It’s a rainy, dreary day here in New York but I have a cou­ple of sub­jects with which to stir up some sun­shine. First, an update: Brooches:Timeless Adorn­ment will be released on May 6^th, not April 29^th as pre­vi­ous indi­cated. This deci­sion was a sur­prise even to me, and I am sorry if this causes any incon­ve­nience. How­ever, this new date is still in time for Mother’s Day and as my own fam­ily knows, the gift of a book (par­tic­u­larly one on jew­elry), is always appre­ci­ated. I do hope that many of you can come to my sign­ing at Barnes & Noble in Man­has­set, Long Island on May 6^th at 7 pm. This will be my first! I have a lovely talk planned and look for­ward to meet­ing any and all brooch lovers and read­ers of my blog– so feel free to bring friends, husbands/partners, chil­dren, cousins, absolutely every­one is invited! Oh, and if you can­not make it— please let your local book­store know that you are inter­ested in hav­ing me come your way. If there is strong inter­est, Riz­zoli will make it a point to plan a book sign­ing there.

The sap­phire in this excep­tional ring reminds me of those cerulean and cloud­less beach days with gen­tle blue waves shim­mer­ing in sun­light. This jewel was cre­ated by the renowned Bev­erly Hills firm of Frances Klein. The stone is of the gum­drop variety—21 plus karats—and is mounted in a beau­ti­fully hand­crafted plat­inum (950) and dia­mond set­ting. Notice how the qual­ity of the mount­ing enhances the over­all effect of the design. The work­man­ship put into the mount­ing of ring tells a lot about its gen­eral qual­ity and the last­ing plea­sure it will offer.

A new inno­va­tion in pre­cious met­als, called Karat Plat­inum, is about to emerge widely on the mar­ket. The metal is a blended alloy con­tain­ing 58.5 per­cent plat­inum and 41.5 per­cent cobalt and cop­per. Most plat­inum jew­elry is cre­ated with an alloy of 95 per­cent plat­inum (also known as 950 plat­inum). When I asked my friend, Gary L. Smith, Foren­sic Gemol­o­gist, who is an Old World, bench-trained crafts­man and met­al­smith about the mod­i­fi­ca­tion of a plat­inum alloy– what that can do to the result­ing metal– he responded by say­ing that it “rad­i­cally changes its work­ing and wear­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics. Depend­ing what they alloy with, irid­ium, ruthe­nium, or cobalt and the per­cent­age. It can toughen or harden the plat­inum. It will have dif­fer­ent wear qual­i­ties, for exam­ple, it can be softer and “ding” up more quickly, but be bet­ter and eas­ier to set stones. The plat­inum can be made extremely “hard” which will wear well, but be extremely dif­fi­cult to set stones in. With the addi­tion of cobalt, it “flows” really well, so the man­u­fac­tures love it for casting.”

There is no deny­ing the cost of plat­inum is slip­ping from the grasp of the aver­age con­sumer. When I checked mar­ket prices today, they reached the astro­nom­i­cal fig­ure of $1975 per ounce. Karat Plat­inum may be an alter­na­tive for those who want the look of plat­inum, at a lower price point. Accord­ing to Howard Slo­chowsky, Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions and Sales for Karat Plat­inum, “The price for a set­ting will cost about fifty per­cent less than of 950 plat­inum. It can be worked the same way–we can cre­ate mount­ings with fil­i­gree and engrav­ing.” He also asserts that the blended alloy will not sig­nif­i­cantly alter the way the metal wears, “The alloy makes it less dense but the metal is not brit­tle. It com­pares favor­ably with 950 plat­inum.” For now, Karat Plat­inum jew­elry can be found at amazon.com. The com­pany plans to launch a bridal line in Las Vegas in May.