Watches and Jewelry: chronographs, swiss watches, diamonds, pearls, cubic zirconia...

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  Watches

Watch Zone sells watches made by adidas, Armani, Avocet, Bulova, Casio, Citizen, Gucci, Longines, Movado, Nautica, Omega, Seiko, Swatch, Swiss Army, Tag Heuer, Timex, Wenger, and over 2 dozen other brands. And they have a low price guarantee, matching any competitor's Internet prices.

Princeton Watches is a leading online retailer of sports, dress, and diving watches including makes like Seiko, Citizen, Swiss Army, Casio, Chase-Durer, Oakley, Pulsar, Suunto, and fine Swiss makes like Fortis, Ernst Benz, Carlo Ferrara, Tutima, and Ventura. They can ship to PO Boxes, and they offer a 30 day money-back guarantee (minus shipping charges), with no restocking fee.

World of Watches carries over 40 brands of fine watches, including Breitling, Omega, Seiko, Casio, Cartier, Bulova, Citizen, Movado, and Tag Heuer. As of this writing, World of Watches provides free ground shipping on all orders to the 48 contiguous United States. In addition to credit/debit cards, World of Watches accepts payment via PayPal or Google Checkout.

Swiss Outpost carries hundreds of Victorinox and Wenger Swiss Army knives, watches, gifts, tools and travel products. Victorinox items are usually 25% off list price; Wenger items 30% off. Watch orders, which cannot be discounted, include free shipping and a free Swiss Army Knife. They offer free shipping on all orders over $75.

Vostok-Europe ships Russian-made watches worldwide from their offices in Virginia, USA. They have a dozen models to choose from, most with 32-jewel automatic-winding movements in stainless-steel cases.

Fraction Price sells "designer style" watches comparable to Movado, Omega, Fossil, and others for only $29.99 each. Fraction Price provides free shipping on every purchase.

Sunglass Hut sells sunglasses AND watches from Arnett, Ray-Ban, Gucci, Fossil, Hamilton, Revo, Oakley, Maui Jim, Diesel, Kenneth Cole, Swiss Army, and more. Their guarantee (see website for details): "If for any reason you are not satisfied with your sunglasses or watch, just return the item in original condition with the original packaging and receipt within 30 DAYS to either one of our stores or the Distribution Center for Exchange, Merchandise Credit, or Charge Credit... All returns without a receipt or after 30 days will be entitled to an Exchange or Merchandise credit based on our current prices." They do not ship outside of the United States and Puerto Rico, or to APO/FPO addresses or PO Boxes.

  Jewelry

Founded in 1924, Zales, "the Diamond Store," is the most recognizable name in fine jewelers. Zales offers customers an extensive selection of quality jewelry in a wide variety of price categories.

Most Macy's Jewelry & Watches can be returned or exchanged at any of Macy's 248 brick & mortar stores in twenty-one states, Puerto Rico and Guam. At this time, Macy's ships to addresses in the Unites States, APO's, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Marshall Islands, Palau, US Virgin Islands, and Guam.

Diamond.com offers savings of up to 65% off retail on certified diamonds, fine jewelry and brand name watches. Each Diamond.com purchase includes a free gift box, easy monthly payments, certificate of authenticity, free FedEx shipping on all orders, and a 30-day money back guarantee.

Pure Pearls offers high-quality, fine pearl jewelry, including earrings, pendants, bracelets, rings, custom strands, bridal jewelry, loose pearls, clasps, cufflinks, and much more, at exceptional discount prices. Pure Pearls offers only cultured pearl jewelry, cultivated in oysters. These pearls are harvested in the waters of Japan, China, French Polynesia, and Australia. Each piece of pearl jewelry purchased from Pure Pearls comes with a Certified Appraisal certificate verifying the 100% authenticity of the pearls. They are meticulous in our pearl selection, and only offer the world's finest pearls. Pure Pearls offers free shipping on all orders over $75.

My Jewelry Box offers affordable, up to the date collections and styles of rings, bracelets, earrings, pendants and necklaces, in gold and silver, with diamonds and gemstones.

Jewelry Web is a family-owned business with over ten years of experience in jewelry manufacturing and retailing in New York's jewelry district. Their products are found in department stores throughout the United States and Europe.

ICE.com sells a wide variety of fine jewelry, with free shipping on all orders over $100, and free gift boxing on ALL orders.

Goldspeed offers great savings on fine diamond, gold, and platinum jewelry for men and women, as well as Seiko watches, Jules Jurgensen watches, and watches by Charles-Hubert, Paris.

