Unknotting a chain is easy when you know the right technique. In fact, this method has been used by jewelers for hundreds (yes hundreds) of years and no one has come up with a better way to get a knot out of a chain.

Important: How Did You Get Here in the First Place?

Let’s be honest, you didn’t take your thin gold or silver chain and consciously tie it into a knot. In fact, chances are good that you picked it up one day, went to put it on and the chain was knotted. Your mind raced, and you immediately blamed (if only in your head) your sister, brother, friend, or cousin who wore it last. They of course denied tying it in a knot and, they probably did not, however what SOMEONE did was roll it up and put it in a pocket, bag, or other “storage” area where it was moving around – and it knotted. Now if this was a rope, nothing would come of it. You’d pull it out and it would be straight and immediately useful, but metal, particularly very thin precious metal chain, is different…

Most of the time a chain does not tie itself in a square knot (right end over left end then through the middle, then back the opposite way). It ties itself into a weird slip knot – meaning that a bit of metal chain has somehow become a loop and then it caught something else in between and tightened.

Knowing the type of knot is really important – because the self-inflicted slip knot type of knot is always easier to unknot that one that was designed to keep a ship attached to a dock during a monsoon!

Rule No 1 – Don’t Force Anything – Do the Opposite of That!

Let’s be honest, you know that you are much stronger than that puny little chain – me too. As a consequence, we often want to let that knot know who is boss! Refrain from doing this, because it will make things much worse and could even result in broken jewelry. You and your mighty self will win the battle but lose the war, so whatever you do, and no matter how much satisfaction you will get when it all comes flying apart, don’t try to rip it open!

Rule No – 2 – Ask someone with 20/20 vision (or a get good magnifying glass) to do “the surgery.”

After about age 40, they eyes begin to go. Not horribly off, but you won’t be threading a needle in midlife without spectacles. The same rule applies here. Wear reading glasses, find a magnifying glass (or a jeweler’s lope) and follow rule No 3.

Rule No – 3 – Get two safety pins and a lot of light and follow these instructions…

First, know that when you want to unknot a chain, don’t do it “by candle light.” In fact, almost no amount of light is too much, and you will get up close and personal, so you might as well see as much as the eye will allow. If you do not have 20:20 reading vision, we recommend a desk lamp with a built in magnifying glass. Our favorite lamp is the Begeer Lighted Desktop Magnifying Glass with Light and Stand and 1.8 X 6X Magnification Lenses (about $22 on Amazon).

Okay, now that you have the rules lets chat about the three steps…

Step 1: Find a clean white plain surface – lay the chain on the surface lengthwise – knot and all.

A clean and plain white surface is important because you will be dealing with a nearly invisible rope of precious metal and it will be easy to lose it on a patterned surface (I actually did lose mine during the photoshoot and my wife nearly killed me!). Lay your chain flat and lengthwise across the surface with one end at 3 o’clock and the other at 9 o’clock. Examine the knot – do not tug or pull at it because this will make it worse.

Step 2: Use your two safety pins and bend the faster back so that the pin head is at about a 120-degree angle from the fastener (see picture).

Stick the two pin heads in the middle of the knot. It’s important that they both go in the middle because this is where the tangle is.

Step 3: Leave one pin in place, pin head down, and gently wiggle/drags the other pin head outward, pulling the knot apart in the process. Keep the second pin head on the flat surface the entire time.

This will probably take two or three gentle tugs because you are taking the strength out of the knot and that rarely happens in one go. You will start to notice a loop opening where the knot once was.

Once loose, don’t try to untangle the knot with your hand even after the loop appears, this will just move the knot and it will retighten further down the chain and you will have to start all over again. Keep gently pulling the knot further and further open until it has come completely undone and the chain looks like it did when you purchased it.

You’re done! Now you know the time-tested method of unknotting a chain. You are going to be very popular in your family from now on!

The Pirelli Effect…

When you go to buy your new car, the cost might be $34,000 with normal tires, or $35,000 with high-performance Pirelli tires. Nine times out of 10, people will buy the car with the better tires. The reason is because in the scheme of things 1000 extra dollars on a $35,000 purchase does not seem like a lot.

Fast-forward, you’ve driven your car 36,000 miles and it’s time to replace your tires. You go to the local tire store and they offer you either the $1500 Pirelli tires, or the normal $500 Michelin tires. Which do most people choose? Most choose the $500 tires. When you separate the cost of the tires from the car the amount becomes very large. When you separate the cost of the setting from the diamond, the amount also becomes very large. A $1200 setting on a $10,000 ring seems like nothing. If you went out and bought a $1200 ring that amount would seem like a lot of money. So, it’s important to know what a good price is for 10 karat gold setting or ring on a standalone basis.

