Jon Ber

HAND CRAFTED I design collections at home and minutes later, Pawan starts working on the production in India. It was not always that easy.

STERLING SILVER 100% silver is too soft for the creation of jewelry & silverware. Thus the international industry standards is 92.5 percent silver with 7.5% balance added copper.

AMBER As old as 90 million years, its usually gold & brownish - honey like, but also appears in white, green & rarely blue.

AMETHYST In Greek, Amethyst means "Against Drunkenness" from the belief that the stone inserted in water, will turn a drunk person sober instantly. It doesn't work.

BLACK ONYX Is a translucent chalcedony, similar to agate that contains straight bands usually white or brownish.

BLUE TOPAZ The Blue Topaz color is usually categorize and defined by three main names: London, for the Darkest shade, Swiss for the lightest and Sky for the in between shade of blue.

GARNET The Garnet's most recognized color is the Burgundy red, but smaller quantities of Garnet also appears in nature in shades of blue and green.

LABRADORITE It was discovered in the desolate Sybaritic Peninsula of Labrador, Canada, in the beginning of the 19th century. Its best specimens found currently come from Finland and Madagascar.

LAPIS LAZULI Blue Rock, In Arabic, Lapis Lazuli, is derived from Lazurite, a complex silicate containing a range of minerals such as the Pyrite also known as "Fools Gold."

MALACHITE It imaintains better value and stability than some countries currency, such as is the case in the war torn Zaire.

RAINBOW MOONSTONE The gemstone resemblance of a cloudy, mystical, shimmering moon, made it desirable, but it was unavailable for centuries.

PERIDOT In Roman times, It became known as "Evening Emerald" because it was easier to find when illuminated by lamplight at night.

TIGER'S EYE Tiger's Eye has such a strong following in Africa, that it was for a while, considered as a National Treasure, and was banned from exports in some southern countries such as Namibia, South Africa and Lesotho.

TURQUOISE From Green to Blue, with black unique signature inclusions vanes running untamed, the gemstone universal reverence is phenomenal.

English word meaning pure is commonly misused
STERLING ISN’T STERLING / Jon Ber

100% silver is too soft for the creation of jewelry & silverware. Thus the international industry standards is 92.5 percent silver with 7.5 % balance added copper.

Sterling, also the official name the English currency, or the English Pound, is accepted as the definition for the "best" silver there is.

But the practice of diluting silver was common just about everywhere in the world for thousands of years. The formula is now benign tested on occasion by the authorities in the countries that export silver made product as not to hurt their reputation. and avoid scandals, of the sort that hit Bangkok, Thailand, just as its silver jewelry exports flourished in the early 1990s.

One of the better known local manufacture wad accused of shaving few extra silver percentages from his "Sterling" mix. By that time thousands of small time traders like myself, were coming over to buy silver made products merchandise in the Kingdom of Siam.

At that time, scrupulous silver dealers in Jaipur India, were using even worse practices to compete in the a cut throat industry: The replacement of Copper with the cheaper Zinc. It turned silver to yellow permanently.

In some European countries, such as Austria, all imported silver jewelry is checked by customs laboratory. In Switzerland, importers must mark their own stamp on every silver jewelry item.

Coming soon: Here soon: My silver test in India. Swiss German became my favorite accent to imitate. Especially the one dialect from Schaffhausen .

M20F11

Jon Ber is the publisher of jonber.com, a former investigative journalist and a traveler of seventy countries living in North Carolina USA .

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