Luxury

It’s one of those things that’s relative; and perhaps a trip to the dictionary will only confuse this notion. The word, luxury, has a Latin root, ‘luxus’, meaning excess or extravagance; but even the Romans found the word slippery. ‘luxuriare’ was used by the ancient Romans to describe profuse growth, so the notion of abundance has clearly been an inherent part of any understanding of luxury for at least two millennia. Excess, extravagance, abundance - luxury - how can one consider it except as a comparative?

In the late 1940s (yes, I’m that old) family trips were often aimed at reconnecting to relatives - family - in other parts of the country; and for this city boy they were often eye opening. There were, for example, no paved roads into one of my dad’s boyhood homes, Marshfield, Missouri; and while there were paved roads into Tulsa, Oklahoma, my aunt Ellen’s home had no running water. Things were more ’luxurious’ when we visited my cousin Bob Hackett’s home in Oklahoma City - paved roads, electricity, running water, all the ‘modern’ conveniences and not that dissimilar to our family home in the Chicago area. Of course, the circumstances of  his home were luxurious when compared to those of my aunt Ellen; and the circumstances of her life were more luxurious than those of my great aunt Ophelia and my great uncle John, 90+ year old residents of Marshfield. On the other hand a comparison between my cousin BobÕs late 1940s home in Oklahoma City and your home today might illustrate the ‘profuse growth’ aspect of ‘luxuriare’.

Few, if any, Americans had air conditioned homes when we visited cousin Bob; and during our visit it never fell below 100¼ (Fahrenheit), even at night! Yet we survived; so I guess air conditioning could be considered a luxury. The ‘phones were all land lines; and in much of the U.S. you called the operator at a central switchboard to place your call; so it seems you could consider our cellular world to be one of ‘luxurious’ communications. There were a few television sets (and only a few television stations) and they were both so expensive and so impractical’ that few had one - a far cry from the entertainment luxuries we enjoy today. My point, of course, is that luxury is relative, except when it comes to luxuries with emotional content - strikingly, fine jewelry.

I have a friend who has, over the last forty years or so, become a well to do and respected figure in the world of jewelry; and one of his most treasured possessions has no obvious practical function. It is his mother’s engagement ring; and its immense value lies in its emotional importance. It connects him to a mother who passed away while he was only a child; and while this is remarkable within the context of his life, it is, very generally, the greatest value in fine jewelry. My late mother’s pearls connect my daughter to her grandmother and my late mother-in-law’s diamond wedding ring is proudly worn by one of my sisters-in-law. What other luxuries can have so enduring a value? Certainly the present demonstrates this.

Recently a couple came in to our store to have a new ring made for the diamond he had presented her twenty years ago. Like many men (particularly an engineer!), he had concentrated on the value of the diamond he purchased and paid little attention to it as a piece of jewelry. In fact, he’d done a good job in selecting it, that is, he had bought for beauty not just for weight; but it had never reflected her ebullient personality. When one of the prongs holding the diamond had failed, she’d put it in a safety deposit box and got on with her life - a daughter, a profession and more; but the ‘itch’ to wear her diamond had grown over time. With a good marriage, and the understanding that comes with it, they were ready to let her ‘finish’ her engagement ring by setting her diamond in a ring that was really hers. She looked at dozens and found nothing; but then, as more came out of our vault, she spied one that she had to put on her finger. She loved it; and after we had made her ring, she loved it more. Her husband, however, may have been the happiest. He wrote us a quick note reading (we’ve saved it with their pictures together) ‘Thank you for making my wife happy.’ Without a concrete function, perhaps the ring is a luxury; but I find it hard to acknowledge happiness as a luxury.

In fact it is the enduring emotional content of fine jewelry that lifts it far above all other luxuries and yet may make it the most practical of possessions. Should you buy a piece of fine jewelry to celebrate one of life’s momentous events or to express your love for another? Of course you should! There is nothing like it; and if you focus on the purchase of a beautiful diamond it will remain a treasured statement of your love and joy forever. So come see us here at Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers. We care about your feelings and that is our gift to you, one that few can

equal. Because we know the real value of jewelry, check out our website,

hurstsberwynjewelers.com, then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment. We have the stuff

LEGACY DIAMONDS

Perhaps a big part of jewelry’s mystique is its durability. Not a week goes by without someone approaching us with a request to “do something” with “mom’s”, “grandma’s” or “great-grandma’s” diamonds.  It’s clear that, in some way, they emotionally connect women in the present to their fore bearers; and  it doesn’t have to be a post-mortem gift.

