Custom Design Jewelry

Sapphire Pendant, Chris Van Dyke

Custom design jewelry is a fun way to save some money and get and new design that's uniquely your own.  That ring you have had sitting around since the 70's can be made into a nice pendant, or take some links out of a bracelet to do the same.  We recently had a customer come in that found an estate piece she liked, a bracelet, that was too big.  One option we gave her was taking some of the links off to make a matching pendant, something that is easily done with a very little amount of gold and labor.  For just a little more then the price of the bracelet she would have a matching set!

Another option for custom design jewelry is trading in some of your old gold jewelry to add or enhance some of your other pieces.  With gold being at over 1000/oz., the price of gold jewelry gets up there fast.  If you trade some of in you can offset this cost, and even come out ahead if you look into estate or work that was done some years ago.  Jewelers, like every other retailer, want to move their older inventory and make room for new inventory.  This includes custom design jewelry that's been made and sitting in the case for a few years.

Opal Ring, Chris Van Dyke

You can also use the credit from your gold trade in to add some fresh work to an existing estate piece.  The possibilities are endless, and its fun to help design a unique piece custom design jewelry yourself.  There is something about knowing that what you are wearing is  created by you and a trusted jeweler. You never know, you might just start getting interested in different stones or the virtues of various types of metal.  You could be the only one you know who knows what a rutilated quartz is!

Rubellite Pendant

Jim Charneski recently brought us this rubellite pendant set in gold. Tourmaline comes in a wide variety of colors, but only when its a red/pink does it get a special designation. We have quite a few good specimens of tourmaline, many of which are bi-color and have a range from green to yellow to pink, but seeing this bright faceted gem you understand why they decided to call it something different. True natural rubellite is a raspberry color, which varies in the amount of pink or red and will have a bit of peach, depending on the light.

Most rubellite will have some heat treatment, which doesn't really affect the value, but unless you can spot it you will want to ask if the stone has been irradiated. This adds color to the stone that wouldn't naturally occur, and diminishes the value.

This natural rubellite pendant is a bright raspberry color with just a hint of peach, cut in a trillion shape. Set in a variation of Jim's signature "J" design, the rubellite pendant highlights the beauty of the stone. We now have this and more of Jim's line of handmade gemstone jewelry available to see in the store.

Video: Creating a Silver Ring Part 1

Here is our first video, Chris shows us how to create a silver ring with an amethyst trillion. This is part 1 of the series, creating a bezel, or a setting for the stone.