Wedding rings symbolize the union of two people, so it’s not uncommon for both the bride and the groom to work out together what they plan to do for them.  Although many wedding bands are designed as a set, you don’t have to stick with matching bands, though.  Oftentimes, one of the parties will want a showier ring while the other prefers more modest.  In some cases, one of the parties has a profession that requires certain things and certain designs to avoid the ring interfering with job duties.  Whatever your preferences, there are certain steps you’ll take to make the perfect wedding band for you.

Your Metal

The first decision you’ll need to make is to pick what metal you’ll use.  Although gold  is the most common, it’s not the only choice for your wedding band.  You can also buy rings in titanium, silver or platinum. Even in gold, you can chose white or yellow gold.  You can also have more than one metal incorporated into the design.  You truly can customize a ring based on your preference and your budget, so whether you enjoy the color of silver or appreciate its cost, you can get exactly what works for you.

There are, of course, decisions to make within the metal.  14 karat gold is less expensive than 24 carat gold, for example.  Platinum is expensive but very durable.  A quality jeweler will educate you on the subject and help you to make the decisions that will work out in your best interests.

Heirlooms and Antique Jewelry

When you have a family heirloom, you’re fortunate indeed.  However, a great many heirloom pieces are representative of a style different than you might like. A good jeweler should be able to help you adapt an heirloom piece to your particular tastes.  It could be you’ve fallen in love with an antique piece you’ve purchased, and your jeweler should be able to make that piece what you need as well.

In some cases, old jewelry can actually be melted down to provide the metal for a brand new piece.  This can create a unique ring that has special significance for you.  Of course, you’ll want to make sure that you have a skilled jeweler involved who will help you to get the best result.

Where to Shop

There are literally thousands of places to get a wedding band, both online and off.  It’s easy to therefore look for the cheapest or most convenient.  However, a good local jeweler can help you to make your ring exactly what it needs to be for far less than you might imagine.  More importantly, a local jeweler is ready to earn your business for a lifetime, and not just as a lucky result of mall foot traffic.  Your wedding is an important day.  Make sure you give your wedding band the attention it deserves.

If you’re familiar with Bert Levi Family Jewelers, you probably already know that we’re one of the largest direct diamond importers in San Diego.  In fact, we have decades of experience in buying and sorting diamonds.  We buy without middle men, and we pay cash.  Do you know what that means?  It means we get first pick, and that means our customers get some of the most beautiful diamonds available at prices significantly lower than what they might expect to pay for an inferior diamond elsewhere

So why a tutorial?  After all, we’ve already got the expertise.  What do you need it for?  We’re a three generation small family business, and my grandfather used to emphasize the importance of educating our clientele.  To him, it was important that a customer knew what was being offered.  See, to my grandfather, Daniel, jewelry was never about precious metals and gems.  Those materials simply provided a way to commemorate important events and emotions for our customers.  How could we possibly help our customers to pick a perfect piece to memorialize a special event if they don’t have at least a basic understanding of the tools we’ll use to do just that?

Will some customers use this knowledge to get a better deal elsewhere? Sure they will. Does that bother me? Not at all.I believe an educated consumer is good for my industry, and even more than that, I believe that the vast majority of the customers who learn this material will gain the skills and insight to understand why we’re the right choice for their jewelry needs. Above all, though, I believe it’s good information, and not everything a company does has to have an immediate impact on revenue to be the right thing to do.

In this course, you’ll learn how diamonds are graded, how we arrived at those grades, what it means to have a certified diamond, how diamonds interact visually with other metals, and a great deal more.  You won’t end up with a graduate diamond education from the Gemological Institute of America, but you’ll certainly be able to follow any conversation with somebody who has. Take your time.  I’ve arranged for the tutorial to go from general to increasingly complex, so you may get all of the information that’s appropriate to you in just the first several lessons.  If you’re really adventurous, though, keep at it and you’ll know a whole lot more than most of the salespeople at the corporate jewelry stores.

Ready to get started? Then let’s get started with lesson one: Why Are Diamonds Graded

Lesson One: Why Are Diamonds Graded?

