Saturday, September 08, 2007
Scary Romances
Chaim Even-Zohar comments on Michael Hastings article in the Newsweek magazine titled 'Romancing the stone' + his views on synthetic vs. natural diamonds + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp?TextSearch=&KeyMatch=0&id=23652
Kashmir Sapphire
In the old days blue stones were exposed by a landslide in the hills of Kashmir. A band of men, with a mule caravan on its way to Delhi, saw the stones as curiosities, picked them up and traded them for salt in Calcutta. They were sold again and resold. News of these transactions reached the Maharaja, who in great wrath demanded them back. This was done all along the line until they were returned to the Maharaja.
- Indian Post - 1934
I don't want to say the days of Kashmir sapphires are over, but it's likely that we are going to see less specimens; the distinct, velvety (cornflower) blue color, the best quality Kashmir sapphire, the benchmark for color excellence. Nature always like to surprise us one way or the other so let's keep our fingers crossed. Most likely what you are going to see in Kashmir today are synthetic flame fusion blue sapphires or low quality blue sapphires.
- Indian Post - 1934
I don't want to say the days of Kashmir sapphires are over, but it's likely that we are going to see less specimens; the distinct, velvety (cornflower) blue color, the best quality Kashmir sapphire, the benchmark for color excellence. Nature always like to surprise us one way or the other so let's keep our fingers crossed. Most likely what you are going to see in Kashmir today are synthetic flame fusion blue sapphires or low quality blue sapphires.
A Small Town In Germany
(via Bangkok Post, September, 6, 2007) Peerawat Jariyasombat writes:
Pforzheim in Baden-Wurttemberg may not find itself on the tourist map, it certainly counts when it comes to high class jewelry. A small town in Germany, Pforzheim is not on the tourist map but for jewelry lovers it has a special meaning. So don’t be surprised if you come across a gold-plated Porsche on its streets. Of course, it is real gold. The one I am talking about is a Porsche Boxster cabriolet, its body clad in 3000 wafer-thin strips of 22-carat gold.
Its proud owner is George Leicht, who operates a jewelry shop downtown. “You are in the city of gold. You can expect a champagne welcome with tiny gold flakes hanging in the bubble,” he said to me.
If you want to learn about German jewelry, Schmuckwelten is a good start for the showroom features world famous brands Chopard, Faberge, Bunz and Wellendorff, all of which are produced in Pforzheim.
What is on show will be enough to stun jewelry lovers. From rings, necklaces and pearls to diamonds, thousands of pieces of jewelry and watches made in Germany and Switzerland are showcased at Schmuckwelten. I had to hold my camera bag carefully just to make sure it didn’t make any scratches on the items on display.
Situated at the gate of the Black Forest, Pforzheim is a town of 119,000 inhabitants, part of the state of Baden-Wurttemberg in southwest Germany. Its jewelry and watch-making industry dates back 240 years. Besides watches and jewelry, Schmuckwelten has two museums that lead visitors into the world of gems and precious ornaments. One, the world of jewelry showcases precious stones and metals. Visitors can learn their processing. There are 11 diagrams illustrating various processes starting from where the precious metals and stones were found until their transformation into finished pieces of jewelry.
In the basement of the same building is the Mineral Museum featuring 5000 exhibits of rare stones. It focuses on minerals from the Black Forest region and Rhineland, as well as amethyst from Brazil. Among the jewelry manufacturers in Pforzheim is Faberge. It’s jeweled eggs have featured in films such as the 1983 James Bond thriller Octopussy and more recently the Ocean’s Twelve released in 2003, whose plots revolved around attempts to steal Faberge eggs kept in highly fortified vaults.
They are among the original 68 jeweled eggs made by Peter Carl Faberge and his assistants for the Russian tsars and private collectors between 1885 and 1917. The eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with combinations of enamel and gemstones. The term ‘Faberge Egg’ has become synonymous with luxury and regarded as masterpieces of the jeweler’s art.
