IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS

A young woman who had been recently divorced came into our store several days ago attempting to sell her no longer desired engagement and wedding rings. I replied that we rarely buy jewelry “over-the-counter”; but I offered to look at them to see if we might be interested in a trade. Even though most of the diamonds offered to us are far below our standards for generic gems (the stuff you see everywhere, not our exquisitely crafted, incredibly rare and exclusive Hearts On Fire diamonds), we do accept diamonds in trade if they can be re-cut to meet our exacting standards. After cleaning hers, however, it was clear we couldn’t offer any of her diamonds to our clients. The center diamond in her engagement ring had a durability threatening crack in it and her smaller diamonds were filled with visible inclusions - characteristics that should have made them relatively cheap to purchase, but not our cup of tea. Somehow this revelation seemed to give her a rough kind of satisfaction, since it seemed to say that her ex-husband had not seen enough worth in their marriage to invest much in symbols of it. After she left I found myself musing over the difference between “worth” and “value”.

When women (and men) speak of family jewelry they’ve inherited, it’s obvious that the worth they find in it is emotional; while its intrinsic (market) value is often ‘interesting’, but usually of secondary importance. Just to check into my impressions, I looked into my “American Heritage Dictionary” for common usage distinctions between “value” and “worth.” Therein ‘value’ is defined as “an amount of goods, services or money considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else.” Despite the fact that this definition makes me feel as if I’ve had a sudden encounter with the legal profession, it seems pretty clear to me that (usually) when we speak of something’s “value”, we speak of something that can somehow be quantified in the market place. By contrast, the first definition my dictionary offered for “worth” was, “the quality of something that renders it desirable, useful or valuable,” clearly meaning that determinations of “worth” can be far more subjective than determinations of value. The young woman who sought to rid herself of the symbols of her shattered marriage was simply trying to say, “They are without worth to me.” In like manner, the widower who had me size his late wife’s well worn wedding ring so that he could wear it in her memory was trying to say, “She was worth everything to me;” and so it is that jewelry “speaks”.

The question, then, for the jewelry buyer should always be one of worth. If you are buying a piece of jewelry for yourself, it should say what you want it to say to yourself and others. If you are buying a piece of jewelry as a gift, it should say what you want it to say to the recipient. Unfortunately, many who buy a piece of jewelry as a gift confuse worth and value, a path loaded with pitfalls.  One has to become an authority on jewelry metals and modes of manufacture if one is to know the value of the piece of jewelry one is buying; and diamonds are even worse. It’s true there are a technicalities that can be “mastered” by the neophyte gem buyer, but most of them bear only on a gem’s rarity.  Rarity certainly does bear on a gem’s market value, its price, but these technicalities are “laboratory” values that do not by themselves enhance a gem’s beauty - the clearest statement of worth. Think about that for a moment. When given as a gift, the worth of a gem is emotional; it comes from within the giver and his or her relationship to the recipient. Its value as a negotiable asset is very secondary at best. It is its beauty that says what you want it to say, and its worth is forever established by the emotions tied to it. In a nutshell, it’s the thought that counts.

Put yourself in the moment before you buy a gift. A dozen roses may mean as much at that moment, because they are beautiful, as something of 10 times their value. The drawback, of course, is that roses are perishable whereas jewelry is not. Beautiful jewelry will make the moment last; and if it is a moment that should be shared forever, fine jewelry has no peer. This is what makes gifts of engagement rings, wedding rings, anniversary rings, and all the other gifts of fine jewelry that can mark one of life’s great moments, so important. They can be there every day for the rest of the recipient’s life, a constant reminder of your love. So check out our website, hurstsberwynjewelers.com, for our fine jewelry collection; then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment to select a piece of fine jewelry, particularly a beautiful diamond, that will speak for you perfectly and lastingly. We’re Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers, not a common jeweler.

P.S. If you have diamonds or broken or unworn pieces of jewelry that you would like to sell, come in and we’ll help you establish their market value; and perhaps, we’ll make the best offer to buy them.