Jewelry Markings on Aquamarine Pendant

A client wrote to ask me the following on an Aquamarine Pendant which I thought was a common enough problem.

She was given a pendant: aquamarine in 18 K gold frame with "TINA" engraved on the back. Front of the aquamarine is uncut.

She is trying to find the designer's full name and other work.



ANSWER..!

The name 'TINA' doesn't mean anything to me but you didn't say whether it was STAMPED Tina or ENGRAVED as Tina?

If it was engraved it may simply be the name of the person who was given the pendant as a gift. To 'TINA' with love etc...

If it was stamped - there doesn't appear to be any Manufacture or Makers Mark to link it to...

Finally, it may also have been the work of a Jewelers' Apprentice, (yes they have girls too) who made the item and marked it with her own name. Craft schools also teach jewelry making around the world, so it may have come from that also.

Personally - if it were engraved and not stamped, I would go with the first option. It was the name of the person to who the item was first given.

For more on Hallmarks in General go to 20th Century Jewelry Antiques and sign up for their FREE course on hallmarking. Well worth the effort...

Samara In Straw, Acorn in Quarter Roll Plasticcm

As writer picked up trash dropped by passersby in the street, she saw
a tiny samara (maple tree seed) stuck in the end of a straw. The next day
she saw an acorn stuck in the plastic wrap of a $10 roll of quarters.
(Baba's subtle synchroncities were telling her a desire to be more comfortable
financially could cause rebirth.)

Platinum Quality Marking

I have a question about the FTC guidelines on platinum quality marking for a good friend of mine. Her husband's wedding band in stamped with 800Pt. I was reading on quality quidelines on the FTC website.

Here it states that platinum must be at least 850 ppt platinum and apparently any less is to be marked with it's pgm as well. This is the point I am unsure of- I don't know.

Also the people they purchased thier wedding rings from said that white gold was stronger and more durable than platinum for her ring- I thought the opposite was true, and that platinum is the best choice for setting diamonds in long term items like wedding rings, etc.

ANSWER..!

Platinum jewelry has taken a little change over the past few years, especially since the price has risen along with Gold.

In order for the industry to keep prices competitive, they have started to classify Platinum Alloys with the 800pt or 850pt marks etc - which is quite acceptable as they are NOT using the word 'PLATINUM' (which indicates the pure metal).

While that term (800pt) may be a little misleading, especially if it were not brought to the purchasers attention, it is never-the-less quite acceptable.

You also have to remember that not all jewelry is made in the States and many items made in Europe or overseas may not have such stringent rules and regulations.

Personally, if your friend knew the item was 800 grade alloy and was happy with the price - I'd be happy with that.

Regarding Platinum verses White Gold - White Gold is HARDER because of the way it is mixed with other metals. Traditionally Platinum is used for diamonds because it doesn't throw any colour into the gemstone. Diamonds are graded by their LACK OF COLOR so the less reflection from the ring - the better. Platinum wins for me, but it's still a personal thing.

Hope this helps.

A vision of a pig farmer whose 2 young boys were trampled by the frightened animals..

A vision of a pig farmer whose 2 young boys were trampled by the frightened animals..

a. the past life of an animal rights activist
b. greed affecting spiritual growth (dreaming of children is sometimes interpreted
as the evolving spirit of the parent)
c. Baba implanting the suggestion that children's accidents and fatalities
on farms be investigated

*
dreamer sees man who lives across the street
knocking a statue of winged Mercury out of a frieze
.. he doesn't want it.. next the helmet rolls off of Mercury..
dreamer picks it up and takes it with his permission

a. communication or Mercury: the last of the remaining
Roman gods to conquer
b. Mercury like Pinocchio is about to come to life..
first he must be knocked out of his frieze (freeze)
*
The Mercury dream came after one in which a garden full of Roman god statuary
was filling gradually with water
(love of love beginning to conquer love of power)

Rare Pink Flower

Years ago Baba materialized an orange rose for the writer at the Gokulam in Bangalore
.. as Gokulam attendants were present.

Today He materialized not a cut but a living rare pink flower in her back yard..
one she had never before seen on a bush she had never before seen.

Hanuman Raisins

In the suburb of Phoenix near Durban S Africa is a statue of Hanuman which
Baba causes to materialize golden raisins and honey. A S African newspaper
did a story on this. Phoenix represents resurrection out of the ashes (vibhuti).
This takes place in the home of Lorraine Govender.

Planetary Synchronicity

Within seconds after telling RN that she hated Saturn, Baba caused writer to
see a mantra to Saturn and other planets.

