely try to shape the top of this a bit rounder and leave the bottom rough, I am already imagining this in some kind of big crazy sci-fi pendant. 
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Sep 10, 2017 02:54
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Thinking of sci-fi jewelry, I just realized I never posted this ring I made a while back, it was a "herkimer diamond" (double terminated quartz from herkimer county NY) I found on Ebay, and then spent way too long melting a bunch of little blobs of silver together. I assume the smart way to do this would have been casting.
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Sep 10, 2017 03:05
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littlebluellama posted:I started cabbing. Keep at it. There are quite a few specialty stores that only sell cool cabochon jewelry. The range of material that looks killer in a cab is huge. You'll never get bored when everything has the potential to be a gem. I think that's a great looking ring.
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Sep 10, 2017 05:11
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littlebluellama posted:I also had some stones I was told were sapphires, and while they were obviously "enjoy the novelty of saying you have a sapphire" quality sapphires, I was curious to see what was inside. They each had some sort of chatoyance/star. Cabbing is very fun and addictive, but the rough accumulates even faster than facet rough and it takes up more space too.
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Sep 10, 2017 06:34
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JohnnyRnR posted:Keep at it etc. Thanks! I love the idea of being able to make something nice out of any stone. Being in NC, there's lots of quartz and other stones in the ground, and I have joined a local gemstone and mineral club. I am hoping to go on one of their field trips this year to a quarry. I know they've found fossils and some interesting minerals in the past.
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Sep 10, 2017 15:47
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Scarodactyl posted:These are classic Indian star sapphires and one of my favorite materials to cut (among many). They sometimes have sharp stars or even double stars along with a range of nice colors. A lot of them will develop very bad orange peel texture once you get to 600 grit on a normal wheel, at which point either loose grit or a specialty lap are needed. Conventional wisdom for stars is a high dome but with these near-opaque stones a low dome is often best. For the most part they won't cut super valuable gems but if you get one with a nice star, good color and not too many inclusions it can be a good gem. That's good to know. Thanks for sharing! That's what's fun about this forum, not only can you see what everyone is up to, there's so many knowledgeable people about any subject.
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Sep 10, 2017 15:51
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I kind of want to join the local mineral club here and go on mining/mineral finding excursions with them but I'm afraid I'll end up "mining" like Zoolander
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Sep 10, 2017 23:39
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Do it. It is really fun and sometimes you can get good stuff along the way too. Don't worry about losing cred with rock hounds, most of us are just excited to know someone else is interested.
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Sep 11, 2017 00:39
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littlebluellama posted:Thanks! I love the idea of being able to make something nice out of any stone. Being in NC, there's lots of quartz and other stones in the ground, and I have joined a local gemstone and mineral club. I am hoping to go on one of their field trips this year to a quarry. I know they've found fossils and some interesting minerals in the past. Oh cool! NC is a great rock state. Have you been to any of the gem shows? The season is sort of over at this point but we have some pretty good ones. I'm in Raleigh and have a lot of cabbing rough--I'd be happy to send you some if you drop me a pm.
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Sep 11, 2017 00:45
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Scarodactyl posted:Oh cool! NC is a great rock state. Have you been to any of the gem shows? The season is sort of over at this point but we have some pretty good ones. I'm in Raleigh and have a lot of cabbing rough--I'd be happy to send you some if you drop me a pm. I helped out at my club's show this past April (Tarheel Gem and Mineral club) cutting geodes in half, that was pretty fun. Haven't had a chance to go to a meeting since then (moving and taking a pottery class on the same day as meetings), but I'm getting back into it now with this cabbing class. I went to Hiddenite, NC this past May to a place that lets you dig or pan in their creek, people sometimes find emeralds or even more rarely, the mineral hiddenite that the town is named after. They showed us some samples that had been found there. I found a bunch of crunchy quartz and mica  but I did get a big chunk of mica clustered around a slice of quartz, and one cool piece that has mica coming out like those little crescent fungi that grow along tree trunks. Its kind of orangey from the clay, I tried to clean it, but I think it's embedded in it. I guess it wouldn't be North Carolina without a generous helping of red clay, haha.If I can't find something valuable, at least I can find something sparkly:   and a different angle to show the shine of the mica: 
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Sep 11, 2017 04:17
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Oh yeah, we've definitely crossed paths then. If you've been to that show and hung out with some of them you will probably not be wanting for rough for a while. We have about 4 shows a year in that location, though the organizer just dropped the summer shows and they might not get picked up again. One thing to note about Hiddenite is that as I understand it they do salt that creek (or perhaps a previous owner), though your finds look like native material.
