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SIHH: Salon International De La Haute Horlogerie.
This is a watch show that takes place in Geneva each year in January. However, they have started a mini version of this in Las Vegas, and Independent Jewellers has been invited to attend. The brands that are represented are mainly brands under the Richemont Group: Montblanc, Baume et Mercier, Panerai, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Audemars Piguet, and others.
This will be my first time attending a SIHH event and I am looking forward to it. The brands that are represented here employ some of the world’s most prestigious watchmakers and are extremely exclusive. Some of the timepieces that will be shown will be highly limited and cost well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars!
In a month I will be attending the Baselworld tradeshow in Basel, Switzerland. Having been to Basel twice now, and never to a SIHH show, it will be nice to see the differences between the two tradeshows. More to come!
Diamonds are fascinating gemstones to say the least. They are formed in the earth, miles below the crust, under pressure and temperature’s that are truly mind-boggling. They are then pushed up through the crust, also under tremendous heat and pressure. Estimated time to make a diamond: 1 billion years, give or take.
When talking about the “quality” of a diamond, many people get hung up about the clarity and colour, when in fact, these two attributes are merely characteristics about the rarity of a diamond. We have no control over clarity, colour, or even carat weight, because these are decided by nature. What we do have control over, however, is the quality of the cut. The better the cut, the better the performance of the diamond. And by performance, I am referring to how the diamond handles light.
Poorly cut diamonds do not sparkle well at all, whereas ideal cut diamonds have lots of fire and scintillation. The reason for this is because the poorly cut diamond will leak light out the bottom and sides. The ideal cut diamond returns the maximum amount of light to the human eye, therefore, it is brighter and full of life. The man who discovered the ideal cut that we know today was Marcel Tolkowsky (1899-1991), and he discovered this through a number of different mathematical equations.
It is easy to convey the colour and clarity of a diamond over the phone, over the internet, through email, etc. However, when referring to the quality of the cut, the only way to truly know if you like it is by seeing the diamond in person. Cut quality is on a spectrum just like the other characteristics, from poor to ideal and many variations in between. Unfortunately, there is no real good way to convey just how beautiful a diamond is, you need to see it in front of you under proper lighting conditions.
We are proud to announce that we are now carrying Victor Diamonds.
What is a Victor Diamond, and why might you want it, you ask? Victor Diamonds are Canadian diamonds taken from the Victor mine located in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario. These diamonds are considered to be Products Of Canada, which means that the diamonds themselves have been mined, cut, and polished in Canada. This can be confusing as there are lots of “Canadian Diamonds” on the marketplace. Often is what will happen is that these diamonds will be mined in Canada, however once mined, the rough diamond will be shipped internationally where the labour to turn it into a finished diamond will occur.
The beauty of Victor Diamonds being Product’s Of Canada is that all the labour to turn the rough diamond into a finished one is done here. This of course is great for the economy, and one can know for certain that their diamond is completely Canadian.
We often get requests either to buy estate jewellery, or if we have any estate jewellery. Well the simple answer to this is “yes”…to both questions.
*This is a sample image, not in stock*
Right now we have quite a nice selection of estate jewellery located at our 493 Notre Dame location. We do not have it on display, so if you do decide to come down, please ask a salesperson to see some of our collection. At some point in this year (2012…hopefully the earlier part of it), I do intend on creating an estate jewellery section on our website so people can see some of the beautiful items we have (and HAVE had).
If you do decide you have something you would like us to buy, we would be more than happy to have a look. However, please do not be offended by the price we may offer you, as sometimes it might be lower than your expectation, or the “appraised value.” Sometimes the price we offer will be a scrap gold value (we will weight it for the gold and pay you out per gram), but if there are some special gemstones involved there might be more value in it for us, and therefore more money in it for you.
If you do have some special piece(s), and you are wanting to sell, please come down to our 493 Notre Dame Ave. location, or give us a shout (774.5544) and set up an appointment with Jeremy, Jonathan, or Ernie.
Blogging, as it turns out, is a very hard job. I mean, the job itself is easy; fingers pushing down little keys with letters on them is not exactly taxing on the body. But a blog is hard to keep up with, and needs to be maintained, and someone needs to be continually writing.
This year, I, or someone from Independent Jewellers, will blog once a week. Every Tuesday, at 10am Winnipeg time, there will be a new post on this blog. Most of the time it will have to do with jewellery… or watches… or other jewellery store stuff, but sometimes this blog will talk about other stuff too.
Also, it is our 75th year in business this year!!! It is hard to believe that my grandfather, John H. Epp, started Independent Jewellers in 1937. If you have any stories of him, or his sons, or just of Independent Jewellers, we would love to hear them. If you could please send them to jonathan@independentjewellers.com that would be much appreciated.
Every morning I listen to the radio, and every morning it is just more of the same: doom, gloom, despair, anger, hatred, and violence. I assume this is the case because it probably catches the listener’s ears better than proclaiming happy things, or maybe the only thing I remember is the doom and gloom.
Working in the jewellery industry where we deal solely in happy occasions (marriage’s, anniversary’s, birthdays, just because’s…, etc) we get to hear some very happy stories, and I feel truly blessed to be a part of these stories.