Check Prices with One Click: A+ Rated James Allen – Jewelers.NYC’s 2017 Top Online Discount Diamond Store

 1/2 Carat | 3/4 Carat | 1 Carat | 1-1/2 Carat | 2 Carat | 2-1/2 Carat | 3 Carat

10 Karat Gold Per Gram

It would be rare for someone to ask the following:

How many grams of gold are there in my 10 k gold wedding band? The more likely question is what is the width of the ring? What is the size of the ring? And how many karats of gold is the metal.

This is the trick for many jewelers, because if the ring is wide and thin, you could very well be paying a lot more for your band than it’s worth because most people focus on the question “how many karats of gold in the metal?”

The very next question is about the markup on the gold itself? If you are looking for the best deal on your diamond engagement ring or any ring for that matter knowing the answer to the question how much is 10k gold worth can mean the difference between paying “Pirelli” prices versus Michelin.

How Much is 10K Gold Worth?

With the price of pure gold sitting at $43.29 at the time of the writing of this article (and easy to find price) the value of 10 karat gold is $16.60 per gram. This number will adjust up or down based on the price of 24 karat gold in the global markets, but it will always be approximately 35-40% of the price of pure, 24 karat gold.

The problem most people face is not finding out what the price of pure gold is but the price of gold when it’s diluted with other metals (i.e. 10 karat gold, 14 karat gold and 18 karat gold).

10k gold – current price $16.60 (38%)

14k gold – current price $23.60 (55%)

18k gold – current price $30.34 (70%)

Now Here is the Problem…

If you are a buyer of 10k gold jewelry, the price will also contain a markup of the metal and an artisan component (the value of the crafting of the piece). Both are fair and rational, but both can also be quite variable. If you are a seller of 10k gold jewelry, unless you are selling to someone who loves the design, the value will simply be the base metal – minus a discount.

This Means Price Compare – Always

Where is the best place to compare prices as a buyer of 10k gold?

We suggest going online to James Allen and Tiffany. To ruin the surprise, James Allen will be very low, and Tiffany will be very high. Both have a great offering, and both are rated on our site (see the sidebar on the left).

Where is the best place to compare prices as a seller of 10k gold?

Don’t go to a pawn shop or a gold broker unless you need the money right away, because you will get ripped off. We suggest eBay. In the old days, eBay was a great place to buy something for a big discount. While this is still true for unique items, those with a standardized and measurable price tend to bid themselves up to just under market most of the time.

One word of advice, once you know the price as a seller, if it has sentimental value, a family member might be the best place to start your selling process. Grandma’s cocktail ring might not be worth a lot to you, but Sissy might have been eyeballing it for years and was steamed when you got it instead of her!

The bottom line is that the price of 10k gold jewelry is quite variable. To get the maximum value, make sure you sell it to someone that appreciates and is willing to pay for the artisan value, not just the base metal value. Conversely, if you are a buyer, make sure you just pay for the design, not the brand because most people can’t tell the difference once it comes out of the box…

Jay

Jewelers Bait and Switch – this billboard says it all…

Recently I was on vacation in the Midwest and I almost got into a car accident trying to slow down and take a picture of the billboard that you see here (as it turned out I had to turnaround, but the photograph was oh so worth it!).

You’ll notice that we took out the name of the jeweler, and the city and contact information of the store. We basically did that so that we don’t get sued. Not that we would lose of course, and something like that would be front page news for Jewelers.NYC – ruining the reputation of the jeweler in question. Still we are here to help, not hurt the jewelry trade so we just wanted to use the billboard as an example of a typical bait and switch tactic that is used by some jewelers in order to entice unsuspecting customers into their shop.

This billboard takes advantage of the naïveté of the buyer. You’ll notice the “offer” is for a 1 carat diamond solitaire for $99 a month. We have four questions for this jeweler:

• What is the color, cut and clarity of the one carat diamond solitaire?
• What shape is the diamond solitaire?
• How long does the buyer pay $99 a month?
• The picture shows the diamond in a setting. What setting comes with the diamond?

