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The art of jewelry is one of the most ancient and widely spread types of decorative and applied art. It contains the man’s tendency towards beauty that is inherent in every human being. Jewelry is a special group of goods. The majority of them have exclusively decorative meaning. Jewelry consist of the articles of precious metals as well as highly artistic articles made from non precious metals and alloys, stone, bone in combination with semi precious stones of natural and artificial origin. In republic of Belarus there is only one large enterprise dealing with the production of jewelry articles, a factory in the city of Gomel. Jewelry is being produced in smaller quantities on the enterprises of people’s and artistic trade. The jewelry is also being produced by Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Riga and several other jewelry factories. The perfection of production of jewelry articles suggests the combination of high technique of performance, rich creative fantasy, and contemporary forms meeting requirements of the fashion and national traditions as well as the usage of non traditional materials.
The main consumer property of jewelry goods are their aesthetic properties and it is their peculiarity. Some of jewelry (flatware appliances, cuff link, etc) have definite utilitarian prescription. However, it is not the main criteria during the purchasing. The main criteria is the beauty of articles. The definitive peculiarity of consumer properties of jewelry is that the term of service of jewelry articles made from precious stones amounts to ten and even hundred years.
The factors that form the consumer's properties of jewelry
The main factors that form the consumer properties of goods are materials and the methods of production. For producing the jewelry articles such materials as metals and their alloys, jewels, decorative and semiprecious stones are being used. The main precious metals are gold, silver and platinum. Precious metals have beautiful appearance, high stability to chemical and atmospheric effects. They have different softness, viscosity, plasticity and the ability to be alloyed with other metals and therefore they are widely used in the production of jewelry.
As a rule, precious metals are not used for making jewelry in their pure form because they are not hard and wearproof enough. Therefore the alloys with different amount of precious metals are used. These different combinations of alloys are called millesimal fineness. In our country there is a metric system of millesimal fineness that indicates how much precious metal is contained in 1000 parts (by mass) of alloy.
For making golden jewelry jeweler usually use triple alloys of gold, silver and copper, which have yellow color. Golden alloys used in domestic jewelry production could have five kinds of millesimal fineness - 958, 750, 583, 500, 375 with the content of the 95.8%, 75.0%, etc of gold respectively.
The alloys of each of millesimal fineness could vary in color and shade depending on the percentage of their components. The alloy of 958 millesimal fineness is called “black gold”. It is similar to natural gold in color. The types of golden alloys include the descriptions of their components and their content expressed in percents. For making silver jewelry articles silver and copper alloys of 960, 925, 916 and 875th millesimal fineness are being used. Silver alloys are marked similar to golden ones. Among the alloys of platinum the most commonly used alloy is the alloy of platinum of the 950th millesimal fineness.
Among color metals and their alloys jewelers most commonly use the alloys of copper – brass, nickel silver and germasilver. Jewelry stones are divided to natural and artificial. Natural stones are divided to the stones of mineral and organic origin. They are divided to precious, semiprecious and jobbing stones.
Artificial stones usually have a mineral base. Precious stones are characterized by high transparency, hardness and play of light. The examples of precious stones are diamond, emerald, ruby, sapphire and pearl. For measuring the weight of stones carat (0.2 grams) is being used. Diamond is the hardest stone consisting of crystalline carbon. Its main distinguishing feature is powerful shine and high rate of light refraction. The faceted diamond is called brilliant.
The main parameters that describe brilliants are their shape (there are 17 shapes), weight (they could small, medium and large), color (7 groups), defectiveness (8 groups) and geometric dimensions. The most valuable of diamonds are transparent diamonds, and also stones with blue, dark blue, reddish or greenish coloring. You can find more information on diamonds here on our jewel quest web site.
Ruby and sapphire are the second hardest stones after diamond. They have a crystalline alumina (corundum) as a base. Their coloring is defined by the presence insignificant impurities of metal oxides. Rubies are red, sapphires are usually blue. Sometimes sapphires can be reddish and blue or violet.
Pearl is a rare precious stone that is formed in the shells of river and sea mollusks. It can be distinguished by its iridescent shine of mother-of-pearl. The color of pearl could be different. The most precious is the glistening pearl of rounded shape of white and pink shades. Semiprecious stones differ greatly. These stones are transparent and semitransparent, colorless and colored. They possess different properties that are defined mainly by their chemical composition, inner structure. According to their chemical composition several groups of semiprecious stones can be emphasized: beryl group (aquamarine, alexandrite), quartz group (amethyst, rock crystal, and opal), etc. Semiprecious stones also include the stones of organic origin such as amber and coral. Semiprecious stones are measured in grams. The names and colors of some of them are shown below. Aquamarine is the stone of dark blue and blue shades, resembling sea water. Alexandrite is the stone of emerald green color at daylight and violet and red color at artificial lighting. Amethyst is a violet or blue and violet colored stone. Rock crystal is a colorless, transparent stone. Opal is semitransparent, more frequently milky white, while topaz is colorless, wine and yellow, pink and other shades.