Om Bhaumaya Namah
Om Budhaya Namah
Om Guruve Namah
Om Shukraya Namah
Om Shanischaraya Namah

(Bhaumaya Mars Budhaya Mercury Guruve Jupiter Shukraya Venus Shanischaraya Saturn)

Client asks - What is 9k on gold?

Please keep your questions coming so we can all share in the information.

QUESTION..?

I have a gold necklace that has been passed down to me and I am trying to find out what it is made of, there are no hallmarks on it but the lobster clasp has a tiny 9k stamped on to it.

Is it real gold? Can you help. Kind Regards

ANSWER..!

G'day and many thanks for your query

The 9K is the American - Asian - International Hallmark for 9 carat gold, but because it has a 'K' it shows it was NOT made in Great Britain or any of the British Colonies (such as Australia).

As I don't know where you live, I'm going to assume you are in the States, so this is normal.

In some countries they use 'K' for Karat (or carat) to differentiate between gold quality and gemstone weight - which confusingly is also a measurement in carats.

So 'K' or 'Kt' is for Karat Gold and 'c' or 'ct' is also for carat gold - while 'carats' is a weight measurment for gems.

Hope all this helps.

You might like to take it to your local 'FRIENDLY' jeweler who will check it for you at no charge, if they are 'Good' Jewelers. If they want to charge - Find another one!

Baba Vision: Clinton the Artist

BILL CLINTON, ARTIST

Clinton strides into the room.. with a palate
and over a dark oil very detailed painting of the crucifixion.. paints
in large pastel swaths, a canvas of Easter...

(in his own life.. or lives of Baba devotees impacted by agents,.
the crucifixion is finished)
(Recently Mr Clinton has gone around the country asking Americans to avoid
his example in eating meat... meat which gave him a heart attack.)
(the content of the art is more important than its antiquity status)

COMING:

The purple butterfly
more Baba quotes
more Baba visions and dreams
Baba threads

WCAU Of Philadelphia

WCAU


The 3 year boycott of Burger King (1980 to 1983) was resolved by the
company's accession to withdrawal of veal in 1983. G Cave, H
Schofield, T Zagar and A Hershaft had the first four groups involved
in the boycott of Burger King. The writer was asked to do media for the
small coalition. One day the writer was typing press releases for Philadelphia tv
and radio stations.. and came to WCAU.. which is on City Line
Ave. When she went to type 'city' she found her fingers typing
'cave'. She took that as a message to call Dr. George Cave
of State College, an animal rights activist. During the call he told
her he had just finished an interview with WCAU on
Pennsylvania's decompression chamber, a painful method of
killing 'surplus' pound animals. A short time later, she wanted to
listen to the Larry King Show on Mutual Radio. For some reason
she could not get it that night on WTOP in Washington, but it
came in clearly on WCAU, a distance away in Philadelphia.
The guest that night was Ray Cave of Time Magazine. Again,
there was another Cave Philadelphia connection, when
William Cave of Philadelphia's American Antivivisection Society
was a guest on the radio. Later S Grafio took her to see Bawa
Muhaiyyadeen, a Moslem mystic and vegetarian, whose aura was so bright it filled the room with white light, whose love was so strong that babies
crawled to him from their mothers. She realized in unwinding this koan
that Baba was telling her (city typed into cave) that the city is a convex infliction
upon the land.. that the cave is a concave recess.. that at times inaction says the Gita is better than action.. Sometimes the path of the Tao the path of water is better than the path of fire.

(CAU in ancient Roman script would look like CAV)
(CAU has the sound of COW)

* Baba also gave her a physical reminder of this. She had sent out
2300 press releases which yielded no media... later on, when she had
not done any media, the phone began ringing off the hook.

Robert Schuller: Anyone can count the seeds in an apple. Only God
can count the apples in a seed.

*Burger King is now owned by a Texas capital consortium
which includes Goldman Sachs.
It is the only major fast food chain which has a veggie
burger option but it is still advertising the concept of
animal flesh to billions.



Shortly before she was asked to do media for the
boycott, Baba gave her a dream in which Baba was
traveling in the US on a Greyhound. The busride began
on 4th St. in DC. When it arrived in Pennsylvania, there
was absolutely nothing in the restaurant she could offer
Baba to eat.

Greyhound was instrumental at that time in ending
the boycott of Burger King which had at that time
a cooperative relationship with the bus company.