Now, one can imagine all sorts of things with these four unanswered questions, each of which could be worth a lot of money to the jeweler. Most interesting of all, that the average person who knows little about diamonds looks at that billboard and think that there going to go to the jewelry store to get a great deal. Here’s how this could play out:

• The color could be pale yellow (i.e. M color). The cut could be just “fair” and the clarity could be I1  – each about as low as you can go to stay jewelry grade;
• The shape could be a princess cut – which is about 20-30% less in cost because it maximizes the yield on each rough stone (that is a “low waste” cut);
• $99 a month could go on for 72 months (or more!) which means the buyer is probably paying an exhorbitant rate or the jeweler is way over charging (or both);
• The setting would be extra.

Now, assuming that the buyer does not want a bottom of the barrel diamond, and actually wants a setting for the diamond, then that $99 a month number could double, or even triple, quite quickly.

The bottom line is this: when buying a diamond it’s far more than just the size of the stone and the monthly payment that matters. Buying right is far more important than receiving a cheap monthly payment the goes on forever. Particularly if the buyer is paying top of the line prices for a bottom of the line diamond…

if Canada, Russia and South Africa are the colorless diamond countries of choice, Australia, and its vast array of diamond inventory, provides the world with colored stones. When most people think of Australia they think of the country’s Argyle mine, which is the world’s largest producer (by volume) of rough diamond. The Argyle mine is different than many mines across the world because the production consists mainly of industrial quality diamonds (i.e. Brown). These diamonds have historically been used in cutting and shaping during manufacturing processes throughout the world. These type of diamonds are uniquely useful for industrial processes because they are:

•  cheap;
• plentiful;
• hard and strong.

Interestingly, the same elements that create brown industrial diamonds, also create gem quality diamonds for those that like the colored variety. The Argyle mine is renowned for its cognac and champagne colored diamonds (i.e. brown and dark yellow, but with very few clarity characteristics that affect the look of the diamond). The mine is also a wonderful source of the ridiculously rare pink diamond, which is almost impossible to find anywhere else.

When looking at this region, one needs to ask why this mine has so many variants in terms of color vis-à-vis other mines throughout the world. Given that diamonds get most of their color characteristics in their infant years we can assume that Australia had underground elements such as boron (blue diamonds), nitrogen (yellow diamonds), natural radiation (green, pink and red diamonds) and other underground variants and quirks that don’t exist in quantity in the other diamond producing countries of the world.

So for those that like naturally colored cognac, brown, gray, pink, blue, green or yellow color diamonds, read up on the Argyle mine because nine times out of 10 your diamond will have come from there.

it was 1991 when Canada entered the world stage in the diamond market. It was then that, in the country’s northwest territories, diamonds were discovered. By 1998 the Ekati mine went into production. Unlike Australia, which is renowned for its colored diamonds, (but suboptimal with the standard colorless variety), Canada rivaled Russia in its diamond output of the highest quality, colorless stones available in the market.

By 2003 another Canadian mine, Diavik, started producing rough diamonds from Canada. Tiffany & Co. invested heavily in this mine, and in return secured a quality source of diamonds for its customers.

By 2010, a mining company called Aber resources purchased Harry Winston, the chief rival to Tiffany, and purchased mining resources in Canada as well.  It appears to be “game on” up North!

Unlike some of the other countries, the potential of Canada has yet to be determined, which means that a significant amount of diamond inventory should be hitting the market from our Canadian friends in the years to come.

DeBeers is keenly focused on Canada as a source of diamond inventory, and has inserted itself in the ownership of many of the countries mines. This has created an issue of national sovereignty for Canada. Like many countries, Canada does not like foreign ownership of its natural resources. Through Canadian legislation, the country has set up barriers to companies that wish to influence the outcomes of the country’s natural resources. This includes ensuring Canadian workers are employed in sorting, grading, and polishing the diamonds taken from the country’s ground.

The history of Russian diamonds is a tumultuous one. That is because during the Soviet Union era, Russian diamonds existed but they were not well-publicized because of control of the communist regime. When the Soviet Union broke up and became Russia, that was the time that the diamond trade in that country exploded. Unlike other countries, one of the main characteristics of the Russian diamond industry was its vertical integration. Russian diamonds were process from start to finish in the country. Unlike other parts the world like South Africa where the stones were shipped to India to be cut, some of the highest quality diamond cutters in the world sit in this Eastern European country.

This means that a buyer of Russian diamonds receives an end to end final piece, when purchasing a gemstone from this country.