Take, for instance, the ring a client and one of our staff worked out as a means to make use of a couple of baguette cut diamonds (diamond ‘sticks’).  They were ‘left-overs’ from a previous repurposing of some her diamonds; and they weren’t really large enough to serve as the top of a ring.  One of our staff, however, had the bright idea of making the focus of the ring’s top a baguette cut blue sapphire.  Less expensive than a diamond; it would keep a simple ring from looking too bridal - an important consideration as the client wished to give it to her “away at college” daughter.  So far so good.  Working together, the two women decided on an narrow but angular ring that would echo the shape of the diamonds; and to emphasize the gems, they decided to give the ring a very matte finish.  When the ring was finished the client liked it and the member of our staff who had guided the project loved it; all that remained was the reaction of the young woman who would receive it.  She loved it; so a successful gift, one for a lifetime connection to her mother, had been accomplished.

Then there was the family diamond a young bride-to-be wanted to wear at her wedding.  About a third of a carat (round brilliant cut), it had been her grandmother’s; but the ring it was in was worn out.  She wanted to be able to wear it at her wedding and had decided that a pendant necklace was in order.  The problem was to make the diamond look significant in a piece of neck jewelry large enough to ‘show’ with the low neckline of her wedding dress and yet versatile enough to be a continuing part of her jewelry wardrobe.  We managed this in two ways.  First, as she liked heart shapes, we designed an open, somewhat abstract heart shape.  If you can imagine it as a drawing, it would look like a heart drawn with a thick line from the point up through the notch and then the line narrowed and returned to the notch.  At the point end of the narrow line we fabricated a one-of-a-kind setting for the diamond that made it hint at being the head of an arrow; and never had the diamond looked so important!  Then we met the problem of versatility (in future wear) by fitting it with a neck chain with two attachment points.  This would allow her to vary its effective length and so be able to wear it with both open and less open necklines.  In spirit, she was able to have grandmother with her at her wedding and will be able to have her with her often in her daily life. 

A not infrequent problem is that of making use of small diamonds of different shapes in a single piece of jewelry.  So it was for a woman who approached me a few years ago.  She was very close to her niece and wanted to give her something using a mix of small round brilliant cut diamond and baguette cut  diamond ‘left overs’.  She wanted to give them to the young woman to wear at her wedding; but the problem she presented to us was complicated by the imperfect matches of the diamonds one to another.  In a ring they would have looked like something just thrown together; it would have been unprofessional.   After some consultation, the client decided to go with my recommendation that we use the diamonds to make a pair of dangling earrings.  The diamonds would be separated from one another by small lengths of white gold chain so that they would have movement and any ‘mismatch’ would not be apparent.  As earrings, of course, they would be on opposite sides of the wearer’s face and the combination of distance and motion would make the disparity in their sizes far from obvious yet capitalize on the visual interest imparted by their different shapes.  When we were finished the client was happy - and delighted to later report to us that her niece had loved them and wore them at her wedding!

There are, perhaps, three ‘morals’ to these stories.  The first is not to despair of being able to use diamonds that are currently exiled to a safety deposit box for either emotional reasons or questions of fashion.  With a little imagination, if not yours, ours, you can use them.  The second is don’t despair of using your smaller diamonds in a piece of jewelry that may cost more than such small diamonds may be valued.  If they are pretty gems (and only if they are), to do so is to overlook the fact that diamonds are, weight for weight, probably the most valuable personal possession you will ever have - 1 carat weighs only 0.2 grams!  Finally remember that diamonds are so durable that with reasonable care they can, regardless of weight or value, last very nearly forever.  If, as opposed to needing to do something with your diamonds, you are in the market for a diamond, you should put yourself in the hands of someone who is interested in the art of jewelry, not just your money.  Naturally, that means that you must see us here at Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers.  We’ll never sell you a mediocre diamond and we’ll treat the diamonds you already own with the love and respect they deserve.  Check us out on line at hurstsberwynjewelers.com; then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment.  We’re not the common jeweler.