I feel compelled to tell you this one:
A co-worker got a call the other day from an employee of Chapters. This Chapters employee had found an Independent Jewellers bag that somebody had left behind. Inside was a present, and a receipt. The employee gave us a call to let us know what he had found, and because our receipts print the name of the client on them, he gave us the name so we could look up the client’s phone number. My co-worker gave the client a phone call, and sure enough, she had been looking everywhere for this gift and was panicking because she could not find it. Needless to say, she was incredibly grateful to get back the gift she had lost.
Now you might have been expecting a more grandiose story, and my apologies if you were, but I find these very small acts of kindness to be more moving and more refreshing. I would love to hear any good story you might have, and if you so care, I encourage you to write in the comment section below so other people can share in the beauty of it.
Happy New Year!
Montblanc has long been known for their writing instruments. And they are truly some of the best pens available on the market! Every year, since 1992, Montblanc releases what is called a “Writer’s Edition” pen which commemorates a famous writer. The first Writer’s Edition was Hemingway and the most recent one is Carlo Collodi. In between we have Voltaire, Mark Twain, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Dumas, Wilde, and many others.
Interestingly, the value of these Writer’s Edition’s have all seem to gone up over time. Try finding one of these pens from 5 years ago and they will be very hard to obtain and if you can, you will likely be paying a lot more than the retail value.
Each edition features the writer’s signature engraved on the cap of the pen, as well as being highly limited. They make each edition in ballpoint, rollerball, fountain pen, or mechanical pencil. Typically it is the fountain pens that are the most popular, albeit maybe not the most practical in today’s technological age (though writing with a fountain pen, I must say, is an excellent experience!).
The Carlo Collodi edition, pictured above, is their most recent limited edition. For those of you who have never heard of Carlo Collodi (and for the record, I hadn’t either), he is the author of Pinocchio. The design of the pen takes the story of Pinocchio and brings it alive. The intricate design on the cap is marvelous, and the weight of the pen is perfect.
We have received two of the ballpoint pens and one rollerball.
To view all of the past writer’s edition’s, I encourage you to go to the Montblanc website and check them out. Or just click this sentence.
December is such a beautiful time which is probably why so many people get engaged at this time of year. Whether you live in a colder climate, like here in Winnipeg, where the hoarfrost can make the city look like a winter wonderland, or in warmer climates, December has a special place in the hearts and minds of almost everybody.
Finding the right engagement ring can be difficult and requires patience. We are very proud to carry some exclusive lines to Manitoba so you can be sure that the one you love is getting a quality, unique, engagement ring.
Scott Kay – 3 Diamond Crown Ring. Available in 14K/19K/Palladium/Platinum.
MaeVona – Eriskay. Shown in 18K rose gold and Platinum.
Mark Schneider Design – Escape. Available in 14K/18K/Platinum.
We are very proud to have just received the Omega De Ville “Orbis” Hour Vision timepiece. This is a special edition watch which, though not numbered, will be hard to get; I don’t expect to get another one into stock.
The cool thing about this timepiece is that proceeds from it’s sale will go to help the organization known as Orbis. Omega has guaranteed $1 Million U.S. to go towards funding this organization.
What is Orbis you ask? Orbis is an international not-for-profit organization that helps countries that have issues with preventable blindness. They help by providing training to people in the countries themselves, as well, they have a flying eye hospital that goes in and will physically help people who suffer from blindness. For more information on Orbis click here.
It seems like almost everyday I get a phone call or somebody walking in off the street asking me if their “Rolex” is real. My thought on this has always been this: if you don’t know if the Rolex you are holding is authentic, then chances are it is not. In other words, MOST people know if the item they have is authentic or not.
And I don’t mean to just focus on Rolex here, though they do make the best example. Virtually every popular brand deals with counterfeit issues, and brands are fighting very hard to prevent this from happening. Montblanc has certain logo’s/stamps they put on their writing instruments, Rolex is always inventing new ways to make their product harder to counterfeit (for example, they actually laser inscribe the Rolex crown INTO the crystal; not on top, or below, but in the crystal itself), and virtually every piece of product from each luxury brand will come with the proper documents/serial numbers to help ensure that the piece you are buying is the authentic one.
So lets be clear on one thing: it is illegal for you to own counterfeit goods. So when you bring me your “Rolex” that is so obviously a fake, don’t be surprised when I tell you I can’t help you with fixing it. This is not because we can’t fix your watch, simply because to do so would not only jeopardize our current relationship with Rolex (and any other brand for that matter), but to do so would only be helping something that is illegal to begin with. And if you really think about it, bringing an imitation Rolex to an authorized Rolex dealer for repair is a bit insulting, don’t you think?
Lastly, online buying. First of all, if the deal is to good to be true, THEN IT IS FALSE. Simple logic. Here is a quick story: a few years ago a client wished to purchase a Rolex President (which at the time retailed for around $22,000); this is a solid gold watch. At the time it was a little bit out of his budget, so he decided to search for a better deal online. Sure enough, a few months later he came in sporting a Rolex President that he found online for around $10,000. Good deal right? Wrong. After he had us open it up to verify it’s authenticity, we unfortunately had to inform him that it was not authentic. Sure it had Rolex parts, and it was made of gold, but the parts were taken from other Rolex’s, and the gold was 14K not 18K.
All I’m trying to say is be careful. If you are going to make a big purchase, investigate who you are buying from regardless if it is an online company, or a physical company. And remember, be distrustful of deals that look too good.
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Jewellery | Jonathan January 31, 2012 | 
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