“Just So You Know… I Know Jewelry”

Why is it when I hear this from the other side of the counter, it usually takes less than three minutes into the conversation when I come to the realization…“Ah. No, you don’t!”

I’m trying, really trying! Just for the record, I made a New Year’s resolution that I would try to be nice and so far, it has been sixty-plus days of severe niceness. Over the years, I have been chastised and even praised on social media for my sarcastic urban nature, which was clearly reflected in my columns. A funny thing has happened lately because of my condoned writing behavior; folks have been coming in asking if someone else has been writing my column. Ha! So, it’s darned if you do and darned if you don’t. 

I admit I have received several scorching emails where I obviously hit raw nerves and bent a few noses out of joint. I was just telling it like it was - I’m not one to sugarcoat coat and when someone is rude and out of line, I not only drop a yellow flag, I address it, especially if it is happening to yours truly and even worse to my staff. Then it’s a red flag dropped, and it usually results in that person(s) being asked to leave or worse, total banishment. Some were so disruptive and unsavory that I placed them on my no-fly list, meaning no service to them whatsoever.  

Harsh and unprofessional, you might say. First of all, you were not there to see the “Impatient Entitled Cretins” behavior (Some were comparable to my three-year-old grandson’s temper tantrums) in front of a store full of nice decent people. Hundreds of thousands of jewelry stores in the world and they walk in mine! I have jokingly blamed some folk’s behavior on the after-effects of C. B. D. (Covid Brain Damage) or label Them, These and Those. After 50-plus years in the retail business I have learned a lot about people and I realize it’s now 2024 - I don’t expect things to get much better. There are nice folks and sadly, the some who are not so nice are beginning to outnumber the nice. My theory is it comes down to their lack of respect for other people and they think only of themselves and what they believe in. Only Armageddon will change that.

My cherished customers, many who have also become friends, don’t act like that. There I said it! If some of you are offended, then I will make some room for complaints in my inbox - I most likely won’t answer them. My guess is you were probably someone I once asked to leave my shop because of your behavior.

Now, back to “I really know jewelry!” I will try to hold back from writing how I really feel when I hear this from someone whose vast knowledge of jewelry would not fit on the head of a thumb tack. 

My first giveaway is when they ask for a jeweler’s loupe (a magnifier) to examine a diamond or piece of jewelry and hold it an arm’s length from the article. I can barely keep from laughing because anyone who knows jewelry should know how to use a loupe; you hold it about an inch from the object you are examining. Believe me, nothing comes into focus at twenty- four inches away! (Well, maybe the moon!) Not knowing karats from carats or grams from pennyweights or that mystic and blue topaz is a precious natural gemstone is another way of me knowing you don’t know much.

Once, a woman refused to believe her white gold ring was not pure 24-karat gold. I tried to explain that is impossible because there is no such thing as “A White Gold Mine” (White gold is created my man by adding other alloys such as silver and nickel to pure 24-karat yellow gold to make it white in color which in fact also lowers the karat in the process). She totally refused to believe me because the jeweler who sold it to her told her it was 24 karat, and that’s what I paid for!

Another surefire way for me to be a “Doubting Thomas” is when someone tells me to make the hollow or lightweight article heavier and more solid by pouring gold on it or in it! Gold melts at approximately 1,700 degrees; you pour boiling melted gold on or in any gold article and you wind up with a single lump of melted gold that will now in no way resemble what it was you wanted heavier! Sorry, you can’t inject it like Botox.

“Can’t you just bend my ring into a pendant?” Contrary to public belief, gold and silver cannot be worked like silly putty. Most rings were designed to be rings, and conversion to a pendant, in most cases, won’t hang on a chain properly unless you remove the gemstones and set them in a proper pendant setting. It’s usually easier to make a pendant into a ring. 

And no, you can’t stretch a chain to make it longer, and yes, it is true you can sometimes stretch a wedding band as long as it was not sized in the traditional manner any time before leaving a seam. Stretching a wedding band with a seam from a previous sizing will result in the ring snapping and can result in a more complicated and expensive fix. You try to stretch a ring with diamonds or other gems will result in catastrophic damage to the ring in question.

And my favorite immediate you don’t know squat about jewelry giveaway… “Can you melt all my little diamonds to make one large one? And why not?”

Yeah, I get asked that a lot, I explain… NO, you can’t; it’s sort of like melting two small houses together to make a bigger house, figure that out and then we can try the process on diamonds! 

In my defense of sounding mean because of someone’s ignorance, some “jewelry experts” actually believe this drivel, and stuff they read on the internet is absorbed as gospel and most will get indignant when you try to re-educate these, them or those.

Richard Alan is a kinder and gentler designer/goldsmith and owner of the Harbor Goldsmith Marco’s Island jeweler since 1994. He welcomes your questions and comments about All That Glitters. Email harborgoldsmit@comcast.net. Their website, www.harborgoldsmith.com, is currently being upgraded and is under construction.