Faberge started as a Russian brand. After the revolution, its management fled abroad and tried to rebuild the brand but failed, until Victor Mayer bought the brand in 1905 and settled down in Pforzheim. It has kept up with the old Faberge style and craft since.
Dr Marcus Mohr, the president of Victor Mayer GmbH and workmaster of Faberge, walked me around his factor where the staff were busy making jewelry by hand, in true Faberge tradition. It was wonderful watching the beautiful ornament go through the remarkable making process, from rough drawings on paper to finished products without using high technology. Although staff works in the old way, their designs are not boring, every piece being cut and vibrant in color.
One of the most remarkable Faberge works involves engraving watch dial by hand. “Actually, we can easily make it using machine but then it won’t be priceless. At the present there are only three men in Germany who can do it,” Dr Mohr said.
A stone’s throw from Faberge is the elegant showroom of Wellendorff, the brand that devoutly maintains its traditional design and craftsmanship. Founded in 1893, the brand is famed for its gold rope which is woven from gold thread, but amazingly soft and the more remarkable is its turning ring.
The ring can be turned around since it comes with its own hidden wheel inside. It is assembled from four separate parts. Everything is assembled so nicely that water cannot get inside. The secret of its soft gold rope and the turning ring have made Wellendorff famous, even though they are made of 18 carat gold and do not come with a wide choice of design. “Wellendorff is the tradition. We are not going with the fashion trend. We set our own trend,” its owner Hanspeter Wellendorff said.
For more information about jewelry in Pforzheim, visit:
www.schmuckwelten.de
www.wellendorff.com
www.faberge-jewelry.com
Pforzheim in Baden-Wurttemberg may not find itself on the tourist map, it certainly counts when it comes to high class jewelry. A small town in Germany, Pforzheim is not on the tourist map but for jewelry lovers it has a special meaning. So don’t be surprised if you come across a gold-plated Porsche on its streets. Of course, it is real gold. The one I am talking about is a Porsche Boxster cabriolet, its body clad in 3000 wafer-thin strips of 22-carat gold.
Its proud owner is George Leicht, who operates a jewelry shop downtown. “You are in the city of gold. You can expect a champagne welcome with tiny gold flakes hanging in the bubble,” he said to me.
If you want to learn about German jewelry, Schmuckwelten is a good start for the showroom features world famous brands Chopard, Faberge, Bunz and Wellendorff, all of which are produced in Pforzheim.
What is on show will be enough to stun jewelry lovers. From rings, necklaces and pearls to diamonds, thousands of pieces of jewelry and watches made in Germany and Switzerland are showcased at Schmuckwelten. I had to hold my camera bag carefully just to make sure it didn’t make any scratches on the items on display.
Situated at the gate of the Black Forest, Pforzheim is a town of 119,000 inhabitants, part of the state of Baden-Wurttemberg in southwest Germany. Its jewelry and watch-making industry dates back 240 years. Besides watches and jewelry, Schmuckwelten has two museums that lead visitors into the world of gems and precious ornaments. One, the world of jewelry showcases precious stones and metals. Visitors can learn their processing. There are 11 diagrams illustrating various processes starting from where the precious metals and stones were found until their transformation into finished pieces of jewelry.
In the basement of the same building is the Mineral Museum featuring 5000 exhibits of rare stones. It focuses on minerals from the Black Forest region and Rhineland, as well as amethyst from Brazil. Among the jewelry manufacturers in Pforzheim is Faberge. It’s jeweled eggs have featured in films such as the 1983 James Bond thriller Octopussy and more recently the Ocean’s Twelve released in 2003, whose plots revolved around attempts to steal Faberge eggs kept in highly fortified vaults.
They are among the original 68 jeweled eggs made by Peter Carl Faberge and his assistants for the Russian tsars and private collectors between 1885 and 1917. The eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with combinations of enamel and gemstones. The term ‘Faberge Egg’ has become synonymous with luxury and regarded as masterpieces of the jeweler’s art.
Faberge started as a Russian brand. After the revolution, its management fled abroad and tried to rebuild the brand but failed, until Victor Mayer bought the brand in 1905 and settled down in Pforzheim. It has kept up with the old Faberge style and craft since.