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Sep 12, 2017 04:59
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Scarodactyl posted:
Didn't know that. I was digging around in the forest area. Saw the spot where some guy found an emerald. He has staked out a claim and dug about 10 feet down into the ground, made his own little ravine.
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Sep 12, 2017 05:46
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Is there a chart or spreadsheet that will tell you about what a chain should weigh based off of karat, length, and width?
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Sep 25, 2017 03:20
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fps_bill posted:Is there a chart or spreadsheet that will tell you about what a chain should weigh based off of karat, length, and width? It varies so much based on style that you can't really say just from those three numbers.
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Sep 25, 2017 03:38
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I figured as much. I'm looking at rope chains and weights are all over the place. I really don't want to get a hollow chain and when searching the used market sometimes that isn't always known/listed. When I had my bracelet made the guy told me what It'd weigh and was only off my 2.4 grams. Even after I switched from 14k to 18 he fired the number right off. So I figured there might be something out there to figure it out.
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Sep 25, 2017 06:02
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JohnnyRnR posted:Wanted to share something special (and not for sale) that you don't get to see every day. Holy. Christ. That is so lush and beautiful.
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Sep 25, 2017 11:26
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fps_bill posted:I figured as much. I'm looking at rope chains and weights are all over the place. I really don't want to get a hollow chain and when searching the used market sometimes that isn't always known/listed. He might just be really knowledgeable about weight from his supplier, just from dealing with them a lot. The issue with going store to store (that I can see) is different supplier/manufacturers are going to have different processes/weights etc.
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Sep 25, 2017 17:53
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fps_bill posted:I figured as much. I'm looking at rope chains and weights are all over the place. I really don't want to get a hollow chain and when searching the used market sometimes that isn't always known/listed. He probably buys them by weight
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Sep 25, 2017 18:02
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Lets talk rings/mounting - found a local designer that I think will work out (same style cohesion), but have a couple of questions. Looking at an emerald (rectangular emerald cut) as the main stone. In keeping with a traditional deco style, been looking at a white gold band but was heavily cautioned about that due to differences in material strength/breakage. So I'm wondering/researching about the alternatives were mentioned: platinum or palladium, or doing a two tone setup of the gem mount in gold, and the main ring in white gold. These viable or just alternatives that just aren't that ideal? Also is it common that the designer sends out the ring/gem to be mounted by someone else?
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Sep 27, 2017 20:42
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unknown posted:Lets talk rings/mounting - found a local designer that I think will work out (same style cohesion), but have a couple of questions. Stone setting is a specialized skill, so lots of goldsmiths send their work to people more specialized to have it done properly. No worries there! Setting emeralds in any metal comes with risk, but white gold slightly more so. It's tougher to move and requires more force to get it to do things compared to setting in yellow/rose golds and platinum group metals. It's possible, and gets done often, the designer is just being extra careful because of the risk associated with the design. Colour wise it isn't that they aren't as "ideal", it's more they're just not as popular. So many more single colour rings get made than two tone, and of those two tone rings most will be a yellow shank (ring part) and white head (claws or bezel).
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Sep 27, 2017 23:56
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Palladium looks fantastic with emeralds, if you want a consumer opinion.
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Sep 28, 2017 04:34
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Claes Oldenburger posted:Colour wise it isn't that they aren't as "ideal", it's more they're just not as popular. So many more single colour rings get made than two tone, and of those two tone rings most will be a yellow shank (ring part) and white head (claws or bezel). Adding to this, there's one time you'll frequently see the opposite (white shank/yellow head) and that's in yellow diamond settings. The white shank makes a nice contrast and the yellow head brings out the yellow in the diamond. Definitely one of my favorite looks.