Why bother? Why do jewelers and gemological societies care to grade diamonds in the first place?  Aren’t all diamonds valuable? Can’t you tell by looking at a diamond if it has flaws or looks cloudy or dull?  Why are diamonds graded?  What value does it offer consumers and jewelers? Those are fair questions and this first lesson in our tutorial will explain the “why” of diamond grading. We’ll get into the how in later lessons, but for right now, we’ll just focus on the importance of the grading.

1. Grading Creates an Industry Accepted Standard of Excellence

Can you imagine buying a car if there were no standard tests to determine the expected miles per gallon a vehicle will achieve? Can you imagine buying a computer if there were no industry standards for processor speed or memory function? In both cases, there is a fairly substantial investment involved, and by creating standards by which a company, a salesperson, and a consumer can gauge certain qualities, the industry is enabling better transactions that are informed purchasing and selling decisions.

Diamond purchases usually involve a substantial investment, and so it makes sense to create a standard that allows everyone involved in the process, to understand what makes one diamond more or less valuable than another. A grading system (we favor and have the most confidence in the GIA grading system) can help everyone agree to an accurate description of the “perfect” stone’s qualities as well as the quality of the processing of the stone, it’s cut.

2. Grading Allows for Easier Communication

You have likely heard terms like “princess cut” or “GIA flawless” or even just a letter such as D, E, or F in reference to diamonds.  Can you imagine having to hear, “This diamond contains minute inclusions that can only be seen under ten-times magnification and even then, it would take a fine expert who would find them difficult to see and would only find them on the lower surface of slanting outward from the culet to the girdle. These may be small and shallow enough to be removed by minor re-polishing.  In terms of color, the stone is absolutely colorless with no faint traces of any other color.”

Sure, some folks might enjoy that process, but you can imagine how cumbersome it could be to the entire diamond industry. In the world of gems, the simple code VVS1 with a color rating of F conveys all of that information.  Further, when everyone adheres to those standards, every stone with a VVS1 rating will have the same qualities.  When a consumer and a jeweler are both educated to speak this “language” there is likely to be far less confusion and far happier transactions.

Okay.  Now we’ve established why diamonds are graded in the first place.  Now it’s time to learn exactly what constitutes the grade a diamond receives.  There are four Cs, Clarity, Color, Carat, and Cut.  We’re going to take the next four lessons to go over each.  Go ahead and click to learn about clarity.

Lesson Two: Clarity

Clarity is, in simplest terms, the visual rating of a diamond based on two factors, inclusions and blemishes.  Inclusions involve imperfections within the stone, and blemishes involve imperfections on the surface of the stone.  When a diamond is graded, it is examined at a magnification of ten times normal sight (10x) and this allows for a skilled diamond grader to search for each imperfection and note it.

Inclusions come in many forms. (Many in the industry now call “inclusions” by a different term, “internal characteristics.”  You may think of the terms as interchangeable.)  In some cases, an inclusion is a crystalline structure of a different kind of mineral. In other cases, another diamond has begun to form within the actual diamond.  There can be irregular crystalline structures such as feathering, bearding, or even pinpoint flaws. There may be cavities or grainy areas or even cracking.  In some cases, there may be inclusions caused by the processing and cutting process, such as laser lines which result when a laser is used to eliminate a natural inclusion. Blemishes also have a number of forms. There are natural blemishes that can include pits, grain boundaries, chips, and breaks and also blemishes caused in the cutting such as polish lines, scratches, nicks, and more.

When a diamond grader examines the clarity of a gem, there are several grades that can be awarded.

Flawless (F)

This shows no inclusions or blemishes under magnification.  These diamonds are extremely rare, and even very experienced jewelers rarely come across stones of this quality.

Internally Flawless (IF)

This kind of a diamond has no inclusions under magnification and only insignificant blemishes.  These stones are more common than flawless stones but still very rare and therefore very valuable.

Very Very Slightly Included (VVS1, VVS2)

With this quality of a gem, there are inclusions but they are very minor and very difficult to see under magnification.  The 1 and the 2 simply indicate the level of difficulty involved in seeing the flaws.  If the inclusions are more difficult to see, the number 1 is used.

Very Slightly Included (VS1, VS2)

These stones display minor inclusions such as clouding and feathering under 10x magnification, and again the numbers refer to the difficulty in seeing the inclusions.  VS1 diamond inclusions are difficult to see while VS2 inclusions are easier to see.