Now Greyhound has changed owners. It is owned
by Laidlaw of Canada. It is hoped that Laidlaw
can end quickly the clubbing of Canadian seals.

ASKING FOR GUIDANCE

Baba had told His devotees if they had a question to which
they did not know the answer He would reply if a. it
was about an individual's own sadhana b. if the devotee
were surrendered to the answer, and if c. it entailed an
immediate fork in the road.

There are many who immediately know in their hearts what
course of action to take, but there are times when one
is not sure.

Baba said to take 4 symbols of equal size (e.g. 4 pieces of
paper) and write on one 'yes', a second 'no', and the 3rd
and 4th 'wait'. Then pray and select one at random.

When the writer was asked by a small coalition of 4 groups
to do media for the Burger King Boycott, she asked Baba
by this method and got 'yes'.

Several months went by. Dr Rao of Lawrence Kansas told a friend to tell her that boycotts were
not ahimsan (nonviolent) because they called down corporate
wrath. This was a wise criticism, and she asked Baba again,
and again got a yes to go forth.

More time passed. Bob Pinkus, editor of Vegetarian Living
who had convinced both the writer and Connie Salamone to
become vegan, said that boycotts increased corporate sales
because they operated on the principle "don't think of
a white elephant", which increases thoughts of white elephants.
She asked again for a third time and got another yes.

The river of life flowed on. Next Lou Ann Yonish, coordinator
of Vegetarian Action whose group was targeting restaurants
which served veal, said this was the wrong target. Another
casting of the chits (symbols) in prayer.. and another 'yes'.
This time it was Lou Ann on the other end of the phone
who made the selection.

Alice Herrington, president of Friends of Animals, felt
there was no ethical distinction between baby and adult animals
and that it was a form of age chauvinism to concentrate on
veal.

Dudley Giehl, founder of Animal Liberation and Michael
Rothschild also participated in the chits.
Altogether 6 times, Baba or the querant's form of God
was asked, and 6 times a yes was given. The odds of this
happening randomly are 1 in 4096.

All of the criticisms of the boycott were valid. Yet God
is omniscient, and like someone on a hill who can look down
on an intersection and see traffic patterns those in the
cars cannot, God gave guarding and guidance.

Baba Vision: Lithium

LITHIUM

A friend was experiencing much anxiety..and his family had repeatedly committed him.. poster was opposing the use of psychiatric medications for him..but had no power with the pharmaceutically dominated hospital staff.. then had a vision of a priest holding a communion wafer.. and breaking off a tiny sliver.. .. she heard the world 'lithium' Catholics believe that any sliver of the communion host is Christ.. as much as thewhole disc. Poster felt she was being told to advise friend to take a small fraction of what was prescribed..)***(Lithium.. from Greek lithos.. can turn the kidneys into stone)

Vision: Tree Planting

TREE PLANTING

Poster is planting a baby evergreen tree..and to her horror the tree turns into a dog and the planting becomes a suffocation

(Interpretation: well motivated actions can through ignorance be harmful... ask the Source.. ones favoriteindweller form of God before doing something)

FLASHLIGHT AND STORM

While it rains
a flashlight's beam
slightly downward streams
across a stormsired
little waterfall's steps..
an intersection of horizontal light
with downfalling water

(the falling water cannot trap
the light)
(the thought occurred that
the flashlight holder was looking
for an animal in a flash flood)
(in actuality, the storm's ions
reconnected someone to her life
current)

PLAYGROUND NOT MUSEUM

a sculptor hugs his mother
on a playground as he decides
to follow her suggestion to
put his sculpture in a playground
rather than a museum

Italian Etruscan Pendant

In keeping with our Questions and Answer format - here is the most recent question.

QUESTION?

Have just purchased a pendant which has a 5ct Onyx faceted jewel set into a square gold pendant of approx 3cm x 3cm with a "roman" pattern around the stone. It was advertised as gold 14k - the stamping on the rear of the pendant has 14Kt with the word ITALY written below that and beneath the small square raised area with the stamp is a marking similar to << >> underlined.

It is very light has a tiny "airhole" in the top of the square and is obviously hollow. As it was advertised made in Italy I was expecting something more substantial in weight - does this sound like an authentic item - with this type of marking/stamping on rear i.e. the bail has no markings at all.


ANSWER..!

G'day and many thanks for your query

Many items of jewelry made over the past few centuries have been made hollow to save weight (and reduce cost) so that is not a problem. In fact the Victorians were renown for filling hollow items with jeweller's wax to make them appear heavier.

Thankfully THAT practice has stopped..!