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Sep 29, 2017 06:09
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I'm thinking about buying an opal pendant necklace for Christmas but I don't know anything about opals. Any good buying guides out there so I don't get something that's poor quality or overpriced?
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Oct 7, 2017 21:34
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It kind of depends what type you're wanting to buy and in what price range. Personally, I'd suggest getting an Ethiopian stone because the prices are still fairly reasonable and you can get a wide range of patterns and base colors with remarkably good fire. The one downside is that they can absorb water if soaked (which can change fire and clarity until they dry out) so they require some care that way--on the other hand they are generally tougher than opal from other locales and don't have problems with long term stability regardless of the humidity of the environment they are kept in.
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Oct 7, 2017 22:35
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Im not sure how feasible this is but I'd do some research on opal fire patterns and such so you have a better chance of recognizing imitations. One big giveaway is if the fire pattern is too uniform, i feel like I could describe some as almost confetti looking. And beware of opal doublets and triplets, those are made from slices of poor quality opal put on top of some other stuff to imitate a higher quality one. If this isn't shilly a company in Austin called opal trove sells...opals  not sure how good their prices are, but the owner is nice. I don't think they would sell fakes since they seem to travel around to gem shows a bunch and if they had a bad rap I would expect that they would get dropped by the gem community
Xun fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Oct 8, 2017 |
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Oct 8, 2017 06:11
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Doublets and triplets are not necessarily low quality, though one needs to be aware of them when buying. Some localities (like Spencer, Idaho) tend to produce opals with the color in thin bands, so this method is used to best show them off. Some of these can be really remarkable gems in their own right, and there are some advantages to having a harder clear cap over the opal (though an improperly made doublet or triplet can separate over time of course).
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Oct 8, 2017 06:50
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All my opals are set in jewelry made before 1950, so presumably sourced from wherever US and Canadian jewelers got them in the 19th and 20th centuries. Should I be really cautious with them in terms of not getting them wet/not scratching them/and so on?
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Oct 8, 2017 18:36
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They are likely Australian (picture would help). If they have been fine so far they should be fine. Opals are a bit individual, from find to find and stone to stone. Nevada stones have some percent of stable material (10~%) while the rest crazes if not kept under water after being removed from the ground. There is one deposit in Australia that famously produced stones that were fine for like 2 years and would then start crazing. That isn't typical but some do apparently need to maintain a certain level of humidity. I haven't dealt much with these myself though, and the risks may well be exaggerated on stones that have proven themselves stable.
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Oct 8, 2017 19:41
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I could have sworn that back in the day someone in this thread posted a jewelry insurance company recommendation, but I can't find it now. Can someone recommend a good company?
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Oct 9, 2017 03:37
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justFaye posted:I could have sworn that back in the day someone in this thread posted a jewelry insurance company recommendation, but I can't find it now. Can someone recommend a good company? Best option these days is Jeweler's Mutual. They insure jewelers, but also offer insurance to the public. http://www.jewelersmutual.com/Personal/Personal-Insurance
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Oct 12, 2017 07:22
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I really like Ethiopian opals. It's hard to explain the difference between the different origins, though. The best I can say is that Australian opals have color that sits on top & Ethiopian opals have color that lives inside. It's confusing, and photos don't really explain it. This is a ten carat Ethiopian opal I recently picked up. It has a blue base color with green, pink, orange, and red flashes. It's that interplay of changing color that makes opal so exciting.
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Oct 12, 2017 07:30
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Does this this weight and length seem right for a solid chain? I know it says solid but I'm sure there's some people who have a hollow chain and don't know it. Also looking at this one but it's thinner so idk. E: I asked the guy selling the second one how wide it was. Guy said 3/8" there's no freaking way it's that wide lol. fps_bill fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Oct 16, 2017 |
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Oct 16, 2017 17:48
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JohnnyRnR posted:I really like Ethiopian opals. It's hard to explain the difference between the different origins, though. The best I can say is that Australian opals have color that sits on top & Ethiopian opals have color that lives inside. It's confusing, and photos don't really explain it. Wow that opal is super sexy. That’s exactly what I’m looking for, except about 8-9 carats too big.
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Oct 25, 2017 00:59
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