Whitehall Jewelers Expands Operations. Purchases 78 Friedman’s Stores.

Chicago based Whitehall Jewelers Inc. has announced that they will be purchasing the 78 Friedman’s and Crescent Jewelry stores that are not going out of business. In January of 2008, Friedman’s filed for Chapter 11 banrkruptcy protection.

Currently, 377 Friedman’s are conducting “going-out-of-business” sales as part of the Chapter 11 filing and involuntary Chapter 7 case that was brought against them. Expectations are for these sales to conclude in 10-12 weeks.

It should not come as any surprise that Whitehall Jewelers is making this purchase. Having already pared back their operations to 297 stores, this purchase affords them the opportunity to begin regrowing their business. Reportedly, the purchase price amounts to 63% of the cost value of the inventory so as they say, “the price is right”.

Look for Whitehall to continue operating these store under The Whitehall and Lundstrom’s Jewelers names. 

At the recent stop in Iowa the question of blood diamonds was raised to Sen. John Edwards.

Sen. Edwards replied “I don’t even know what that term is” and when it was explained to him he commented “Can I tell you I have had probably hundreds of town hall meetings. I have literally never been asked that question.”

He did say that “I certainly know about the movie. But I would have to give that more thought that I have to give you an honest answer to it”.

Personally I think this just goes to show how focused some of us get with our own issues. I can’t think of anyone in the jewelry industry that has never heard of the issue, but I can see it being a non issue for a lot of people. I know that in our own store we have not had more than a couple of customers ever raise the issue. The only time it ever seems to be raised is when a diamond salesman brings it up in an effort to  sell his line to us.

Following a disappointing holiday season Zale Corp. has announced that over the next 90 days they will be closing 60 Zales, Gordon’s and Piercing Pagoda stores. The stores to be closed will be their unprofitable locations.

Zale corp. has yet to announce the details of the closings, but more locations are likely to close later this year.

The next evolution in diamond inscription, the Gemory Gemsafe diamond inscription process allows you to add as many as 100 pictures to a diamond without affecting it’s lab report ratings. Using a laser process similar to having a serial number inscribed on the girdle of a diamond, you can have any picture added to a facet of your diamond or other gemstone.

How much more sentimental can you get than having your wedding photo on your diamond, or a series of pictures on the diamond as it’s handed down from mother to daughter? I think that this may be one of the coolest diamond news items for 2008, and we are still in January!

If you bought a diamond between January 1, 1994, and March 31, 2006, you may be eligible for a piece of the $295 million settlement with DeBeers. The settlement is part of an agreement entered in to by DeBeers for anticompetitive practices while not admitting any wrong doing.

While some people are saying that you could get several hundred dollars for as small of a purchase as $2,000, I just don’t see it. The math doesn’t work.

In any case, if you would like to be a part of the class action lawsuit, you need to fill out a claim form before March 19, 2008. If you want a shot at getting a few dollars from DeBeers head over to the Settlement Website and fill out the form there.

The hope diamond is one of those truly unique gems. One of it’s coolest features is that it glows a red-orange in ultraviolet light. And even cooler, it will continue to glow for up to 5 minutes once it is removed from the UV source.

Researchers have discovered that all blue diamonds phosphoresce, and that glow is so unique that a spectroscopic examination can be used to identify each individual blue diamond. It can even be used to separate lab grown blue diamonds from natural blue diamonds.

You can read more about this at the Science Daily.

I apologize for the down time this evening. We decided to move away from the voting process front end to promote new news items. Of the readers polled the vast majority didn’t want to take the time to register to vote, and I don’t really blame them, it was another cool tech idea that really didn’t need to be implemented here.

We reverted to more of a blog style method of posting news to the website. This gives you the Tip of the Day (mostly) feed and now the Jewelry News feed that you can subscribe to if you prefer to read the latest in news and tips in an RSS reader.

There are still a few minor adjustments to be made, and I need import the news from the old format, but we are back up and operational. Thank you for your patience.

Steve -

How cool would it be to go out for lunch, order some clams, and bite in to a pearl potentially worth thousands of dollars?

A Lake Worth, Florida man was spending a day at the beach with his wife when he decided that a nice meal at Dave’s Last Resort was a good idea. About half way through his meal he discovered just how good of an idea it really was. He bit down in to a rare purple pearl.

Natural pearls are rare and finding one of such a color makes it even more so. For a $10 lunch his find could be worth thousands, so the Brocks plan to have the pearl appraised and have said they will sell it if it is valuable.

All I know is that I’ll have what he’s having.