In Italy there is no restrictions to Hallmarking, so 14Kt and the word 'ITALY' is acceptable. Just because it doesn't have any markings on the bail doesn't make it suspect.

I assume you bought the item from a reputable company with some form of refund if you were not 100% delighted with your purchase? If you are not happy, then this may be the way to go. On the other hand, if you feel you paid a fair price for it - keep it and enjoy it.

Like most things in this world - you end up getting what you paid for.

Ring with markings not known

Another Question came through today which needs some thoughts?

QUESTION..?

I found a ring that looks like gold and has some gems on it. There are some stones that look like sapphires and some stones that look like diamonds.

The ring it has the following markings: K or a other letter or symbol that looks like that and then 25 and on the other side of the ring it has HC, also this is not clear. Is this real gold ?

MY ANSWER..!

G'day and many thanks for your query

However there is not a gemologist or valuer in the world who could give you a straight 'Yes or No' from just the description.

I would suggest you take it to your local friendly jeweler who should (even for a small fee) answer your question by testing it.

The Hallmarks you have described simply tell me that it is NOT of British Manufacture as
the Hallmarks sound just like Makers Marks.

You can find more about Hallmarks at this site:
Jewelry Antiques of the 20th Century where they have a free hallmarking course available which might help.

This is a great resource and one which I recommend - because I wrote it!

Have a Great Mother's Day everyone.

Unfortunately - a typical problem

I recently received an email from someone with an appraisal problem which I thought was well worth answering here, so I have added both the question, together with my answer in the hope that it helps.

QUESTION....?

I am an event concierge at the JW Marriott hotel. One of the meetings that I was caring for was a group called [BLANKED OUT]. Their website is [BLANKED OUT].

I bought a tennis bracelet for my mother from this guy there and he claimed it was a 14k gold, Class A man made sapphire and man made diamond bracelet. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought the bracelet without doing some research but I bought it for 211 dollars.

When I got the piece home, I looked it over and it is stamped 925 which is silver instead of gold. I was concerned that the piece was gold plated so I called the number listed on the website and spoke with this lady who told me that the bracelet was indeed 14k gold but it was reinforced with a silver wire thus the .925 stamp.

She said it was not considered goldplated b/c it was thick gold mostly solid gold over a reinforcing wire of silver. Does that make sense?
The piece is also stamped CZC. What does that mean?

I am concerned that I was taken for a fool and bought something that is nowhere near its worth. Can you tell me if I goofed up or not. The lady that I spoke with assured me that it would not tarnish and that it was not plated so it wouldn't peel or chip.

She said it had a lifetime warranty as long as I didn't wash my hands in acid. Im a bit worried. How much would you suspect my 50 stone (25 man made sapphire 25 man made diamond), 14k gold stamped 925 czc to be worth?


ANSWER....!

G'day and many thanks for your query

The first thing I would be doing is check to see if there was any form of guarantee or money back available for this item and get a refund - if possible.

Now don't get me wrong here. The item is priced quite fair for what you paid and is comparable with similar items in retail stores - but you certainly have purchased a silver bracelet plated with 14k gold and set with all synthetic gems.

Man made Sapphires are STILL real sapphires except they are made by man instead of coming out of the ground. In many cases they are almost too perfect because they still have the same optical, physical and chemical properties as the natural gem - so they are real - just not natural.

Sapphires like this are fairly cheap and Cubic Zirconias (CZ) are even cheaper. All in all you received what you paid for, so you are not a fool.

But if you are not happy - get a refund.

Hope this helps.

MORAL OF STORY - Buyer Beware....

Testing sterling silver

Recently had a question which I though would be worth sharing:

Hi, I have a question on how to test for silver. I don't know if after rubbing on touchstone and appling acid, does the mark turn a special color?

This was my reply which may help those with a similar problem....

Firstly it is important to realise that you do NOT use a touchstone for Silver.
You should test the article itself.

Lightly scratch or scuff a small spot which is not seen (like underneath a silver teapot or inside a ring band etc) and apply Nitric Acid to the spot.

If it turns a cloudy grey color it is Sterling Silver. If it turns black it is Coin Silver. What you don't want is for it to turn green which indicates it is plated.

You must ensure you make the scratch deep enough to go beneath any plating though, else it won't react as it has to reach any base metal underneath. This can be a little unsightly so make sure it is in an unobtrusive area.

Be very careful with Nitric Acid too...

Hope this helps. I am sure there is some useful information on the Antique Jewery of the 20th Century website.