If you have been working with jewelry long enough to understand it
is an "Industry" then you are entitled to form your opinion and
stand on it. Do it.
I almost quoted Jeff about who makes it through school, but Dan’s is
good.
You gather up grandma’s jewelry collection and you go to Antiques
Road Show or wherever. The guy sits there and says, “Well, first we
have to figure out what fine jewelry is.” Hopefully you’ll gather up
your stuff and find someone who knows what they’re talking about. I
have a good friend who is an estate jewelry dealer - not quite a
liquidator. He gets hundreds of pieces a week of every sort
imaginable. Early this year he had a Spectrum award winner, two
months ago he had an especially choice Moubassin (think that’s
spelled right) bracelet. He sits there all day saying, “This is fine,
this is not, this goes to repolish, this goes to scrap.” And it’s
funny how we here, jewelers, galleries, stores, shops, use the term
as needed and we all know what we mean by it. The only place I’ve
ever heard any arguments is here, on Orchid. We are supposed to know,
we are paid to know, it’s our job.
Much more useful, quickly because I have construction work to
do… is gold. More to the point, Why Gold?
There are two major reasons why fine jewelry is associated with gold
- a third would be that people just like it. The first is the metal
itself. Gold possesses unique properties that no other metal or
material has. I said it before and somebody took it as some inane
challenge and started an inane argument, but you just can’t really
make gold jewelry out of silver.
Yes - YES, it can be made, once. It can’t be made, marketed, sold
and guaranteed. What I’m talking about is stuff that depends on
metal properties - you can set baguettes with 24 gauge platinum
prongs - in silver you can pull those back with your fingernail.
Then you have firescale and oxidation… People who understand
what gold is about will understand what I’m saying, others will
ponder how many angels can dance… Ultimately it’s very, very
simple - the fine things that have been made in gold throughout
history have been made in gold because it’s the best material for the
job, not because goldsmiths are snobs, inherently.
Second, you have money. The value of gold has always been such,
relativeto other metals, that it pays to put lots of work into a
piece. If I have $1000 worth of gold in something, and I put $800
worth of labor into it people won’t think much of it, as long as the
value of the labor is there.
Do exactly the same thing on $50 worth of silver - tthe value of
roughly the same weight of $1K of gold, and you’re going to have a
problem. It’s just to say that there are reasons for
everything…
Lately we’ve been getting silver rings from a moderately high-level
jewelry designer who’s name escapes me at the moment. They are made
to the same “standards” as their gold jewelry. What they aren’t is
gold jewelry made in silver - they are a bit heavier, they don’t
have details that the softness of silver can’t handle over time,
they tend to be bezel rather than prong, etc. Nobody every asked me
if they are “fine jewelry”, but I guess I’d have to say yes, if I
were asked…
Charles A.