Jewelry & Watch News

Jewelry stands to display necklaces can help you keep your jewelry sorted and tangle-free. Whether you need a display stand for personal use, or you make your own jewelry and attend craft shows, you have quite a few creative choices. Deciding What You Need You need to decide how many necklaces you wish to display and how tall and wide the stands must be to accommodate all of your necklaces. Some stands are designed to display only one necklace, while others can display multiple ones. If you need to purchase stands so you can participate in a jewelry or craft show, then chances are you have at least one or more necklaces that you wish to highlight as feature pieces. This type of display calls for a specific type of jewelry stand such as a bust or silhouette stand. If you own a jewelry store and need additional display fixtures, then you might want to be creative when it comes to selecting display styles. Whatever your needs, you can find quite a few attractive and creative w

Here’s some old-fashioned Christmas Spirit in action. An unknown woman slipped a fistful of valuable fine jewelry into a red Salvation Army donation bucket in Annapolis, Md., last week. Capt. Ryan Vincent, commander of the Salvation Army in Annapolis, told local newspaper the  Capital Gazette  that the woman dropped a ring and two bracelets into the bucket outside the Festival at Riva shopping center, said “Merry Christmas,” and walked away. One of the bracelets was a yellow gold Tiffany & Co. style that was valued at $6,000 by a jeweler and was sold for $1,500 worth of donation money. The ring and second bracelet are a matching set that feature diamonds and rubies. According to the news outlet, their value is being determined by a gemologist. Pearl Eldridge, the bucket ringer who saw the woman put the jewelry in the bucket, called the woman a “quiet spirit.” It’s not the first time someone’s put fine jewels in those famous holiday buckets. It happ

Uncut Gems , which features Adam Sandler as a jeweler, hits theaters today, and critics say it might his best work yet. In a review for Entertainment Weekly , Darren Franich calls Sandler’s performance “loud and meaningful, hyperbolic yet terribly human.” In the film from Josh and Benny Safdie, Sandler plays Howard Ratner, described on the movie’s official website as “a charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score.” “When he makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime, Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides, in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win,” according to the site. Franich gives the movie an A-, noting that Sandler “exudes the self-lacerating melancholy familiar from his acclaimed dramatic work in  Punch-Drunk Love  and  The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) .” In a headline, Entertainment Weekly says the

Kentucky Derby Origins When it comes to American heritage, the Kentucky Derby is an important part of our country’s cultural history. It’s the longest running sporting event in the U.S. with a legacy that spans 144 years. In the late 1800s, the grandson of William Clark – yes, of Lewis and Clark – spearheaded the creation of the event. Along with his uncles, John and Henry Churchill, Clark raised funds and secured land for the racetrack. Here, they organized the Louisville Jockey Club who sponsored the first Kentucky Derby on May 17, 1875. Only three horses participated in the first race, but the event attracted around 10,000 spectators. Kentucky Derby Traditions There are a few other milestone moments that led to the Kentucky Derby as we know it today. In 1883, the name “Churchill Downs” was first used to landmark the racetrack. Today, it’s on the registry of National Historic Landmarks. Then, just twenty years after the first Kentucky Derby, the now-iconic Twin

It’s an obvious and necessary step in the value proposition argument to evaluate usage.  When buying a watch, especially a first watch, this is a really popular question that’ll plague you until you make the purchase.  Now, let’s define a couple things:  When I say ‘watch’, I mean an heirloom piece that, at minimum, has an in-house movement.  When I say ‘purchase’, I mean the moment that you decide which watch that is going to ride your wrist for years to come. Look at this purchase as a watch that will get wear.  A lot of wear.  Let’s call this the ‘middle 80%’.  In a bell curve, the fringe 10% on the far left and the far right are too far outside the norm to be considered as practical.  Focus on that middle hump, it’s where we’re operating today. And there isn’t a category that fits every man’s needs.  It all depends on the kind of guy you are- your style, your day job, your weeknight and/or weekend activities.  It’s important to match your lifestyle with a watch