Wealth and Suicide

The price of gold is always a matter of interest in India as it annually consumes about 20% of the world’s gold production - 963 metric tonnes in 2010. In the face of negligible domestic production (Indian mines produced less than 3 metric tonnes of gold in 2010), the reasons behind Indians preference for gold lie deep in the country’s culture. Unlike the U.S., India’s culture is ancient and still predominantly rural; and within that culture gold is not just a luxury. It has long been a hedge against capricious government and crop failures; and in modern India it has become, albeit not a secure one, a hedge against inflation. In its capacity as a piece of ‘security’ it is given to brides and babies, while as a symbol of status a grain of gold is placed in the mouth of a deceased loved one. All of which brings me to the role of wealth in Indian society and the affects of a disparate distribution of wealth on the country’s rural poor. While Europe and the United States went from boom to bust over the last sixteen years, in that same interval more than a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide, often with our world’s economy as a contributory factor.  As India’s urban population has increasingly benefited from industrial growth, its wealth has grown. Increased wealth has made increased spending possible for them; so the law of supply and demand has kicked in. That is, as the supply of money (to urban Indians) has become greater, they have been able to buy more goods and services; and they have demanded them. As demand has grown, prices asked for them have grown as well in the inflation typical of growing economies. This has affected the 72% of India’s population that remains rural in a number of ways.

Both their costs of living and their aspirations for the good things in life have grown. They have become less content with a life built around subsistence farming; that is, farming principally to feed themselves - selling whatever surplus there might be for a little cash or gold. Discontent has led India’s agriculture to drift into two directions, both aimed at producing ‘cash crops‘ that would give rural Indians the wherewithal to buy what they desire.  In India’s traditional ‘grain belt’ farmers have used newly developed grains (products of the ‘green revolution‘ of the 1970s) to increase their production of some, but not all, crops. They have concentrated on cereal grains and ignored much of what had been traditionally raised to feed the family. This has left them less self sufficient than they had been in the past and newly dependent on the cash earned by their crops. In parts of India less suitable to food crops, cotton culture has reigned supreme; but of course, farming this cash crop has created an even greater exposure to the risks created bycrop failures - as well as a new risk. Both grain and cotton farmers are now more exposed to the vagaries of market prices for their products than ever before.

As savers, Indian farmers have historically guarded themselves against crop failures by hoarding gold, very often in the form of gold jewelry. In traditional India when the failure of the monsoon, on which much of India’s agriculture depends, caused crops to fail, the gold was sold. If there was enough of it to pay the cost of feeding the family until the next harvest, the family survived. The rise of cash crop farming, however, has made even a fairly modest failure of monsoon rains a potential catastrophe. In drought conditions many Indian farmers have borrowed money, using their land as security, to sink irrigation wells. Without effective laws against usury, however, usurious interest on such loans have been the rule, not the exception; and this has often led to personal disaster.  Recently, for example, there has been a case in the Indian appeals courts involving a $280 loan that ballooned, through the application of huge interest, to almost $1900. Unable to make his payments, the farmer has lost his land; so indebtedness has become impoverishment  

Then there is the market. Between failures of the monsoon and the collapse of the world market price for cotton, the current situation of India’s cotton farmers is dire. While India’s per capita GDP is a bit more than $3000 per annum, the current value of the average Indian farmer’s cotton crop is most often less than one tenth of that. This has driven many into insuperable debt; and such debt and a consequent inability to feed their families has so shamed many that they have taken their own lives. In this way India’s better than 8% annual economic growth rate has led many of India’s rural poor to suicide.

Clearly, we Americans aren’t so bad off as many of us have thought; so we should feel free to celebrate life - and what better way than with a gift of fine jewelry? It has only one purpose in life, to say what sometimes we can’t put into words. That is, a beautiful and enduring piece of fine jewelry will tell the someone you share your life with just how much you care - every day, now and forever. So check out our website, hurstsberwynjewelers.com; then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment to select the perfect gift. We’ll make it easy because we care. We’re Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers and we have the stuff of dreams waiting here for you.

