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April’s Featured Piece and Diamond Fact Page

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Happy April!

April’s birthstone is diamond and that makes us happy at Silver City because we are Ocala’s diamond experts. Diamond is a gemstone that needs no introduction and our website is full of articles about diamonds, including our newest birthstone fact page for Diamond which you can read here.

Or you can read these articles from past months:

Diamond shopping guide (Beyond the 4c’s)

Explaining the meaning of Carats

How to buy an engagement ring.

And in honor of April, we have chosen and unveiled our newest monthly featured piece. A heavy 18k  diamond fashion ring with a unique style, beautiful diamonds, and expert craftsmanship. Chosen out of our extensive diamond inventory as a great value for any diamond lover, it reminds us of stars in the nights sky.  The piece is featured in our April ad in Ocala Magazine and is 25% off until next month. If you like it, act fast- we only have one!  Last month’s featured piece sold immediately and we don’t know how long this month’s opportunity will last. You can find the product page here or come see it in person anytime at our Ocala location.

Have a great month! Don’t forget to check back with us, Ocala’s diamond experts, for more information, products, and deals!

March’s Birthstone is Aquamarine

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This month’s birthstone is the beautiful aquamarine. Aquamarine gets its name from its sea water like blue-green color and is one of the most popular light blue gemstones. Many people don’t know that aquamarine and emerald are different varieties of the same mineral, which is beryl. Aquamarine and emerald are the same stone, except that one is blue and one is green.

To learn more about aquamarine, click here to go to our aquamarine fact page.

In addition to this, our featured piece for the month of March is on the website now. A beautiful pale blue aquamarine set in a fine yellow gold filagree mounting, it is featured in this months Ocala Magazine and as our featured piece it is 25% for the month of March. Click here to find out more, and don’t delay because once it sells we don’t have another like it!

Have a great month! Don’t forget to visit us at Ocala’s best jewelry store for all of your jewelry or repair needs.

February’s Birthstone is Amethyst

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Happy February! We hope that you have had a happy and safe super bowl weekend. Today we are featuring the birthstone for February, Amethyst.

Amethyst is a member of the quartz family and is known as the purple gemstone. Amethyst was once rare and expensive, only available to royalty, but the discovery of vast deposits across the world has made amethyst one of the least expensive of classic and well known gemstones. In addition to its abundance, amethyst is naturally of high clarity which makes for a special combination of beauty and affordability. If you would like to know more about amethyst, click here for a link to go to our gemstone fact page for amethyst.

The 14k white gold and amethyst ring pictured above is our featured piece for February. Custom made by our master jeweler and featured in the February issue of Ocala Magazine, it is a great combination of quality and value.  If you are interested in it’s price or details, you can find out more by clicking here.

Have a great month! Don’t forget to visit us at Ocala’s best jewelry store for all of your jewelry or repair needs.

New Product Listing- A Garnet Ring for January

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We’re pleased to announce that we have added the popular white gold garnet ring from our January birthstone posts to our online inventory! You can find it’s product page here.

In addition to that, you can find out more about Garnet in the first of our birthstone information pages here.

Thanks for visiting our website, we hope you enjoy what you find as we continue working to be the best jeweler in Ocala and the best jewelry website on the net.

What to Know Before Buying a Diamond (beyond the 4 C’s)

|Categories: diamonds, Informational|Tags: , , , , , , |

Clarity grading matters, but always look at a diamond (with magnification and without) before buying it

Our best advice right from the start: After observing hundreds of thousands of diamonds, the best advice we can give is to look at any diamond in person before buying it. Every diamond is different, and two diamonds of the same quality will not look exactly the same, no matter what the salesperson tries to tell you. Diamond grading is important, and should be considered, but no one should ever buy a diamond based on its grading alone.

You can’t judge a diamond piece’s value based on total carat weight

Clusters of small diamonds have significantly less value than one large stone with the same total carat weight, given similar clarity grades. A tennis bracelet with a 3 carat total weight made of 30 stones will be significantly more valuable than a bracelet with the same carat total weight but made of 60 stones, if the stones are roughly the same clarity and color. Check out our post on the difference between Carats and Karats.

What type of jewelry will the diamond be set in?

Earrings typically look better with larger diamonds of lower clarity because they are often viewed from a further distance than rings

Some diamonds work better for different types and styles of jewelry. Earrings typically look better with larger diamonds of lower clarity because they are typically viewed from a further distance than rings. Diamonds set in yellow gold will look a few color grades higher than if they are set in white gold. Round diamonds larger than 2 Carats are often considered too big to look appropriate in rings, and a shopper looking for an extra large stone for a ring would usually do better with a pear-shaped diamond or another unique shape.

Diamonds need to be secure

There is always a trade off between style and security when considering what a diamond should be set in, and it’s something you should always think about. If you are considering a piece with many small diamonds and few, very small prongs around those diamonds, you should know that the diamonds may be far more likely to fall out than a piece with slightly bigger stones and slightly bigger prongs. On an engagement ring, accident-prone people may opt for 6 prongs instead of 4 prongs for the extra security. Stones don’t magically stay in place and some styles are less secure than others. Always consider or ask about these issues when purchasing a diamond.

