David's Jewelry

David's Jewelry Visit our location on Whitesburg drive next to Steakout! We do insurance appraisals by appointment and while our customer is present.

David’s Jewelry was started by David James in 1984 in one of Alabama’s first indoor malls named Dunnavant’s Mall in Huntsville, Alabama. Previously, David had been a manager for a prestigious Southern jewelry firm, receiving numerous honors during his apprentice tenure, including several Gemological titles from The American Gem Society and the title of Gemologist from the Gemological Institute of

America. In the year 2000 the store was moved to its new and current location in Longwood Center in the heart of the Huntsville medical district. Our emphasis is on antique and estate jewelry as well as one of a kind items that we can manufacture or locate to fill any need. We sell diamonds and all other common as well as uncommon gemstones and can provide trusted repair work for your special jewelry needs. With David’s you are welcomed by a jeweler that absolutely loves his job and is most interested in selling things of beautify that bring joy to the giver of a gift as well as the receiver.

10/18/2018

What makes the beautiful colors of the opal?Water!
Opals are found in sandstone as small sized patches of fused silicon, or "glass". Opal occurs when water is trapped in the sandstone and under heat and pressure and seals in the water so that the colors of the spectrum shines so vividly. When opal is first located it must be kept in water to maintain the colors but once it is polished, the colors are permanently sealed.
Opal mining is dangerous, sandstone tunnels are chipped out ten to twenty feet below the surface in very unstable sandstone that can cave in very easily and the weight is fatal. The miner chips ahead of his crawling and continues until he hears the sound of breaking glass and that signifies opal is found. The opal is usually a small cluster or grapefruit size patch that he carefully extracts and places immediately in water. Then he gradually backs out and hopes to climb out of his tunnel. Point of note: the fiery black opals are from "Lightning Ridge" Australia.

03/18/2018

A question came up about gemstone "families" and what families are the most valuable? As I mentioned before, Beryl is a good one but outside of Diamond and Corundum, the most valuable is Chrysoberyl . In addition to being a beautiful transparent gem, it has a couple of rare and valuable children: Alexandrite, the color changing jewel and precious Cat's eye the gem that looks alive.
Alexandrite changes color in incandescent light verus Florescent light. The is the result of minerals in the gem that do what is called "Selective absorbtion". Since color is actually reflected back at us, the different light sources reflect different colors. The quicker the color change and the intensity of the two colors control the value of the gem.
Precious Cat's Eye occurs when Asbestos fibers are lined up in the gem so that the yellow or honey colored gem exhibits a lively line accross the top of a cabochon polished gem. This phenomena is called "Chatoyancy". The sharper and ideally positioned of the line demands the highest price. Also, guess what, there is also a very rare variety of Chrysoberyl that combines the best of two worlds and is Alexandrite Cat's Eye!
There is often more to any gem family than meets the eye! In the late 1890's synthetic Sapphire (Corundum) was developed and also shortly afterwards a variety of synthetic Sapphire that could change colors was produced and for almost a century, people bought this thinking they had the real McCoy. In my long tour behind my gemscope, I have seen many people "smuggle" in this synthetic variety positive it was real and unfortunately, many jewelers have told their clients that it was real. For my industry's uneducated, I apologize. This false synthetic is usually a purple shade that turns redish with the light change and theyare often large in size. The true gems are smaller in size.
Since I have not shied away from the "big tech words", the name of the fake is "Synthetic Corundum with an Alexandrite Like Color Change".
Thank you for the questions

03/09/2018

A question came up about red Ruby vs. pink Ruby. First, the only Ruby is a RED Ruby. Any other color is a pink SAPPHIRE!. Ruby and Sapphire are First cousins under the family name of corundum. While Sapphire can come in pink, blue, yellow, green and white, Ruby can only be in red. Interesting, isn't it? There are other first cousins in the colored gem family. We are familiar with the beautiful blue clear Aquamarine but did you know that it's first cousin is the mysterious Emerald with it's beautiful hidden gardens inside it? Or the Rose colored Morganite that is highly prized by many people. These wonderful gems are members of the Beryl family. PS, Beryl also come in a beautiful orange, mint green clear and peach. I find the world of colored gems to be fascinating and full of secrets!

