Rotary Minutes 2/21/2023 – Finding Treasures in Your Jewelry Box
Ken Schaefer greeted members at the door. President Dave Dominick welcomed all at 5:25 pm and called the meeting to order. The pledge of allegiance was said by all.
President Dave led us in the Four-Way Test. Heidi Fisher introduced visiting Rotarians and guests. Attendance was lower this evening due to a big winter storm in the forecast but we had a handful of online attendees.
Sarah Kolar introduced the program. The speaker was Tamara Sparrow, the new owner of Landmark Jewelers. She started by letting people know they can enter to win tickets to My Fair Lady at the Ordway if they stop into Landmark Jewelers! She went on to recommend that every person, regardless of gender, should have a jewelry box to keep their valuable pieces safe and organized. The bulk of the program was spent talking about how to tell the difference between fine jewelry and costume jewelry. Here were some of Tamara’s tips:
- Stamping on jewelry (Ex: 14k, 10k, PLAT, numbers…)
- Color – usually real gold is darker where gold plating is a brighter yellow
- If you see fading, it means that plating is coming off the base metal.
- Weight – real pieces tend to weigh more, but not always, depends on material
- Magnet – if something has a base metal, it may stick to the magnet, gold is not magnetic
- Seeing some rainbow colors? Probably not a real diamond. Real diamond reflects more white light.
- Breathe on it – Real diamond will evaporate moisture quicker, fake stones will stay fogged up longer
- Scratched up? Probably not real, takes a lot to scratch a diamond
- Foil Back? Probably not a real diamond
- Real Pearls are gritty, if you rub it on your tooth it will feel like sandpaper
- Typically, jewelers will not set real stones in something that is plated.
- None of these strategies work 100% of the time so the best thing to do is to bring it to a professional like at Landmark Jewelers!
Tamara took some questions from members in attendance. She said diamonds have a different glow than white sapphire that can be detected by a trained eye. There was a question about conflict diamonds. Tamara said things have gotten a lot better with how diamonds are sourced and lab grown diamonds are becoming more popular as well.
At the end of the program, President Dave told Tamara she’s a real “gem”!
Heidi Fisher collected Happy Dollars. Club Announcements by President Dave Dominick mentioned our Signature Luncheon on 2/28 featuring guest speaker Tom Leonard of Fury Motors, our next 5:01 meeting on 3/7 which will be an overview of Rotary Tech presented by Club Members, and our meeting on March 14th which will be used to discuss our Club Visioning. Save the date of April 19th which will be our Rotary Community Forum, the theme will be Mental Health Crisis in our Schools. There will be no regular meeting that week.
Ken Schaefer reminded us all about the Skiing event this weekend, Feb 26th. Information can be found on the front page of the website or in The Hub!
Adjournment followed at 6 pm.
Scribe, Amanda Mai.