There's an exciting "new" gemstone that you should know about!
Park City Jewelers' "Gem Nerds" Ken & Jen will tell you all about Moissanite.
Press play here to see the "Gem Nerds"! Read the transcript below.
This beautiful, 'even-more-sparkly-than-diamonds' gemstone is really hot, and getting hotter! And, like all of our jewelry, it comes with our famous free lifetime warranty on workmanship. If anything ever goes wrong with the workmanship, we'll fix it!
Transcript:
- Hi friends this is Jen.
- I'm Ken
- And we're here from Park City Jewelers today with the edition of Gem Nerd and we're going to be talking about moissanite and about why moissanite is a good conscious choice for a stone, a gem stone.
- So first discovered moissanite years and years ago. It was a teeny, teeny small natural forming gem. It's really hard. It's got a hardness of about nine and a half, so they used to use it for a grit, to like grind and polish things with. And then in the late 90s they actually discovered how to synthesize it and make it nice and clear and beautiful where you could use it for jewelry.
- Cool, that's awesome. So Ken, what's the size, price compared to diamonds?
- Well example here. This on the top here is a two carat moissanite, it's under $400. This one on the left here is a two carat diamond at $28,000.
- [Jen] What? Say that one more time.
- [Ken] Under $400 for the top one, two carat and this two carat sized diamond is $28,000.
- Okay how do they actually compare to diamonds?
- They look almost the same. As a matter of fact we've played on a mean trick here on the manager just a minute ago. And I put this two carat diamond in the case and he knows I've been having some moissanite bouncing around and so I asked him to tell what it was without his loop. And he said it was a moissanite and it was a diamond. So, if us professionals have a hard time telling, they're pretty dang good. It's scary a little bit.
- So who are moissanites good for? What kind of clientele?
- Well I've always had a problem with this big company, we all know who they are, they all sell diamonds all over the world, telling everybody, if you really love her, you gotta spend two months salary on a diamond. Well, when you're young, getting married, you don't have all that money to spend on diamonds. You've got things that your money is probably a lot better spent for.; getting out of college debt, buying a washing machine, getting an apartment, all kinds of stuff other than diamonds.
Don't get me wrong guys. I own a jewelry store, I love it when you buy diamonds but with the internet and everything, the mark up on diamonds has just become ridiculous. We don't make that much money on them anyway and then to see these young couples spending so much money on them, is really hard? Plus, a lot of the younger couples are so concerned about the environment. To get a one carat diamond they have to tether the largest dump trucks you've ever seen, have to be filled with those to find a one carat diamond. Moissanite is created out of a manmade material, crystallized, cut, polished. It has no impact on the environment.
- So that's good for the planet.
- Good for the planet and good for the pocket
- And good for the pocket too, yes. So how does the warranty for a moissanite compare to a diamond from Park City Jewelers?
- Park City Jewelers, we're the manufacturer. If we make something or if you buy something from us, if there's ever a manufacturing defect, we replace it for free. So as long as you have your moissanite, if it ever chips or breaks, and there was a problem with it, we'll fix it for free.
- [Interviewer] So it's the same warranty as diamonds?
- Same warranty as diamonds. And the neat thing about us too, I'm really picky. I have never carried cubic zirconia, I have never carried synthetic rubies, sapphire, emerald, nothing and I'm still a little hesitant about carrying moissanite but it's just so good for the planet, it's so good for your young, young brides getting married. They can get something that looks great for a low, low price that I finally caved in and we're carrying moissanite.
- So what if I want to come in and have a ring made with smaller stones, smaller gem stones?
- We can do anything you want
- you do that too? Or a pendant or anything?
- Ya, cause a lot of brides they'll see this really pretty mounting they like, it's a two, three, four thousand dollar ring and by the time you put a nice one carat diamond in there, it's 10 or 12 thousand dollars and they can't afford it. They can afford the two or three thousand dollars for a real nice looking ring. So what they end up doing is buying a seven or eight thousand dollar diamond, from this great big company that really doesn't need your money, and getting it set in just a cheap, ugly ring. So this way you can get the gorgeous ring you want, put the moissanite in there. And I'm serious, no one is ever going to know the difference.
I was camping last week, with some of our friends, and she got a two carat diamond from another store in the area and it was kind of a shady store, I won't mention any names, but I'm really worried that it was moissanite. And me as a jeweler, at the lake, without any equipment, I even had my reading glasses on, I couldn't tell if it was moissanite or not. So serious, nobody's ever going to know. But if you're giving moissanite to a gal, please make sure she knows. It's not a good way to start off a relationship, fooling the bride, so they got to know.
- So this is a heirloom quality stone, correct?
- Oh ya, it'll last for centuries. It's amazing; nine and a half hardness. Diamond is a ten. Sapphire is only a nine and in the olden days they used to use sapphires and rubies all the time in wedding rings. So it's harder than anything else on the market, it's really cool.
- Sounds like a good conscious choice.
- It does, here's some earrings we made. This pair of earrings, they're almost a carat each. If they were diamonds it'd be probably, for this quality, about 12 or 13 thousand dollars. And these are $409. These are set in the same type of setting we set diamonds in so again, no one's ever going to know. So if you were going nice diamond pendant, nice diamond earrings but you just haven't been able to afford them, this is a great way to go.
- Alright, so now I can get my earrings and my pendant.
- Oh and a ring all for the same price as just your earrings before.
- Awesome, so come in and see some cool moissanites. We have them set into the earrings, we'll probably have a ring made up, anything else?
- Next week, we'll do something else wild and crazy. Thank you
- And come get one of grandma's cookies.
- Fresh out of the oven.