1776 - 2012 Deja Vu

This July 4th we celebrate our Declaration of Independence.  It was written by rebels against king George III 236 years ago.  That's a long time; but how different were the Americans of that time from us?  In part, the answer may be found in descriptions of the jewelry they wore.

The well dressed man present at the signing of the Declaration very probably wore cuff links and decorative buckles, very often of silver, to hold his knee breeches firmly around his upper calf.  Instead of a necktie, he wore a stock at his neck and it was secured by a buckle, preferably of silver; and were he a real ‘dandy’ of the era he might well have had steel buckles on his shoes set with ‘paste’ gems.   The buttons on his clothes may have been stone, silver, gold, pinchbeck (an alloy of copper and zinc resembling gold) or pewter; and all of these wonderful metal and stone bits would have been provided by a jeweler.  A wealthy man, such as George Washington, would own a piece of high tech, a pocket watch.  Usually this would have been made in England; but interestingly enough, the watch Washington purchased in 1775 seems to have been made in Switzerland or made by a Swiss, Jean-Henri Mairet, who had been working in London at the time the watch was made (1770).   Were he just a bit more inclined to wear jewelry, he might well have had a ring, very possibly with a seal (made of stone, gold or silver), a cameo or intaglio or a gemstone such as an agate.  

Women offered much more opportunity for the jeweler’s arts.  In addition to buttons, shoe buckles and rings, necklaces of gold and silver beads were a must for well dressed women, to say nothing of earrings, bracelets, decorative girdle buckles and stay hooks and buckles   In 1776 girdles were belts and were often worn for decoration alone, not to secure clothing nor to improve a woman’s ‘shape’; stays, however, were designed to ‘shape’ the feminine form.   In the 19th century fashionistas appropriated the word used to describe a belt, ‘girdle’, to describe what had previously been called a stay.   The jeweler came into the picture as the purveyor of bejeweled buckles for girdles and bejeweled hooks and buckles to tighten stays.  A wealthy woman might have had diamonds on her many pieces of jewelry, including stay buckles and stay hooks, but as large diamonds were quite rare and expensive, it was likely that her diamonds would be small and used to accent her jewelry, quite likely intermingled with paste gems.  Oh how things have changed and yet remain familiar.  At this year’s Las Vegas Jewelry Show Kathy and I found very few buckles being shown; on the other hand all of the other types of jewelry found in the America of 200 years ago were there in abundance, as were personal luxury accoutrements unknown at the time.

Men’s jewelry has been (sadly for jewelers) simplified.  Watches have become cheap and abundant.  Cuff links are still to be seen and in Las Vegas they ranged from precious metal and gems to contemporary icons such as computer chips and baseball memorabilia.  Interestingly enough, it’s possible that one of the signers of the Declaration wore Roman coin cuff links; and you can buy similar links today.  Buckles, but sadly reduced in importance to belt buckles only, can still be found; but rings abound.  ‘New’ accoutrements for men we found in Las Vegas included writing instruments, hand crafted money clips and something a blacksmith might have made in 1776, hand crafted pocket knives.  Naturally, we have it all.

There is a little more deja vu to women’s jewelry.  With the exception of ‘stay’ accessories, the types of jewelry offered for women have remained largely as it was, with one major change.  Gemstones have become much more readily available (come check out our new ‘take’ on mother’s rings) and diamonds in particular are far more accessible than they were in 1776.  Silver has become much more available than it was then; so we brought back a remarkable collection of Italian designed silver jewelry that is breathtaking in its sophisticated concept, execution and great prices.  And though pinchbeck is gone, we have another new collection in bronze (a different gold look-alike), silver and gemstones designed in an imaginative tribute to antiquity, and again, remarkable for its reasonable pricing.    

The desire for jewelry and the persistence of jewelry concepts make it clear that if a piece of jewelry is well conceived and executed it will endure; for this reason we insist that the jewelry we present to you has been crafted to the highest standards.  If you share our passion for great jewelry, check us out on line at hurstsberwynjewelers.com, then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment.  We’re Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers, not a common jeweler.