Slightly Included (SI1, SI2)

The inclusions in these gems are either easy (SI1) or very easy (SI2) to see under magnification.  In some SI2 diamonds, magnification isn’t necessary to see the flaws.

Imperfect

These diamonds have inclusions that are apparent and affect the stone’s ability to reflect light, it’s structural integrity or durability, and/or transparency.

There you have it—Clarity.  There are three more Cs to explore, so click to learn about diamond cuts.

We’re a third generation jeweler, and as such we have a bit of a different perspective on jewelry than you might think.  Chain jewelry stores have their place, and they can offer a great deal of mass manufactured jewelry in a pinch—excellent for last minute gifts, for example—and we’re glad they’re around.  We don’t have a corporate office with an unlimited budget and countless locations to support the locations that lose money.  That’s okay by us.  Grandfather, father, son—three generations have resulted in Bert Levi Family Jewelers, and we’re not really interested in a streamlined business operation that serves a purpose other than ours.

See, the first generation, my grandfather Daniel, believed jewelry meant something.  Sure, we understand the value from a financial perspective.  In fact, many of our customers who want to sell gold in San Diego make us their first stop.  It would be silly to pretend that jewelry isn’t composed of precious metals and precious stones, commodities that have an intrinsic worth even when not crafted into a piece of fine jewelry.  We believe it’s so much more than that, though.  If it were simply currency, why would anyone bother to wear it?  If it were only dollar signs, why would anyone hold onto a piece instead of liquidating it?

People often talk about the importance of events in a person’s life and if you think about it, most or at least many of those events have a tangible record, a commemoration if you will.  Wedding rings, for example, are a great deal more than diamond studded bands of gold or platinum.  They’re really ongoing reminders of the marriage, reminders of the commitment and the commemoration of the joining of two individuals, two becoming one.  We’ve become one of the leading wedding band sources in San Diego, and we’re pretty sure we have my grandfather’s philosophy to thank for that.  See, we’re not just forging precious metal and creating a setting, we’re looking for ways to commemorate a real and important commitment in a way that will be as eternal as the love it represents.

We certainly think there’s a place for jewelers that don’t think like us, but we believe with all of our strength that there’s a better way for the most important events in our lives.  Jewelry means something, and to Bert Levi Family Jewelers, it means something that’s important to you.

We’re a third generation jeweler, and as such we have a bit of a different perspective on jewelry than you might think.  Chain jewelry stores have their place, and they can offer a great deal of mass manufactured jewelry in a pinch—excellent for last minute gifts, for example—and we’re glad they’re around.  We don’t have a corporate office with an unlimited budget and countless locations to support the locations that lose money.  That’s okay by us.  Grandfather, father, son—three generations have resulted in Bert Levi Family Jewelers, and we’re not really interested in a streamlined business operation that serves a purpose other than ours.

See, the first generation, my grandfather Daniel, believed jewelry meant something.  Sure, we understand the value from a financial perspective.  In fact, many of our customers who want to sell gold in San Diego make us their first stop.  It would be silly to pretend that jewelry isn’t composed of precious metals and precious stones, commodities that have an intrinsic worth even when not crafted into a piece of fine jewelry.  We believe it’s so much more than that, though.  If it were simply currency, why would anyone bother to wear it?  If it were only dollar signs, why would anyone hold onto a piece instead of liquidating it?

People often talk about the importance of events in a person’s life and if you think about it, most or at least many of those events have a tangible record, a commemoration if you will.  Wedding rings, for example, are a great deal more than diamond studded bands of gold or platinum.  They’re really ongoing reminders of the marriage, reminders of the commitment and the commemoration of the joining of two individuals, two becoming one.  We’ve become one of the leading wedding band sources in San Diego, and we’re pretty sure we have my grandfather’s philosophy to thank for that.  See, we’re not just forging precious metal and creating a setting, we’re looking for ways to commemorate a real and important commitment in a way that will be as eternal as the love it represents.

We certainly think there’s a place for jewelers that don’t think like us, but we believe with all of our strength that there’s a better way for the most important events in our lives.  Jewelry means something, and to Bert Levi Family Jewelers, it means something that’s important to you.