In 1990 the CSO, a DeBeers company, acquired exclusive marketing rights for all of the country’s future diamond production for five years, in return for a billion-dollar loan to Moscow. There were certain “carveouts” for industrial diamonds, but jewelry quality diamonds were not included in that agreement.

However, the Russians found a number of loopholes in the agreement simply by qualifying gemstone quality diamonds as industrial quality diamonds. This effectively allowed the Russians to circumvent the agreement and produce and sell its diamond wares into the open market. By the early 2000s the Russians had established 90 diamond polishing factories throughout the country. This was a sign of the beginning of change in the former Soviet Union. In 2001 DeBeers in Russia reached a new five-year agreement, however by 2005 the European Union accused the Russians and DeBeers of collusion to control diamond prices. In late 2007 the courts favored Russia and DeBeers, but it was clear that certainty over that relationship was far from obvious.

When the world collapsed in 2009 and DeBeers and other mining companies reduce production to adjust diamond demand to keep prices up, Russia continued to produce diamonds and became the world’s largest producer (by volume), passing even DeBeers.

The company that was formed in Russia, Alrousa, did not sell its diamonds into the open market, but rather sold them to the Russian government who stockpiled them for a rainy day.

The good news is that for those who are pedantic about keeping their diamond attached to a ring, checking prongs, etc. that diamond will get passed on or sold eventually. Most diamonds are too valuable to just sit a a drawer collecting dust. If you are the buyer, you may very well be acquiring a diamond without a certificate…

Buying a Diamond Without a Certificate

Herein lies the problem. You should no more buy a diamond without a certificate than you should by a preowned car without a full and complete inspection. Yet many people do both.

Why This is a Problem

Diamonds require 3D valuation: If you received a 1 carat diamond from your grandmother’s estate, that ring will possess some combination of color (dimension 1), cut (dimension 2), and clarity (detention 3). Those three attributes, in combination, generate almost 300 different combinations (and valuations) for a “jewelry grade” diamond. That is just if the diamond is round!

If you go to James Allen’s website (our go to site for competitively priced diamonds), the range for 1 carat, round “jewelry grade” diamonds spans from $2000 to $20,000! This means if you have no experience in grading diamonds, and you were buying a diamond without a certificate, you could be paying 10 times what the diamond is actually worth!

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that a diamond is an emotional purchase. Many people don’t buy an engagement ring cold and disconnected from the purchase. Rather, they experience a broad range of emotions ranging from deep love to deep desperation when buying an engagement ring.  The more extreme the emotion, the more extreme the buying behavior.

The Next Problem

All of this assumes that your diamond is in fact, a diamond… Buying a diamond without certification also means that you run the real risk that you are buying a synthetic stone, cubic zirconium or just a piece of glass! If you know the legacy of the diamond, this is less of a problem (they didn’t sell CZ when grandma got married 60 years ago!), but it becomes a real issue if you don’t know the history.

So, what do you do if you really want THAT Diamond?

Our first recommendation is to get the diamond graded by the Gemological Institute of America, GIA. Yes, there are a lot of good diamond grading labs out there, but GIA is the leader by almost every measure. If you would like their fee schedule, (and instructions) You can download their pdf file with a price schedule here (accurate as of June 3, 2017).

Once you have a GIA diamond grading report, you will then know where, within the 300 combinations, your diamond falls and will have a much more accurate view of the quality of the stone. Then it’s just a matter of knowing the price range. Again, we recommend going to James Allen. J.A. is a great reference point if you want to purchase a GIA graded diamond. James Allen’s prices are very good (in our humble opinion), and they offer GIA graded stones.

See James Allen’s 3D, HD, 20X Zoom Imaging in Action…

Check Prices with One Click: A+ Rated James Allen – Jewelers.NYC’s 2017 Top Online Discount Diamond Store

 1/2 Carat | 3/4 Carat | 1 Carat | 1-1/2 Carat | 2 Carat | 2-1/2 Carat | 3 Carat

If you don’t want to have your diamond graded, (time, cost, etc.) then we recommend going to a trusted jeweler and have them appraise it for you. If you do not know how to find a trusted jeweler, read our article, Finding a Trusted Jeweler. Alternatively, you can go to Iannelli Diamonds and ask for Joe. They will charge you $50 a carat to appraise the diamond and Joe gives great free advice as well (make sure you tell him Jewelers.NYC sent you).

Buying a diamond without a certificate can be a tricky proposition, but done properly a lot of the risk can be mitigated. Then you really can have that one special diamond at the appropriate price.