Dr Marcus Mohr, the president of Victor Mayer GmbH and workmaster of Faberge, walked me around his factor where the staff were busy making jewelry by hand, in true Faberge tradition. It was wonderful watching the beautiful ornament go through the remarkable making process, from rough drawings on paper to finished products without using high technology. Although staff works in the old way, their designs are not boring, every piece being cut and vibrant in color.
One of the most remarkable Faberge works involves engraving watch dial by hand. “Actually, we can easily make it using machine but then it won’t be priceless. At the present there are only three men in Germany who can do it,” Dr Mohr said.
A stone’s throw from Faberge is the elegant showroom of Wellendorff, the brand that devoutly maintains its traditional design and craftsmanship. Founded in 1893, the brand is famed for its gold rope which is woven from gold thread, but amazingly soft and the more remarkable is its turning ring.
The ring can be turned around since it comes with its own hidden wheel inside. It is assembled from four separate parts. Everything is assembled so nicely that water cannot get inside. The secret of its soft gold rope and the turning ring have made Wellendorff famous, even though they are made of 18 carat gold and do not come with a wide choice of design. “Wellendorff is the tradition. We are not going with the fashion trend. We set our own trend,” its owner Hanspeter Wellendorff said.
For more information about jewelry in Pforzheim, visit:
www.schmuckwelten.de
www.wellendorff.com
www.faberge-jewelry.com
Luciano Pavarotti
Opera is one of the most important art forms. It should be listened to and appreciated by everyone.
Luciano Pavarotti (1935 - 2007)
Without a doubt Luciano Pavarotti had a unique god-like voice, and there will never be another Pavarotti. Before a concert he used to say, "I will bring them to their feet." And he did it. I wasn't brought up with opera, but seeing him on TV some years back mesmerized me. Since then I have become a fan. I think he brought pleasure to many people, and he will be rightly missed.
Luciano Pavarotti (1935 - 2007)
Without a doubt Luciano Pavarotti had a unique god-like voice, and there will never be another Pavarotti. Before a concert he used to say, "I will bring them to their feet." And he did it. I wasn't brought up with opera, but seeing him on TV some years back mesmerized me. Since then I have become a fan. I think he brought pleasure to many people, and he will be rightly missed.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Treasure Maps
Bill James (Australia) writes:
If you have done the job properly, the gem material should be concentrated in a small circle in the center of the sieved gravel. Pick the stones out, using tweezers if necessary, and place them in your collecting bottle. Many things happen in the history of a river, the life cycle of which is accomplished only when it has cut its bed down to the level of that lake or sea into which it flows. Even then it may occur that some earth movement raises the land or the sea level falls so that the river is rejuvenated and flows rapidly again.
Rivers often change their course, destroying part of their former deposits and creating new ones. The stream may leave gravels on terraces high above its present bed or its course may be swallowed by a flow of lava—which is what happened to the ancient riverbed now forming the New England diamond fields of Copeton and Bingara. Miners call these prehistoric deposits of buried gravel deep leads.
Alluvial mining for gems on a commercial scale in Australia is now mechanized, with bulldozers stockpiling the gravel for treatment in pulsators. At Copetown, for instance, a revolving screen was used followed by pulsator treatment before hand sieving for diamonds.
Australian methods of alluvial sapphire mining vary according to water supplies, miners in some areas having to rely on dry screening and hand sorting. Fossicking or noodling on mine dumps may call for both the quarter-inch sieve and 3 lb hammer, as no rock of any size should be left unsplit. The golden rule mine dumps is to look for the place where the grass and weeds have been left undisturbed and dig there.
Another tip, as far as the smaller and older type of disused mine is concerned, is to look around for any large rock fragments that may have been scattered in the bush by blasting. They are worth cracking open, too. Old mine workings have a fascination for rockhounds. Normally sensible people are irresistibly lured into these gloomy, damp tunnels although they must be well aware that time, rust and white ants have made everything thoroughly unsafe.