The price of gold continues to rise, and this had led to a rapid expansion of the gold buying industry.  You can’t escape the endless flood of advertisements telling you to bring or send your gold and walk away with cash.  There’s something those advertisements don’t tell you, though.  If you’re unprepared or if you deal with a disreputable company, you’ll be getting pennies on the dollar for your gold.  Here is some information that can help you through the process.

First Off, Understand What You Have

The first thing you need to know is what it means to have scrap gold.  Scrap basically means useless or wasted, and scrap gold is just that, useless to you.  It can include bent or broken jewelry made of gold, chains or bracelets that are hopelessly tangled, casting gold and grain, gold flakes, alloys that contain gold, and even gold dental work.  You might even have gold from industrial applications.  The key is recognizing what you have, the purity of gold it contains, and how much of it is in your possession.

Valuing Your Scrap Gold

Gold is typically sold in pennyweights, with each pennyweight representing one twentieth of an ounce.  Weigh your gold and convert it to ounces to determine what you have.  You can then multiply the result by the price per ounce, but don’t forget that the price is for pure gold, and you likely have gold of a different caliber.  Also, keep in mind that you can’t hope to get the market price for gold unless you’ve got gold in pure form that requires no smelting (melting, refining, and forming.)  Gold in coin or bullion form, for example, will carry a cash value much closer to the market price.  You can expect far less for your scrap gold, but there are very significant differences between dealers, so don’t be content with a low price!

Choosing Where to Sell

The important thing to remember here is that you want to only deal with very reputable and established companies.   Even some reputable companies will offer you far less than you can get.  The mall gold buying setup with the expensive furniture has to pay for their location, and they pay for it with the deep discounts they receive when they buy your gold!  Selling your gold to a fine jeweler offers two distinct advantages when you can locate one that buys gold.  First, the jeweler has a main business operation that isn’t gold.  That means the company’s operations pay the rent and the bills.  The gold purchase is a service offered to benefit their clients, and they’re able to pay more.  Second, the jeweler is interested in a long term relationship with you, one that doesn’t end when you’ve finished selling gold but hopefully involves wedding rings, gifts, and other transactions for years to come.

If you have scrap gold, you can have cash, but make sure you stay on top of the items discussed here to get the best possible value for your asset.

There is a great deal of attention on unwanted gold these days.  If you have  watched any television, read any newspapers, browsed the internet, or even walked through a mall, you have probably seen advertisements trying to convince you to sell your gold and to do it right now.  At Bert Levi Family Jewelers, we want you to get the best value for your gold, and that means you’ll need to know a few things, whether you allow us the privilege of buying your gold or if you sell it elsewhere.

First off, please understand that you need to actually have gold.  Unfortunately, just having your jewelry stamped with “14 Karat” doesn’t mean it is!  You’ll want to go to someone you trust to get a real and accurate appraisal of the content of your jewelry.  Make sure that you do a little research here.  You ought to be able to see reviews from other customers and shouldn’t have to do much work to understand a location’s standing in the community.  At Bert Levi Family Jewelers, we’re going to be an open book.  We know our customers trust us, and we know you will, too.

Keep in mind that you’re not going to be paid the retail value of your gold.  If gold trades at $1000 per ounce, that $1000 includes in it the margin a gold dealer needs to cover rent, payroll, and other expenses as well as a reasonable profit.  Remember also that the value per ounce you might read about in the paper assumes pure gold.  14 karat gold is about fifty-eight percent gold.  A reputable buyer is going to give you the best possible deal for your gold, taking these items into account.

One reason to seriously consider selling your gold to a Jeweler rather than a mall or mail-in buyer is that your jewelry often has more than gold.  In fact, with engagement rings, some earrings, and most pendants, the diamonds and other stones may be worth more than the gold.  A regular gold buyer won’t be as experienced working with stones and will either take them as though they were not attached, charge you far too much to remove them, or simply discount the value of the gold because the stones will need to removed before the gold can be melted down.

There are a number of concerns you’ll need to address if you decide to go the mail route with your gold, and we don’t recommend it, even if you choose somewhere other than Bert Levi Family Jewelers to sell your unwanted gold.  You’ll need to make sure you have insured it when you mail it, and you’ll want to take pictures.  You need to make sure you won’t have to pay to have it returned if you don’t like the price you’re quoted.  You’ll also need to make sure the company has insurance if they lose your package.  On the whole, we think face to face transactions are far better.

