The Top Drawer

At one point, gold wedding rings were the option. But recently platinum has grown tremendous in popularity. Platinum is more precious than gold, and has other advantages over gold as well.
Platinum wedding rings are elegant.  Platinum was often mixed with gold, but today you can find wedding rings of pure platinum. Polished platinum sparkles as much as gold.  Platinum is a durable metal, and your active lifestyle will not get in the way of wearing a platinum ring.

Given that platinum wedding rings have a very modern look, the best styles are elegant, but simple.  A “comfort fit” is curved slightly in the inside, and most men find them a good choice since a ring is worn more then anything else that adorns the body.  Platinum is heavier than gold which is often the main reason men choose them over gold.  Remember that many men love Swiss sports watches for the same “weighty” reason.
You will pay a premium for platinum.  One reason some buyers go with gold is they are concerned they will lose their ring, and want to be able to replace it less expensively.  Do keep in mind that an engagement ring is not like a set of car keys.  You will grow to love it more and more with each passing year, as you do your partner, and will have a magnetic connection to it.  That may mean that IF you take it off, you will have a brilliant system for making sure your ring is never lost.

Antique Styles
For people who are not fortunate enough to have heirloom engagement rings in their family, pieces that are handmade using styles from generations past also provide historic  reverence.  A vintage ring is sometimes made with filigree designs, highlighting a period’s characteristics (Edwardian, for example), and have attention to detail that one would find more often when these styles were contemporary.

Bezel Settings
A lipped metallic ring keeps a diamond safely in place on bezel rings and make sense for women that are on the go.  An added bonus is that the setting makes  the stone look larger, while also holding it firmly in place.

Engagement & Wedding ring combination
Often these rings have many small diamonds which sparkle brightly around a platinum or gold band.  With the emphasis on more stones, they are higher on glitter and lower on cost than the traditional separate engagement ring with a large stone.

Personalized Engravings
This can be as simple as the date of a wedding or as detailed as a phrase from a song or poem.  If you intend to have a ring engraved by hand, do so weeks in advance.

Colored Diamonds
We’ve mentioned before on The Top Shelf that color is very in with all types of jewelry this year.  Expect to pay a significant premium on colored diamonds due to their scarcity.  These are favorites with celebrities.

As investments in Real Estate and stocks continue on a downward spiral, many are realizing that a girl’s best friend may also be her best investment.  Very high quality diamonds and other gemstones have a lot of investment appeal if one takes into account global trends in the coming years.  The fact is that wealth is being distributed more widely in our global world, but at the same time mines are being depleted of fine quality stones.

Antoinette Matlins is the author of “Jewelry & Gems: The Buying Guide.”  She says “The cost of the finest emeralds has increased approximately 75% over the past 2 years, rubies about 70%, and sapphires over 60%.”  She notes that wealthy individuals in the Middle East and China are increasingly interested in purchasing top quality gemstones, and their habits go a long way in explaining why prices are moving up.

Investing in gemstones requires a tremendous amount of expertise.  Stories of tourists trying to buy gems from individuals near mines in places like the Golden Triangle in Thailand are infamous.  Scores of people have been swindled while outside their home countries because they think their hobby or amateur knowledge is good enough to identify quality when buying from individuals at seemingly immense discounts.

If you want advice on what gemstones are most likely to increase in value, ask one of the experts at Firenze.  Test our salespeople’s knowledge and you’ll see they are some of the most educated in New York when it comes to high-end gemstones.  Our reputation comes from our genuine commitment to each and every person that approaches us for advise.

If you lose jewelry at the beach this summer, chances are it will not stay buried in the sand. In contrast to years past, amateur “treasure hunters” will have a much easier time locating your lost gold necklace or ring. Technology advances, as well as falling prices from higher production numbers, mean the metal detector of 2008 does far more for much less. A “hobby” metal detector ten years ago could help you find tin cans. Today, for a similar price a detector can find small jewelry items, sometimes worth over $1000. Machines today can detect the difference between platinum and gold. Furthermore, the high price of gold and shaky economy makes hunting for gold objects particularly attractive this year.

If you are forgetful, and leave a ring or bracelet under a beach blanket, chances are you won’t find it the next day; regardless of whether it’s still there or a treasure hunter found it after the beach goers left for the day.

There are, however, plenty of stories of good Samaritan treasure hunters who find identifiable items they return to owners. Vietnam veterans have been reunited through finds of their class rings and dog tags.

For $153, you can be the proud owner of the Garrett Ace 150 Metal Detector

Do not give a “secondhand” engagement ring to someone! If it was a family heirloom that’s different of course. If you’ve given that heirloom to numerous wives from numerous prior marriages, and your soon to be fiancé will probably guess that, think twice. Engagement rings have far more meaning to most women than wedding rings. Remember that, as girls, diamond rings stand along-side princes in storybooks and represent all that is love.

No one wants to think about the history a ring had on the finger of a former fiancé or wife.

Educate yourself about ring styles and fashion on at least a simple level. “American consumers favor the largest rocks possible, as demonstrated by Hollywood starlets,” Ruth Donaldson, the UK manager of Platinum Guild International says. “British consumers are still living up to their more austere reputation. Ladies like a better class of diamond and lean towards the best metals being used to secure their jewels. It is strongly felt by brides that their fiancés are getting it wrong if they are just selecting the biggest rock.”

NASA wouldn’t have to mine a large portion of Eros—or another asteroid like it– to pay for the next 5 decades of its programs, but it also couldn’t come up with the funds to do so. And carrying out a task of this sort would be a as groundbreaking (pun intended) and newsworthy as any event in the annals of both space-crafting and mining.

Could investment from any number of sources, like the US government teaming up with its 10 most friendly allies, allow for robotic mining of a blasted space rock? It would take many, many years to prepare and would destroy world markets for minerals such as gold as they are flooded by gold from space; but yes it is quite possible. With a massive inventory of jewelry in every size and shape, Firenze Jewels doesn’t like the idea of such an expedition much was it to happen tomorrow. Nor, we suspect, would those of you that own high valued gold or platinum jewelry. So what do you think, is space the place for us to expand our search for precious stones, as well minerals like aluminum?

The Asteroid Eros was closely examined in 1999 by the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft. Few Asteroids have been closely examined, and it is believed that Eros may not be unusual in the minerals it contains. There are 1000s of asteroids circling earth. Weighing in at about 20,000 million tons of aluminum and with almost the same amount of gold and platinum, one has to wonder why NASA hasn’t launched a mission to capture the banana shaped asteroid, tethered it to the international space station, and started one of the largest mining projects in the history of the world— in space.

In fact, the amount of precious stone in this not particularly large Asteroid is greater than what could be mined from the entire upper crust of our planet. Twenty to 200 thousand megatons of explosives would be needed to extract substantial amounts of precious minerals. Such a project would more realistically be done by mining on the rock itself by a spacecraft using solar energy and robots.

Right Hand Rings are a flamboyant and a smart way to show off nicely manicured hands.  When set with semiprecious stones they fit well with multicolored spring fashion items.

Classic Pendants are in for the 2008 Spring.  Look for heart ornamentation.  Christmas trees stay up for a month after December 25th in some homes, and this year many women aren’t quick to forget February 14.  Spring clothing is more loud and full of detail, and the classic heart pendant is a simple look that provides a nice contrast and keeps the love alive from Valentine’s day.