Read detailed information about precious and semiprecious stones on our jewel quest web site and you will know which stone would fit you most.
Amber is a light and mild stone that represents the petrified rosin of ancient coniferous trees. The color of amber varies from bright yellow to red and brown. The most valuable type of amber is transparent amber with inclusions of insects or the particles of plants. Corals are the petrified skeletons of sea invertebrates, polyps. They are non transparent, lucent, multicolored (up to 20 shades), patterned (striped, layered) stones. The variety of agate usually striped with black and white colors is called onyx. Artificial stones are frequently obtained from oxides of different metals by growing crystals in certain conditions. Artificial stones include synthetic corundum, artificial garnet, emerald, sapphire, fianites, artificially grown pearl and so on.
Quite often artificial stones are almost identical to natural. Usually they are larger, cleaner and evenly colored. For making jewelry jewelers quite often use glass, bone, horn, plastic, etc. The main peculiarity of manufacturing jewelry is that they are valued as the work of art and are created by artists and jewelers.
The production of jewelry begins with the elaboration of sketches, making models, and its confirmation on art counsel. The basic technological processes of jewel production are as follows: preparation, making forms, finishing, and faceting and fixing. The preparation of materials from raw materials and semi-finished products is obtained by melting, flattening, dragging, forging and cutting. The shapes of jewelry are obtained by punching and molding manufactured models, assembling (gathering components with the help of soldering, welding or riveting). The finishing of jewelry articles includes mechanical treatment (grinding, polishing, engraving and embossing) or covering the jewelry with protective and decorative coating (blackening, oxidizing, gilding, silvering and enameling).
Nowadays during finishing of jewelry articles enamel is used more and more often. It is used in miniature paintings, enamel to make openwork pattern out of smooth and twisted wire incrusted with various materials. The faceting of stones is made in two ways.
The main one of faceting is rose faceting (side facets of the stone consist of triangular facets that are gathering into one point), brilliant faceting (with a lot of facets making several circles), stepped (facets lie in circles in a form of a steps, cabochon faceting (The top part of the stone has a curvilinear form.).
Quality Control of Jewelry
Quality control of jewelry made from precious metals begins with the check of the presence of the inspection hallmark supervision hallmark that corresponds to accompanying documents and the name of the manufacturer on each of the articles. Thereafter marking and packaging of articles, linear dimensions of rings and bracelets and defects are being checked visually. Paired articles could be picked up by their sizes, shapes, colors and faceting of inserts. The surface of articles should be smooth, without dents, scratches, etc. Cutting edges in articles (beside knives and pins) are not allowed. The pattern on the surface should be precise. Inserts (beside precious stones and amber) should not have non-polished zones, scratches, chop-offs, etc visible with unaided eye. The inserts should be firmly fixed. Hinge joints should secure the mobility of parts, while locks should secure the reliability of fixing and exclude the possibility of self opening.
Marking, packaging, transportation and storing of jewelry
Marking of jewelry is made on the article, individual label, group, transport tare and packing list. The article is covered with the name of manufacturer and hallmark of hallmark inspection. The label on the article made of precious metal should have the name and the brand name of the manufacturer, the name of article, its article, the name and the alloy of the precious metal on its face side and the size of the ring or bracelet, the name of the material of the insert, symbol Scientific and Technical Documentation and the stamp of QA control on its reverse side. At the same time article and the price for gram are not being indicated. The label to articles made from precious metals should be fixed with thread and sealed. The jewelry articles could be packed into different types of packaging: individual (casing, etc), group (carton boxes), and transportation (plywood cases, etc) packaging. Group type of packaging should be sealed. Transportation type of packaging could contain different articles meant for one receiver. The transportation of jewelry articles made from precious stones is made, as a rule, by means of special delivery service in wooden cases. The cases with jewelry articles must be wrapped with iron band or wire by the sides and sealed so that it could not be opened without damaging sealed covering.
Jewelry articles must be stored and used in conditions, where they could be mechanically damaged, and also being exposed to the action of alkali washing detergents, the agents containing mercury or its components and some others.
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