You can definitely make money selling your unwanted gold, but don’t make the mistake of entering into that battle unarmed.  Make sure you’re educated and make sure you have got a quality buyer that puts your interests, and your future business, on the top of the priority list.

Your wedding is the starting point for your marriage, and while the vows are probably the most significant event of the day, the tangible and ongoing symbol of that day will be on your ring finger, your wedding band.  Thus, you and your betrothed should be certain to obtain wedding bands that reflect your love for one another and your ongoing commitment.

Remember that your desire is to wear this ring for a lifetime, so you’ll want to make sure that the ring reflects your personality, your sense of style, and your preferences well.  You may choose one metal over another and one kind of a stone over another.  How you set the stone and how it is cut is in and of itself a matter of preference and style.

There are things to consider about the metal when you’re ready to buy.  Yellow and white gold are usually mixed with other metals to keep the ring durable.  Platinum is a heavier metal, and very durable.  Silver, while not considered one of the most desirable metals, is very inexpensive by comparison, and budget conscious couples can consider silver.  Keep in mind also that the thickness of the band and the design should influence your decision.  Each metal will feel heavier or softer on your hand, and the level of comfort you enjoy with it can vary.

You’ll want to decide also on whether or not you will have matching or separate rings.  Wedding bands designed as a set can be beautiful, but they also might only reflect one of the partner’s personalities.  It’s far better that each member of the party is pleased with the ring that should stay on the ring finger for years than it is that the two of them match.

It may be that you want an engraving on the wedding band, and that can be a wonderful way to memorialize the occasion, but choose the words carefully because they’ll be a permanent part of the ring.   Most couples chose to have their initials engraved while others have symbols or sayings. Engravings can make the wedding bands more special and significant, so consider them for yours.

If you can’t find a ready-made ring that appeals to you, don’t despair because a great option is to have a wedding band custom made, and you’ll be amazed at how inexpensive it can be.  A quality jeweler is the key to this approach, and you should choose one with a good reputation.  With the internet driving so much business today, it’s easy to find out how other customers feel about their experiences with a particular jeweler.  Above all, remember that your wedding band will be the ongoing symbol of your marriage, so put thought into what you’ll make of it.

With gold prices at record highs, a great many people are selling their unwanted jewelry for cash.  Unfortunately, the booming market in gold buying is leaving a great many cash-strapped hopefuls without near as much cash as they should get!  Protect yourself by following these three steps:

1) Know what you have.

Gold is gold is gold, right?  Wrong.  24 karat gold is pure gold, while 18 karat is 75% pure gold, and so on.  Everything you have needs to thought of in terms of the pure gold.  So, if you have a gram of 18 karat gold, it’s really only three-quarters of a gram of pure gold.  In addition, how much work is involved in getting to that pure gold is part of the equation.  If you have a great many inexpensive stones in settings with the gold, a gold dealer will need to remove the stones when refining your items to get at the pure gold.  Remember that the price for gold you read about or hear about assumes pure gold in a very salable form, coins or bullion.  Even 24 karat pure gold in necklace form needs to be smelted by a gold buyer to get the money they paid for it and a reasonable return.
2) Know what it’s worth.

You can assume that if your gold was in it’s perfect salable form, you could get very close to the market value for it, essentially paying a dealer a small fee for convenience.  Since your gold is not in its final form, though, you’re not likely to get too close to the market price.  Gold buyers at the low end buy for as little as eighteen to twenty percent of its value!  Better buyers will offer you anywhere from fifty to seventy percent depending on the situation, and some can even do better depending on what you have.  When you have an understanding of the eventual value of your gold, you have a great deal better negotiating power when it comes time to close the deal.
3) Find a good place to sell.

In general, there are two places to avoid.  First off, avoid the mail in gold buyers.  They make their money by avoiding the conversations that lead to better prices.  By the time you have a quote, they have your gold and you have their check.  It’s far to easy to simply deposit the check or to miss the deadline for returning it, and it will never be what it ought to be.  Secondly, avoid the shops in malls and, well, just about everywhere, that have recently appeared.  You want to go directly to a refinery or to a local jeweler who makes money from other aspects of the business and has a vested interest in making your experience work for you.