I had an odd phone call a few minutes ago.  It came from a man who wanted to know what the strand of cultured pearls his wife had won in a contest were worth.  I explained that I really couldn’t assess their value over the phone; but on learning they were Chinese fresh water cultured pearls of smallish to middling size I replied that they were most likely worth less than $800.  That satisfied him; but it left me with a few stray thoughts I needed to work out.  I wondered if I should have made even that broad estimate for him.  In point of fact, the strand’s intrinsic value could have ranged from less than ten dollars to several thousands of dollars, depending on their shapes, colors, smoothness of their skins, sizes and the length of the strand; and I don’t know what emotional value his wife placed on them.  Were they important as a statement of her success or . . .?  In a very real sense the value of most jewelry, no matter whether it is received as a gift or is a self-purchase, is its emotional content. Thinking about it from this angle, the behavior of a young woman (a few years ago) becomes much more understandable.  She came into our store one evening and presented me with a strand of beads and asked, “How much are these pearls worth?”  I looked at their telltale brown color, the color of oxidized shellac, and inspected the drill holes through them to double check myself and replied, somewhat off handedly, something like this, “They’re costume and in their present condition their value is negligible.”  As soon as the words were out of my mouth the young woman’s face flushed and contorted with rage as she spat out, “These are my grandmother’s pearls and they’re very valuable!”  Then she stalked to the door, turning back to me for a moment to render the old monodigital salute prior to leaving.  To say that I was taken aback by her boorish behavior would put it mildly; and she had made an obviously an emotional statement.  Had the emotional content she placed upon her connection to her grandmother made her unwilling to believe they were worthless?  Whatever it might have been, I just hadn’t understood the character of the subtext underlying her verbal question; and this brings me to another phone call.  Kathy fielded this one about two weeks ago; and from the sound of it, it was a young woman calling us from a moving car using her cell phone.  She asked, “How much do you want for a 1.71 carat G color, SI 1 clarity princess cut diamond?”  The question appears unambiguous – unless you know something about the diamond business.  Kathy could take the weight of 1.71 carats as a given, but the terrible truth is that grades given for color and clarity are always subject to scrutiny – and not only from the standpoint of the standards of the laboratory assigning those grades.  Two diamonds that appear to be identical on reports issued by the same laboratory can look quite different from one another when they are compared side by side.  There are technical reasons for this, but before your eyes glaze over, let me get back to Kathy’s response to the young woman.  “That depends on what it looks like,” she said – an absolutely true statement, but one the caller didn’t want to hear.  The conversation ended less than a minute later.  On the surface, one could say that she (and presumably, her fiance’) had a budget and were seeking the greatest intrinsic value for the money they spent; but this leaves me with a question, “Why did she want a diamond engagement ring?”  If it was all about money, they could have saved themselves the effort and just not spent the money; but of course, it wasn’t all about money.  His unspoken subtext was that he had proposed to love and cherish her forever and wanted to give evidence to his priceless sincerity with a gift of great value.  She had established the parameters for the gift; and while one could chastise her for materialism, that might be a bit too quick a judgment.  We really don’t know what her motivations are, nor do we really know if the diamond she described will  really have the emotional value she wants it to have.  Out of sibling rivalry, does she want one bigger than her sister’s, or is this purchase a “test” to see if he really is sincere?  Or is it something else?  Never having spoken to her, I’ll never know.

I do know that if you let the Hearts On Fire diamond do the talking for you, you are immune from criticism.  It is the world’s most perfectly cut diamond; so giving it to someone means that you will have given her the brightest, most fiery, most beautiful diamond there is.  You’d be embarrassed to give her a dozen wilted roses, wouldn’t you?  In like manner, were you to give her a “bargain” diamond it would look like a “wilted rose” next to the Hearts On Fire; and sooner or later, the comparison would be made.  So escape the cheap diamond/unvalued woman trap, check out our Hearts On Fire collection on line at hurstsberwynjewelers.com; then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment to select the Hearts On Fire that will perfectly tell her that you love and value her above all others.  We’re Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers and our job is realizing your dreams.