Heavenly Treasures is a family run jewelry business striving to offer the kind of high quality jewelry creations you don't see everywhere at the kind of prices you won't find anywhere. Their guarantee: "All Items carry a 30 day money back guarantee. You can return or exchange your item for any reason for a complete refund of the purchase price." They ship to the US & Canada.

Simply Whispers sells only the finest quality hypoallergenic jewelry for sensitive skin.

Jewelry Impressions has a complete inventory, including a line of fine Swiss-made Croton watches at up to 50% off.

  Costume Jewelry, Cubic Zirconia

CZ Jewelry sells fine cubic zirconia jewelry at great prices.

  Class Rings

Jostens, famous for their class rings (you can design you own online), also sells other graduation products, alumni products, campus gear, and other school-related products.
  
See also:
QuickShop Ladies Clothing
QuickShop Men's Clothing
QuickShop Lingerie
QuickShop Cosmetics
Classic Gem Articles:
Rubies, Sapphires, Emeralds 1895
Semi-Precious Stones 1896
Gem Cutting & Polishing 1896
Where Gems are Found 1904

Classic Diamond Articles:
On Diamond Cutting 1867
De Beers Diamond Mine 1888
Diamond Cutting Industry-Art 1895
Cutting the Cullinan Diamond 1908

Classic Pearl Articles:
Bahrein Pearl Trade 1914

Classic Watch Articles:
Making Watches in Waltham 1867

Zales

Diamond.com

My Jewelry Box

Pure Pearls--90% off Retail

Current Specials:

World of Watches

Princeton- Swiss Army Gift with Purchase

Check out our selection of fine jewelry

na120-60


TIME Magazine, February 12, 1951, p. 80:

BUSINESS & FINANCE: GOLD & DIAMONDS:
Passing the Scepter
    From a massive, block-long building in Johannesburg last week came a discreet announcement that set the trading marts of the world buzzing. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, the world's king of diamonds and its prime minister of gold, was giving up a bit of his vast suzerainity. At 70, he relinquished directorships in seven of his 30-odd gold-mining companies--a step towards turning over his empire to his son and spit & image, 41-year-old Harry Oppenheimer.
    This did not mean that Sir Ernest, last and greatest of South Africa's great "Randlords," was going to take things much easier. In his three-story citadel he would still work his usual 16 hours a day, still sit firmly in thc chairmanship of his Anglo American Corp. of South Africa, Ltd., the master holding company through which he has built an economic pyramid of more than 200 companies worth more than $2.5 billion. They control 15% of the Transvaal's gold production, 43% of its coal, 50% of its explosives, 9% of the world's copper, and a bewildering hodgepodge of enterprises ranging from breakfast foods to railways.

    Acres of Diamonds. As chairman of De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., a syndicate of seven companies, Sir Ernest also controls 95% of the world's supply of diamonds, and sees to it that the supply is always less than the demand. As always, war and inflation are now swelling the demand for diamonds, and Sir Ernest's cartel has opened up two idle mines to step up production. The wholesale price of gem diamonds has risen 20% in six months, and U.S. rearmament [for the Korean War] has sent the price of industrial diamonds (vital for cutting tools) soaring 100% since Korea. Not only capitalists buy diamonds: an "unknown buyer" thought to be the Soviet Union has suddenly started buying all it can in the Belgian markets, presumably to build its own stockpile for machine tools for war.
    Sir Ernest, who has one of the world's prize collections of rare diamonds, started learning about stones at 16. The son of a middle-class Jewish family in Friedberg, Germany, he went to London to learn the diamond-cutting trade, was sent to South Africa at 22 to look after his London employer's diamond properties. The year was 1902, when Cecil Rhodes, who had formed the De Beers combine out of hundreds of small claims, died murmuring: "So little done, so much to do." Oppenheimer was just the man to do it. He stayed in Kimberley and went into mining on his own.

    Shrewd, eager and personable, he was enough of a success by 1912 to be elected Kimberley's mayor at 32 (he was twice re-elected, later went to Parliament). In 1917 he teamed up with an American engineer, William Lincoln Honnold, and, with backing from J. P. Morgan and others, formed Anglo American. While everybody else swarmed to the Central Rand, Oppenheimer tried his luck in the Far East Rand and struck it rich, did it again 100 miles away where nobody thought there was any gold.
    At the end of World War I, Sir Ernest got a five-year exclusive sales contract covering the rich diamond fields of Germany's former colony in South-West Africa. He used this tremendous lever to pry his way into the clam-tight De Beers syndicate. In 1929, after secretly buying up 20% of De Beer's shares, he took over the syndicate. It keeps tight control of diamonds by persuading any who find new fields to join the syndicate and reap the benefits its controlled prices.

