Something odd happened this fall season, and it gave us a little bit to think about for the year to come.  You, my clients, didn’t buy big gems!  Now, you usually buy more items in the “gift category,” for the holidays anyway, like small pendants, silver rings, simple chains, but when you buy for yourself or the one closest to you, it is usually gems.  This fall, you didn’t buy those.

Then, the second surprise: you bought some of my biggest ticket finished jewelry: the star ring with paraiba, the orange sapphire sunflower ring, the square opal pendant…I’m not talking about any of the many custom pieces, but completely finished designs.

I was particularly flattered when I realized that you bought all the pieces on which I spent extra time and which reflect my particular line and ideas, as opposed to the more standard and simple pieces from Stuller that use our gems.

So: what I think this means is that I have to make more jewelry!  More really special jewelry.  Not necessarily heirloom pieces at heirloom prices, but more richly detailed and in keeping with the pieces that I sold.  Soon you will see my favorite ring style released - her name is Cecilia (naturally).  And more Paraiba jewelry is already in the making, as are layouts for pendants and rings that feature gems not yet seen in the shop.

To do all of this, we're going to have to make some room in the shop, so out with the old, and in with 2022!  We'll be adding two sale sections to the shop and any gems included in the sale that don’t move will no longer be available after the sale. One section will consist of gems reduced in price by 20% and the other will be reduced by 50% - the latter section will also include some close out jewelry and some gemstone melee that are low in stock and that we are able to sell off. 

When the sale ends on January 4^th, the 20% LAST CALL items will all disappear from the shop.  The single gems in the 50% section, and pairs, will also disappear.  Many will be reimagined into jewelry to show you why I bought those particular gems in the first place.  Others will go back into my “boxes of extras” or returned to the vendor.  I cannot offer any layaway or payment plans on either of these sales.

You will see me populate the LAST CALL sections today when this blog is released, but the sale officially starts on the 26^th when I will open up the 50% LAST CALL section.  In the meantime, I’m starting to sketch new designs as we speak!  

I played around with some of these sale gems and came up with a few potential layouts so you can get a better idea of  how they'll look in a custom piece:

This clearance will also help me plan better for Tucson because 2022 is the year!  We will be back in “almost” full swing, I expect some Thai and Russian dealers to make it, and many from other countries that I haven’t seen in two years.  While the supply line is in certain respects still very interrupted, I think we will see both interesting and important goods appear.  Fingers Crossed.

In addition, yours truly has been collecting merchandise in Madagascar since 2020 – remotely of course – and these goods are finally about to make their way here!  This is fortunate as, occasionally, I could get ahead of new goods being mined while export was at a standstill.  Except for the illegal export of sapphire rough, which was interrupted recently when several arrests were made a few weeks ago, Madagascar hadn’t been open to buyers until just this past November.  This was very rough on the people as you can imagine.  Unemployment money exists only for the federally employed, if that.  For everyone else, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid, and that’s almost the entire population. Therefore, you can’t rely on the rest of your family to take care of you either.  Meanwhile, only 2% of the people are immunized due to lack of availability of the vaccine. And in southern Madagascar, people are dying by the thousands of hunger due to a drought that has lasted several years.

I felt lucky, therefore, to be able to contribute to “my own” family in Madagascar.  They, in turn, took the time to learn about export licenses, lapidary work, etc., and built up their business (which is actually the mining and cutting of calcite, but that, too is a mineral).  More about the fruits of this relationship, in terms of little shiny things, next time!

I’m signing off until the New Year.  All the best to you and yours.