Shafts and underground workings are often filled with carbon dioxide gas, a quick and stealthy killer of people unaware of it. The presence of the gas can be discovered by testing with a naked light, which the gas put out, but my advice is: Steer clear of the old mine workings altogether.
Certainly never go off on your own to work rockfaces or investigate mine tunnels. In fact, it is sound policy never to go off on your own on any long trips, and on short trips always to make a point of telling someone where you are going. If you are going into arid or rough country make sure you take extra food and petrol and at least five gallons of extra water for each person in the party.
Look out for snakes, spiders, ticks and, most of all, sunburn. Buy yourself a shady hat, some tough mittens and boots stout enough to protect your ankles and steel-capped to guard your toes. Don’t forget a rucksack to carry the tools and spoils. Among the extras you will find useful are electric torch, a pocket lens of jeweler’s loupe and a bottle of bromoform or methylene iodide, to enable on-the-spot identification of gemstones through their specific gravity.
It works this way: topaz (specific gravity around 3.5) sinks in bromoform (specific gravity 2.9), while quartz (specific gravity 2.65) floats. Other test liquids such Klein’s, Sonstadt’s and Retger’s solutions are difficult, dangerous or messy to use and best left to the laboratory.
One of the most rewarding ways of opal-hunting is to speck or noodle the dumps on abandoned—make sure it is abandoned—claims at Lightning Ridge or any of the other famous opalfields. The best time for this is just after a heavy shower of rain when gems washed to the surface catch the sunlight.
Many good stones were overlooked in the old days and remain in the dumps, which are now being gone over with mechanical sieves or puddling machines. Without a doubt many deposits of precious opal have yet to be found and worked in the west of Queensland and New South Wales, where lack of water beat the old-time gougers. The same can be said of the north-west of South Australia, where it is officially regarded as ‘quite possible’ that important discoveries remain to be made.
Little more than the surface has been scraped off most of Australia’s gemstone deposits. Sapphires, zircons, topaz—almost every gem in the alphabet—lie scattered in a bed of gravel between a few inches and 50 ft thick over an area of 350 square miles at Anakie, Central Queensland. Although the easily accessible areas are largely worked out, much of the ground is still almost untouched.
This is one of Australia’s richest gemfields; but the picture is typical. Gemstone mining is everywhere an individual effort, crippled by lack of capital. The only full-time miners on many fields are pensioners, picking up little more than the price of their smokes.
While they seem to offer little return for financial investment, the wonderful variety and widespread nature of Australia’s gemstone deposits are now being recognized in the growth of the gemseeking as a most fascinating and rewarding hobby.
If you have done the job properly, the gem material should be concentrated in a small circle in the center of the sieved gravel. Pick the stones out, using tweezers if necessary, and place them in your collecting bottle. Many things happen in the history of a river, the life cycle of which is accomplished only when it has cut its bed down to the level of that lake or sea into which it flows. Even then it may occur that some earth movement raises the land or the sea level falls so that the river is rejuvenated and flows rapidly again.
Rivers often change their course, destroying part of their former deposits and creating new ones. The stream may leave gravels on terraces high above its present bed or its course may be swallowed by a flow of lava—which is what happened to the ancient riverbed now forming the New England diamond fields of Copeton and Bingara. Miners call these prehistoric deposits of buried gravel deep leads.
Alluvial mining for gems on a commercial scale in Australia is now mechanized, with bulldozers stockpiling the gravel for treatment in pulsators. At Copetown, for instance, a revolving screen was used followed by pulsator treatment before hand sieving for diamonds.
Australian methods of alluvial sapphire mining vary according to water supplies, miners in some areas having to rely on dry screening and hand sorting. Fossicking or noodling on mine dumps may call for both the quarter-inch sieve and 3 lb hammer, as no rock of any size should be left unsplit. The golden rule mine dumps is to look for the place where the grass and weeds have been left undisturbed and dig there.