    New Bonanza. Sir Ernest's biggest interest now is not diamonds, but gold, from which Anglo American last year made £11 million ($30.8 million) profit. His Anglo American is the biggest single holder in the immensely rich new fields of the Orange Free State, and has put up more than half of the £200 million ($560 million) being spent to develop them. Believing that South Africa must wipe out the disgrace of its mining "kraals," where Bantu workers live like prisoners, he has led the spending of £70 million by mine operators to develop a model village to house 100,000 people at the new Free State mining center near Odendaalsrust. By July he expects to start taking gold out of his first mine there, open another shortly after. Says Sir Ernest: "This is the most extensive mining development the world has ever known."

    In this new venture, Sir Ernest's right-hand man is son Harry, a deputy chairman of Anglo American. Harry, who was educated at Oxford, and captained a company of Britain's "Desert Rats" against Rommel's troops in World War II, lives with his wife and two children in a smaller villa adjoining "Brenthurst," the palatial residence of his father and stepmother outside Johannesburg. Harry likes fast cars and fast horses (he recently gave his father a prize colt, Ossian, which won Johannesburg's summer handicap the first time out). When Parliament is in session (Harry has succeeded to his father's old seat*), he drives the nearly 1,000 miles to Cape Town at breakneck speed.

    Neither Sir Ernest nor his heir need fear that the prime source of the dynasty's power will ever diminish. One of the first great Randlords, old Barney Barnato, put it tersely, many years before Flapper Lorelei Lee [lead character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (1925), played by Marilyn Monroe in the movie of the same name]: "Women are born every day, and men will always buy diamonds for women."

* In the party of the late great General [Jan Christiaan] Smuts, opposed to the fanatically anti-Negro [Daniel Francois] Malan.

  Diamond News




TIME Magazine, April 18, 1949, p. 92:

CARRIAGE TRADE: Big Rocks
    One day last week, an armored car drew up before a six-story building on Manhattan's East 51st Street. Out stepped a mail carrier clutching a brown-wrapped package. Entering the building, he plunked the package on the reception desk of Jeweler Harry Winston.
    Small (5 ft.), swarthy Harry Winston, one of the leading U.S. diamond dealers, thus took possession of his biggest buy this year--the famed gem collection of Washington's onetime No. 1 hostess, the late Evalyn Walsh McLean. As usual, he had shipped it to himself by mail (postage: $159.87, including the cost of registering and insuring it).
    For $1,100,000 plus, Winston got 74 brooches, necklaces, and two world-famous diamonds, the robin's-egg-sized Hope diamond* (44½ carats) and the Star of the East (100 carats). Though Winston laughed at the legend that the Hope diamond had brought only tragedy to its owners and wearers, he soon had his pressagents grinding out new embellishments on the tale (samples: Marie Antoinette, who wore it, was beheaded... Soloman Habib, Oriental diamond merchant who handled the gem, has been ill for 40 years"). Winston planned to send the collection on a nationwide tour of museums and jewelry stores, then sell it.

    Front Man. For almost 37 years, ever since he went to work in his father's Los Angeles jewelry store at 16, Harry Winston has suffered from what he calls "diamonditis." At 21, with $2,000 in his pocket, he came to Manhattan to buy & sell precious stones on his own.
    Self-conscious because of his youth and size, Winston hired a distinguished-looking man of 70 to go around with him as a front for his deals. Before he was 34 he had bought and sold such famous collections as Empire-Builder Collis P. Huntington's and Mining Tycoon E. J. ("Lucky") Baldwin's. He also learned that gem buying could be tricky. Once he bought $90,000 worth which he later found had been taken from Socialite Mrs. Isaac Emerson, wife of the Bromo-Seltzer king. Winston had to return the lot.
    Later, he bought the Jonker diamond, recognized as the world's fourth biggest uncut stone**; and the President Vargas, third biggest, and Venezuela's smaller Libertador. He paid $2,100,000 for the three, cut them into 45 smaller stones and sold the lot for nearly $4,000,000.

    By Appointment Only. A big buyer of African stones, Winston now mines diamonds in Venezuela, employs 400 cutters and polishers in Amsterdam, New York City and Puerto Rico, grosses $20 million a year...

* So named for British Banker Henry Thomas Hope, who bought it in 1830 when it turned up in England after mysteriously disappearing from the French crown jewels.
** The biggest: the 3,106-carat Cullinan.


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