09/12/2017

A few stories about gold. Karat markings: 100% gold is 24kt. Expressed as 24/24. 18kt is 75% gold or .750kt. 14kt. Is 58.5% or .585. 10kt is .433% or marked .433.
Yellow gold is alloyed(mixed with) copper and nickel, white gold uses the most nickel and rose gold uses a higher copper content.
Gold is bendable a.one ounce bar of gold can be stretched and formed into a wire one mile long. 10kt gold is less "bendable" than 14kt. Also it is less.pure.
Prior to 1982 producing exact karat amounts in an item of jewelry was virtually impossible
so the government allowed a difference of as much as 11/2 kt in a PC. of jewelry so a.pc. marked 14kt could only be 12 1/2 kt. But in 1982 a bill was passed that required all gold jewelry to be exactly the karat it was marked. Called the Plumb act, it was required of mfgs. to be pure and for a long time the karat marking had a P after the quality mark.
Gold filled is usually marked 1/20 12 kt. gold filled. This means that if the item weighs one ounce and you melted it, 1/20 the of the total would be 12kt which is 12/24 so you do the math. But it is far superior to gold plating which is molecular thickness. Gold filled will never show another metal underneath and thus superior to the other method.

09/03/2017

There are many interesting gem materials that ebb and flow in the streams of desire and indifference. I can advise to hold on to your grandmother's jewelry because it will sooner or later be "In" again. For example, Amber which is fossilized Pine resin from 250,000 million years ago or more from when the Earth was covered in pine tree varieties is a good example. As the trees bled large drops of resin, insects, seeds and bubbles of atmosphere became trapped and covered with more resin. Earthquakes would fold over these masses of resin and bury them deep underground. One of the largest supply of Amber comes from the Baltic Sea area where layers of Amber break off of the rocky deep sea rocks and float to the surface and then wash up on shore. Amber is lighter than water so it floats. Early peoples would find it and called it "tears of the Sun". In the movies insects would be suppliers of Dino blood for cloning.
In jewelry, the beauty of Amber is chosen for necklaces and pendants. Captured critters are chosen by some and others prefer the clear beauty of the golden drops. When choosing Amber, the darker the color, the older the Amber.
Analysis of the gas bubbles in Amber ironically show that the air was more polluted then than now. Fires we're constantly burning and the air was filled with smoke. You might enjoy googling Amber to find more of it's mysterious powers.

08/20/2017

I have women of all ages come in very upset because their rings spin around on their fingers due to the size the ring has to be to go over their joint and then it is now too loose to enjoy wearing! Often they have quit wearing their rings because of this.
I am glad they let me know about their problem because there are many solutions today. Here are a short rundown on what can help:
1) if the ring is only slightly turning around I can put small gold beads on the inside that helps to keep rings stable.
2) next for the slightly larger I can put a "ring guard" that solves the problem of the mildly irritating problem.
3) I can put a pair of "wings" on the inside of the ring that gently grips the finger while bending to slide over the joint.
4) Now to the more severe problems where there is as much as two to three size differences from the finger to the joint. I can replace the "Shank" or bottom half of the ring with a device that opens large enough to clear the joint and then locks down to the correct size to fit the finger. There are several types of these.
5) For the most extreme situation I can install a device that completely open and locks around the finger.

All of these options are completely safe and provide comfort for the wearer. Don't put your wedding rings in the bank, we can help you wear and enjoy your favorite rings, or get that beautiful Emerald ring you have dreamed about.

