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One of the most unusual pieces of jewelry I ever sold was a 14 karat gold nameplate for a dog. He was a toy poodle named Munchkin. I used a gold bracelet for the chain.

Eat your heart out Fido.

When You figure this one out you'll understand appraisals. The goal of an appraisal is to state the market price to replace lost jewelry. Most things most of the time sell at the market price, because that's how the market price is determined. If everybody's diamond appraises for 50% more than was paid, how much more than average should the average diamond cost?

Your Hit Parade

Guess who sells the most jewelry. Tiffany? Cartier? Joseph’s? Wrong!  It’s Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart sold almost 2 billion dollars worth of jewelry last year [1998].

Here’s the top ten:

1. Wal-Mart

2. Zales

3. Sterling

4. Sears

5. J.C. Penney

6. Service Merchandise, "America’s Lead-ing Jeweler™" [since deceased --- that can happen when you sell crap.]

7. Finlay (Leases space in department stores).

8.  QVC

9.  Tiffany

10. Kmart

Costco was #21, Military base exchanges were #25, T.J. Maxx was #28, and Fortunoff was #30. Joseph's was well behind.

Wal-Mart?

Underwear

 Victoria's Secret is offering a bra with over 2000 rubies and emeralds with a 60 carat flawless pear-shaped diamond in the center. Matching panties with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds complete the ensemble. Sizes not given. $10 million.

We've Got Steam Heat

People believe all sorts of cockamamie things about jewelry. This is usually due to an understandable ignorance of the technical aspects of jewelry or to general lack of mechanical intuition. But, then again,  some people don't light up when you flip the switch.

The best story I've heard is about a consumer who believes that you should never let a jeweler steam your jewelry because some of the gold comes off and the jeweler collects it and sells it.

The best question I've been asked, several times, is "Is it true that opals bring bad luck?"

I think it's only a nasty rumor.

Actually, the origin of this superstition is known. It comes from an 1817 Sir Walter Scott novel, Anne of Geierstein, in which the colors of the opal the heroine wears in her hair change with her moods and fade when she dies.

You Ain’t Seen Nuthin’ Yet

Everybody's entitled to my opinion, so If you really liked this newsletter, you can have the Special Edition: Alive and Kicking in New Jersey. It's 20 pages — big pages, 8½ x 11, so it’s like you’re getting 40 or 50 dinky book pages.

You’ll get vicarious little-guy satisfaction in how I sock it to ‘em in a section called "David v. Goliath et al." I take on a bank, the post office, American Express, and amazon.com.

Don't be so smug. I'm going to  sock it to you* , too. A section called The Customer is Always Right includes Joseph’s 3 Laws of Retail Dynamics, Psychopathia Ornamentalis, and A Diamond as Big as the Ritz, as well as other tales of the cockamamie consumer.

But seriously folks, there are also explanations of all sorts of things that are mystifying to the ornamental civilian, such as the quartz in your watch, the 14 in your karat, and gemstones. And there are how-do-they-do-that articles on diamond cutting and gemology.

It also includes the complete Fifties rock and roll themed newsletter. There were 30 references to fifties music, with prizes for getting  them all. You should have seen all the people coming in with underlined newsletters. (You get the answers, too.) By the way, the strange pictures on the home page are from the newsletter.

*That’s the collective you. It means "other people."

It’s great bathroom reading and it's yours for $5.95, free U.S. shipping. If you buy the book, you can have the newsletter for $3.95 extra, shipping included.

Bite here with mouse (I just hate those "Buy Now!" buttons) to order the newsletter,  the book, or both by Paypal, or send a check or money order for $5.95 for the newsletter, $14.95 for the book, or $18.90 for both to Joseph's Jewelry, 200 Wanaque Ave., Pompton Lakes, NJ 07442. Be sure to include a shipping address.

Here's a freebie: get the latest newsletter as a PDF (Acrobat) file  Hi or Low resolution

But How Big Was the Paycheck? An ad in the Nov. 22, 1943 issue of Life Magazine lists prices for diamonds: 1/2 carat    $200-350 1 carat       $400-800 2 carats     $1050-2500 A government web site lists inflation since 1943 at 10.5 times. That's about right for the 1 carat, but too much for the 1/2 carat and the 2 carat at the high figures. A Poser When you figure this one out you'll understand appraisals. The goal of an appraisal is to state the market price to replace lost jewelry. Most things most of the time sell at the market price, because that's how the market price is determined. If everybody's diamond appraises for 50% more than was paid, how much more than average should the average diamond cost? Exclusive Gourmet Discount Hand-Crafted Designer Products For All I opened the refrigerator to get milk to put in my coffee and there it was: Land O Lakes Gourmet Half-and-Half. "Gourmet" was done up in fancy script, too. The carton contained no information that would save the name from being an oxymoron, i.e., "from hand-milked cows" or "extra-virgin cream". A lot of words like "gourmet" and "designer" are bandied about today. I suppose everything is designed by someone, but prefixing a product with "designer" should mean it was designed by someone you've heard of. Hand-crafted is also abused. I was once in a fast-food chicken joint and, knowing the mashed potatoes were of the instant ilk, I declined them. Well, the girl behind the counter was offended and she proudly told me that she had personally hand-mixed them. A lot of that "hand-crafted" Indian jewelry you see was just soldered together from cast-from-a-mold components. The FTC regulates such claims: hand-made jewelry is supposed to be made from scratch with hand tools. Then there's "discount." Discount from what? Other than for watches, there's no list price on jewelry to discount from. Actually, "discount" is a code word for cheap stuff cheap. Good stuff cheap is hard to find, since the minute a store starts pushing "discount", it attracts people who only want to hear price, not quality, which forces the store to adjust its products accordingly. "Exclusive" and "imported" are a few other words to make you think you're not just getting a mass-produced product. I like the beer ad jingle that claims the stuff "never tasted so imported." What does imported taste like? I used the milk. Cubism Ever wonder what the cubic business is about in cubic zirconia? It refers to the crystal structure of the material. All solids are crystals and their atoms line up in one of 7 arrangements, of which cubic is the most symmetrical. The same atoms arranged in different patterns create totally different materials. Cubic carbon is diamond; hexagonal carbon is the lead in your pencil: graphite. Home 1 2 3 4 Order Local Shopping  Vietnam Photos