We have all seen spoon rings, where someone takes a silver spoon and cuts the bowl off then forms it into a ring.
Wekk, in this case they took a large silver salad fork and made a truly interesting bracelet.
It’s prettier in person and even more interesting when you can hold it in your hand or slip it on your wrist.
In this example the band is a much newer (about $3) replacement but the watch itself is from somewhere in the teens is marked Patek Philippe Cie. Geneve Switzerland as opposed to “Patek Phillipe” or “Patek Phillipe & Co. Geneve.” (The Cie mark was used from 1845 up until 1932)
Because of the number of fakes -you can buy replica 1920′s Patek Philippe’s online today from multiple sources- and because we are not experts in the field of watches we sent detailed photos of the face, the action and the stem to an expert who assured us that the watch was indeed genuine.
The reason for the doubt in our minds can be shown in these two photos. The top example was found on a reputable site called jptimepieces.com and is from the 1920′s and the bottom example is from another good site and is from the 1980′s. Notice the faces, fonts and hands. They look nothing like our example.
As a side note:
Did you know that wristwatches didn’t catch on until around the time of the first world war but Patek Philippe created the first Swiss wristwatch in 1868. That watch was sold to Countess Koscowicz of Hungary.
We finally got deeper into the vault and found 3 pieces of bi-color or “watermelon” tourmaline.
This is another of those “is this cool or what” things.
It will never compare to the sheer size of our monster AAA, Citrine but these gems are not only a lot rarer; if you had one mounted it would be a lot easier to wear.
As a side note:
If you have gemstones to display we found some very nice clear plastic cases that are about 3″x3″ and designed specifically for that purpose.
They have Styrofoam in the center to hold the stone in place and the two halves are held together by four tiny rare-earth magnets.
We don’t have any extras but if you want some contact us I can try and hunt up the source.
How’s this for a broach.
Made in the ’40s, the gold base is probably 4″ in diameter and the Citrine itself is approximately 50mm in diameter and 32mm in depth. — In other words, the table (the flat surface on the top of the stone) is larger in diameter than an old fashion silver dollar. And as you can see it has a beautiful color.
We haven’t listed it yet but the price should be $7995 and it will, in all probability, be sold to a dealer at the next jewelry show.
A few quick shots of the display room in which we keep the better stuff.
Then
and now
The only trouble with this room is that at night we have to pull everything out of the cases and lock it in the vault and then return it to the cases in the morning. (I took photos of each case so we know what goes where.)
It’s a bit of a pain, but it keeps Lloyd’s of London happy, and the system works well and will continue to work well….. right up until the inevitable day that someone decides to rearrange the entire store. –That won’t be the first time and it certainly won’t be the last, but I sure hope it happens on my days off. 
I was taking photos of various pieces of fine jewelry when I came across this black diamond ring and it occurred to me that most people are not aware that diamonds not only come in every color in the rainbow but they also come in black.
Interesting factoid. Hmmmmm… Factoid? I wonder what talk show writer made that one up?
At any rate…. All colored diamonds contain impurities or structural defects that create the various colors. For instance yellow diamonds contain nitrogen, blue diamonds contain boron, green diamonds were exposed to radiation and in the case of black diamonds there are many dark inclusions that give rise to the dark color.
I found this among my iPhone photos.
Not sure if this is a piece jade or jadeite. Heck, I’m not even certain we still have it. I probably ought to wander over and check when I get to work.
Addendum:
It was jadeite and I was told that it sold months ago. I guess I need to get out of my office more.
In an effort to honor those who have served, or who’s family members have served their country, Pioneer Loan has begun a project called “The Veterans’ Wall of Honor”
This will be a series of 4×4 metal sheets covered with 3×6 metal plaques engraved with the Name, Rank and Branch of Service of those who served.
This is very much a work in progress and just beginning so it may take some time to get up and running.
I’ve been taking a few fast photos so we can test our new online catalog and I came across this cute little guy.
It’s a gold Frog Ring with rubies down it’s back, ruby eyes and diamond accents.
In case anyone noticed, we haven’t been very active of late. We had the best of intentions but the holidays, with their associated family demands, combined with a lot of rethinking and redesigning of our websites have kept us too busy to remember to write. And yes; we are aware that we have been neglecting our twitter account as well.
Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you have 28 hours worth of work that absolutely, positively, has to get done in the 24 hours allotted by the clock. Well that’s where we’re at right now and where we will probably remain for the next couple of months. So bear with us and soon it will all make sense…… Maybe.
On a whole different note: I downloaded a 30 day trial of Adobe’s Dreamweaver. So far it looks like it will simplify the design aspects of website building and it looks to be fairly easy to use once you get past the initial learning curve.
I have been using the free version of HTML-Kit 292 to write code but I find there are times when how something looks in preview mode has little to do with how it looks out in the real world. So I’ve started comparing various editors ranging from the $399 Dreamweaver to the free Aptana.
Now all I need is a break from my projects to learn enough about these editors to actually make an informed decision instead of just choosing whichever looks the prettiest and struggling to learn how to make it do what I need/want it to do.
Having said that, given the small amount of comparison I’ve managed to do so far I find that the Dreamweaver feature set is the most comfortable and if the program was a couple of hundred dollars cheaper I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it. But I dislike subscriptions and four hundred bucks is a lot of money if I can’t figure out how the software will save me enough time to justify the cost. Which means I’ll probably go with one of the free IDEs.