Never mind that old Coco Chanel chestnut about taking one thing off before walking out the door. Today, you may want to add more to the mix. One of the current preoccupations of fine jewelry collectors is an assemblage of necklaces that is layered, personal and playfully disheveled (or artfully edited, as the case may be). It is an ideal display for items à la mode — initial necklaces, chains, coin pendants — and whatever else finds its way into the jumble.  (The look even has an Instagram nickname: the neckmess. Coined in 2016 by the Rhode Island-based designer Jessica Kagan Cushman, the term has made it into jewelry vernacular.) According to Lauren Kulchinsky Levison, the vice president of the East Hampton boutique Mayfair Rocks, the practice of stacking and staggering necklaces is an approach favored by clients who “want to wear jewelry in a more magical way,” rather than the blunt force of big statement pieces. “Any jewelry designer who isn’t making neckla

For many New Yorkers, living in a full-service doorman building simply means being able to receive Amazon packages and FreshDirect shipments headache-free. But for Madhuri Parson, a sixth-generation jeweler whose Hudson Yards studio has doubled as her company’s base of operations since she moved there in the summer of 2016, it was an absolute must. Ms. Parson had been living in her brother’s two-bedroom West Village co-op since 2011, when she came to the city to learn the ins and outs of the jewelry business, first at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Gemological Institute of America, and later in the design and sourcing divisions of Liz Claiborne and David Yurman.  “It’s ingrained in Indian women that we wear lots of jewelry — a lot of gold, 22-karat usually, gifted by someone who loves you,” she said. “I was inspired by my family’s Old World heritage, but I wanted to blend it with a modern sensibility.” But shortly after she devoted herself f

For this article, I'd like to show you how to sweat solder 14kt gold jewelry soldering ornaments onto sterling silver blanks. Sweat soldering is a wonderful technique to learn. When you sweat solder you have more control of the solder, the heat, and there's less clean-up. This technique will quickly become a favorite of yours if you're just starting out. Note: Adding 14kt gold soldering ornaments really will make a sterling silver piece stand out! Let me first start by saying, that we've recently added dozens of soldering ornaments to our inventory. Since normally I work almost exclusively with sterling silver, it has been a lot of fun adding 14kt gold soldering ornaments into the mix. Now, there are many positive benefits to adding these gold findings. The mixed metals look beautiful, it also adds value to your jewelry designs while at the same time, the ornaments are inexpensive to purchase. The combination of these benefits truly makes it worthwh

As a curator, I have always seen my role as the messenger, the one who carries the artists' voices to a larger audience. From the very beginning of my career, I tried to put that message forth either by publishing articles, then later, creating Platforma through which I co-curated jewelry exhibitions, then as the director of a contemporary jewelry gallery in New York where, from 2014 to 2018, I organized 23 exhibitions. Now, finally, I have co-founded New York City Jewelry Week. Certainly my most ambitious project to date! If staging a city-wide festival dedicated to jewelry and flooding the city with 100 events doesn't create a large enough platform for artists to exhibit their work, doesn't spread my mission, then I am not sure what will. Galleries Are Great, But You Need More As a curator I pay attention to themes in the field, similarities or contrasts in practices, and strong voices who are louder and more innovative then their contemporaries. Each s

An elevator pitch is the cornerstone of jewelry sales that every small business owner needs. If you missed out on the binge-watching era of Shark Tank and other business competition TV shows this may be a new term for you. Fear not, this article will take a deep dive into pitching concisely with a compelling call to action. You’ll be a jewelry sales pro before you know it! What the heck is an elevator pitch? The proverbial elevator pitch gets its name from the dream scenario of starry-eyed entrepreneurs for decades. Imagine you land an entry-level job at a huge investment firm and you have a million-dollar, brilliant, world-changing business idea. If only you could get it in front of the bigwig decision-makers in the c-suite you would be in the money. You suffer the daily grind for months until one day opportunity leaps in front of you. The big boss races to catch the elevator you just stepped into on your way to work in the 3rd-floor mail room. She hits the 30

 Jewelry clasps and closures are necessary components for most necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. Choosing the right type of clasp to customer satisfaction. Here is a glossary of the different jewelry clasp styles and how each one functions. Bulk spring rings Created in the early 1900s, spring rings have been a staple in necklaces and bracelets for years. These findings use a steel spring-loaded mechanism that works when pressure is applied to the latch. Spring rings are economically priced and best used with lightweight jewelry chains. They are also popular with charms as they can be used to snap a removable charm on and off with ease. Large, heavy spring rings are often called Bolt Rings. Safety Clasps The earliest known form of a jewelry clasp was created in the late 1700s and resembled the modern-day safety clasp. It consists of two pieces, one that features a spring lock mechanism that slides into a slotted groove located on the second piece. There are a nu