08/04/2017

I am now seeing a return to the older cutting styles of diamonds. So a brief history of diamonds and what the styles of cutting can tell you. Prior to circa 1890, there was no awareness of African diamonds. Diamonds were primarily recovered out of India in the first major source discovered, the Golconda mine which was a jar shaped hole in the ground that was mind in a most unusual maner. The opening to the pit was about 20' and once down a few more feet the sides went almost straight across and then the bottom was several hundred feet straight down. It was impossible to climb down. Locals discovered that diamonds would stick to animal fat! So they skinned sheep and tied them fat side out and lowered the skins on long ropes and bounced them off the walls and eventually of the bottom and when gently brought to the surface, rough diamonds were recovered. This was done for thousands of years. At the same time the stream beds of modern Shri Lanka produced diamonds by panning the gravel.
So now we had diamonds but they needed to cut the often "frosted" look of the skin, so diamond cutting became an important skill.
So the early efforts produced cushion shapes and semi round diamonds. This pattern continued through the mid 1800's until about 1870. These are called "Old Mine Cut's" So when you have one of these types you are holding true history!
From 1870 through 1890 these diamonds were called "Old European cuts". By the 1920's the improvements in cutting we're very good and the diamonds were simply called "European cuts".
And in 1915, the modern brilliant cut diamonds emerged and from the next few years that was all that was cut. The stye shows 58 facets or polished planes based on physical and optical mathematics.
Feel free to have your diamonds inspected at no cost by David.

07/25/2017

I think most people have heard of hair jewelry. This is part of an entire group of jewelry called mourning Jewelry which became popular in the Victorian period. We are so blessed in this time that we live in the advances in Medical care. During the 1870's to the early 1900's life was precarious and many lost loved ones to deadly illness and unknown causes. The period was started by Queen Victoria's loss of Prince Albert's untimely passing. Black jewelry, dark Garnet pins and black enamel jewelry only highlighted by pearls. A Locke of a loved one's hair was enclosed in a pin or other jewelry, sometimes woven into bracelets or intricate patterns in other jewelry items. This was the time of the rise of "Bohemian" dark Garnet fashions. Even today I get requests to make a special black enamel ring or pendant with someone's initials for remembrance.

07/10/2017

Cultured pearls have a little Alabama/Tn secret. Most people know that cultured pearls grow from an irritant placed into the tissue of a type of oyster that is raised in a safe environment in Japan. But guess what the irritant is? A little bead of Mollusc shell from the Tennessee river "Muscle" that grows around structures and boathouses in the Tn. River. The pearl industry pays about $8.00 a pound for the shells and we pay, well, a lot more for the pearls.
The pearls grown in Salt water are called Akoya pearls. The Chinese have developed a similar system of growing pearls in fresh water and these are less desirable and less expensive. There are also a unique oyster in the South Pacific that are 9 mm and up in size called South sea pearls and these are the most expensive pearls.
Finally there are the Tn river pearls that a company in TN. Has started growing and these are beautiful but totally baroque or not what you are used to seeing. All the pearls can be seen at my store.

07/06/2017

People have really gotten interested in my talk of stream beds and treasures. Remember me talking about the Birmingham Diamond? It was found around 1910 on the Shelby/Jefferson county line by a young girl. Well, she played in a creek on the family farm, in a CREEK! It was a near perfect octahedron shape that weighed 4.25 carats. She did not know what it was but it was pretty. Twenty years later she worked at the Smithsonian Museum and Remembered the little shiny rock and today it resides in the museum. The key point is that she LOOKED. As glaciers bulldozed from Canada South many gems and peices of gold were left in creeks and rivers as they Melted.away. so like I said, be a kid again and stir some creek pebbles.

07/03/2017

I wish I could get in a stream bed or creek bed with pebbles abounding. I would love to dig down to the bottom and pan through them. I am old enough to know what to look for but wise enough to be afraid of snakes.
You go to the bottom first because gems are heavier than the majority of stones and they are found on the bottom up against boulders.

PS that is where gold nuggets are found as well. Believe it, we do have gold in Alabama! Talladega all the way to Georgia is a routine spot for gold prospectors.

Address

2107 Whitesburg Drive SE
Huntsville, AL
35801

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 4pm
Tuesday 10am - 4pm
Wednesday 10am - 4pm
Thursday 10am - 4pm
Friday 10am - 4pm
Saturday 10am - 4am

Telephone

(256) 539-0861

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