The 4 C’s

The 4 C’s are usually the first talking point when it comes to diamonds. There is a wealth of information available all over the internet on the 4 C’s, so we will be brief. The 4 C’s are Color, Cut, Clarity, and Carat. Color is how white the diamond is, Cut describes its symmetry and in theory how much it sparkles, Clarity is a measure of a stone’s inclusions and some other visible characteristics, and Carat is how much the stone weighs (how big it is). As each of those qualities go up, the value of a diamond raises. These qualities can be measured by trained jewelers with a very low margin for error, or graded in a laboratory for more exact calculations. No single category of the 4 C’s is definitely more important than another when judging how nice a stone will look in jewelry; however, the best-looking stones for the money usually have no category that is too low on the scale. Check out our guide on buying an engagement ring for more information.

 

January’s Birthstone is Garnet

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Happy New Year everyone! January’s birthstone is garnet, a stone displayed here in this 14k white gold and garnet ring with diamond accents. The checkerboard cut is popular in garnets and we really tried to show off its fancy facets.

Garnet has been inlaid as a gemstone since the bronze age. Its more commonly known for its dark red color, but it comes in a variety of other colors including green, purple, and even blue.

We have many January babies on the Silver City team, so Garnet is an extra popular stone with us. If your interested in Garnet, come in and check out our inventory which includes the beautiful ring shown above.

Until next time, have a happy January!

Our Christmas Coupon

|Categories: Promotional|Tags: , |

Merry Christmas from Silver City!

Everyone knows Christmas is a special time of year, and we are celebrating it with a new 25% off jewelry coupon! Available until December 25th, use this coupon to get 25% off any jewelry piece in our store.

Now we know that in today’s world 25% off might not sound that exciting, but 25% off our already low prices results in a deal that you can not get anywhere else. We’ve explained in previous posts that, unlike other stores, we don’t price our pieces outrageously high just so they can be discounted in the future.

With 25% off applied, most of our pieces will cost less then 60% of their appraised value!

So for any of you last minute shoppers still looking for a gift that will really make you a Christmas hero, sign up your email today in the popup or in the special offers tab to get the 25% off coupon in your email.

 

Blue Zircon is December’s Birthstone

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Merry Christmas! Today we bring you December’s birthstone blue zircon, an under-appreciated gemstone with many great qualities. Not to be confused with Cubic Zirconia-the most common diamond simulant, Zircon is a natural gemstone that comes in many shades. It often has great clarity with few inclusions and is known for its fire and brilliance.

We have this 14k white gold and blue zircon ring and many other zircon pieces on sale today at Silver City, so don’t forget us if you need a gift for any December babies!

The light blue color reminds us of Christmas, and we are going to be very active for Christmas here at SilverCityJewelers.com. Stay tuned for more articles, products, and special deals coming this month at SilverCityJewelers.com

 

We will be closed for Black Friday, Here’s a citrine to celebrate Thanksgiving!

|Categories: News, Photography, Silver CIty|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

In a lot of places it’s starting to feel like Thanksgiving is becoming nothing more then Black Friday Eve. At Silver City, we always try to recognize that the most important things in life are family and friends, and so this year we will be closing from Thanksgiving through the weekend.

Karats or Carats?

|Categories: diamonds, Gold, Informational|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

 

 

Easily the most confusing pair of words in the jewelry business, “carat” is a measure of weight equal to one-fifth of a gram while “karat” is the measure of fineness of gold. Today we’re going to highlight the difference between the meanings of karat and carat and how the confusing words came about. Both are pronounced the same as our favorite orange vegetable, “carrot”, but they actually came about from a different piece of vegetation- the carob seed.

 
Carob seeds were a seed that almost always grew to be the same size and weight as all the other carob seeds. Ancient jewelers found that they were small enough and consistent enough to be used to measure the weight of diamonds and other precious stones, thus they started measuring in “carats” which meant how many carob seeds the jewel weighed equal to. As technology developed, the weight was standardized to be 1/5 of a gram and is used primarily to measure gemstones. Everyone knows that a one carat diamond is fairly big, so jewelers divide carats into fractions of 100 called points. A 1/10th carat diamond is .10 of a carat or 10 points in weight. The earrings in the image above approximately 1 carat total weight, which means each of them are about .5 carats.

 
Its good to remember that carats are actually a measure of weight not size, and 2 different gemstones of the same dimensions will usually be different carats.

750 (18k) Mark On Cameo

 

 
Karat, the one that starts with a “K”, refers to the purity of gold out of 24 parts. Pure gold would be 24k, but nearly all gold made for jewelry is alloyed with other metals to make it stronger, improve its color, or in some cases to make it cost less. The term karat is believed to have come about when the Roman emperor Constantine minted a new gold coin that was 24 carats in weight. The amount of those 24 carats of weight that were pure gold was its “fineness” which means its gold purity.In the US most jewelry is 10k, 14k, or 18k, which are 41.7% pure 58.5% pure and 75% pure respectively. Different countries have different regulations, but nearly all gold jewelry should be marked somewhere with its karat.

 
On behalf of the jewelry industry, we at silver city apologize for the confusion caused by these terms being so similar and hope that this explains the different meanings and why they are used. Check back with us at silvercityjewelers.com for more informative articles like this if you like learning more about jewelry!

 

 

10k Mark On Clasp

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