We are at the end of the first week of construction on our new remodeling project. A great deal of progress has been made already. The foundations have been laid and the walls are ready to go up. There is no telling what next week will bring.

Despite platinum’s rising price, which averaged $1,300 per ounce last year - 36 percent more than in 2006 - retail sales and manufacturing volumes of platinum jewelry in 2008 remain fairly resilient and even higher in many markets.

Here we go, the big remodel has finally begun. Step one is to get us a little more floor space to handle the new employees we’ve added over the last two years. We are doing this by adding on to the back of the building and taking away a couple of parking spaces. This space will eventually become the new workshop to give our jewelers some elbow room and help organize work flow a little better.

Not much to look at right now, but in just a few months we’ll be getting settled in to our new home.

Today started the process of remaking our website to be more user friendly, better organized, and combine our two separate website in to one site.. I’m expecting the whole process to take most of the summer, but it should be well worth all of the effort everyone will be putting in to it..

In the mean time, if you stumble across something that is broken please let us know..  You just never know when those pesky ninjas will show up and break something..

A rare fancy intense blue diamond has been recently sold for $8.78 million at a Geneva jewelry auction. The 13.39 carat rectangular stone is said to be the largest blue diamond graded at fancy intense to be put on the auction block. The strong exigence for colored and colorless diamonds as well as record-setting prices in 2007 has pushed the demand for these rare stones.

It is very rare to see a stone of this intense blue color over 10 carats. The stone, mounted in a ring with pink diamonds, was the prize lot at this years auction. Also present at this years auction was a flawless heart shaped vivid yellow diamond weighing in at 21.4 carats and an ornate emerald necklace featuring diamonds and natural pearls.