Another tip, as far as the smaller and older type of disused mine is concerned, is to look around for any large rock fragments that may have been scattered in the bush by blasting. They are worth cracking open, too. Old mine workings have a fascination for rockhounds. Normally sensible people are irresistibly lured into these gloomy, damp tunnels although they must be well aware that time, rust and white ants have made everything thoroughly unsafe.
Shafts and underground workings are often filled with carbon dioxide gas, a quick and stealthy killer of people unaware of it. The presence of the gas can be discovered by testing with a naked light, which the gas put out, but my advice is: Steer clear of the old mine workings altogether.
Certainly never go off on your own to work rockfaces or investigate mine tunnels. In fact, it is sound policy never to go off on your own on any long trips, and on short trips always to make a point of telling someone where you are going. If you are going into arid or rough country make sure you take extra food and petrol and at least five gallons of extra water for each person in the party.
Look out for snakes, spiders, ticks and, most of all, sunburn. Buy yourself a shady hat, some tough mittens and boots stout enough to protect your ankles and steel-capped to guard your toes. Don’t forget a rucksack to carry the tools and spoils. Among the extras you will find useful are electric torch, a pocket lens of jeweler’s loupe and a bottle of bromoform or methylene iodide, to enable on-the-spot identification of gemstones through their specific gravity.
It works this way: topaz (specific gravity around 3.5) sinks in bromoform (specific gravity 2.9), while quartz (specific gravity 2.65) floats. Other test liquids such Klein’s, Sonstadt’s and Retger’s solutions are difficult, dangerous or messy to use and best left to the laboratory.
One of the most rewarding ways of opal-hunting is to speck or noodle the dumps on abandoned—make sure it is abandoned—claims at Lightning Ridge or any of the other famous opalfields. The best time for this is just after a heavy shower of rain when gems washed to the surface catch the sunlight.
Many good stones were overlooked in the old days and remain in the dumps, which are now being gone over with mechanical sieves or puddling machines. Without a doubt many deposits of precious opal have yet to be found and worked in the west of Queensland and New South Wales, where lack of water beat the old-time gougers. The same can be said of the north-west of South Australia, where it is officially regarded as ‘quite possible’ that important discoveries remain to be made.
Little more than the surface has been scraped off most of Australia’s gemstone deposits. Sapphires, zircons, topaz—almost every gem in the alphabet—lie scattered in a bed of gravel between a few inches and 50 ft thick over an area of 350 square miles at Anakie, Central Queensland. Although the easily accessible areas are largely worked out, much of the ground is still almost untouched.
This is one of Australia’s richest gemfields; but the picture is typical. Gemstone mining is everywhere an individual effort, crippled by lack of capital. The only full-time miners on many fields are pensioners, picking up little more than the price of their smokes.
While they seem to offer little return for financial investment, the wonderful variety and widespread nature of Australia’s gemstone deposits are now being recognized in the growth of the gemseeking as a most fascinating and rewarding hobby.
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Greatest Opening Film Lines (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House - 1948):
Manhattan, New York, USA. In any discussion of contemporary America and how its people live, we must inevitably start with Manhattan, New York City, USA. Manhattan, glistening modern giant of concrete and steel reaching to the heavens and cradling in its arms seven million, seven million happy beneficiaries of the advantages and comforts this great metropolis has to offer. Its fine, wide boulevards facilitate the New Yorkers' carefree, orderly existence.
Manhattan, New York, USA. In any discussion of contemporary America and how its people live, we must inevitably start with Manhattan, New York City, USA. Manhattan, glistening modern giant of concrete and steel reaching to the heavens and cradling in its arms seven million, seven million happy beneficiaries of the advantages and comforts this great metropolis has to offer. Its fine, wide boulevards facilitate the New Yorkers' carefree, orderly existence.
Looking After Their Own
Susan Emerling writes about artist's choice (s) / passion of keeping certain pieces that have personal significance (s) + other viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1832
Botswana's Sabotage Of Beneficiation
Chaim Even-Zohar writes about Bostwana's new problem (s) with labor unions + the diamond expatriates dilema (s) + the perception of beneficiation in Bostswana + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
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