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Did you know that most pearls used to come from saltwater molluscs? Freshwater pearls were rarer and less suitable for items of jewellery. For one thing they’re less round and they don’t have as high a lustre as certain types of saltwater pearls. With the advent of cultured pearls however, freshwater pearls have found a new lease of life. Their odd shapes and colours are increasingly popular because jewellery design allows for more variety than ever before.

Saltwater pearls are cultured differently to freshwater pearls. You may know that pearls are formed when a foreign object is inserted into the pearl, for example a bead. Nacre grows around the bead to form a pearl. In freshwater pearls instead of a bead, a small piece of tissue is inserted instead and the nacre grows around this. The tissue isn’t round and therefore the resulting bead is an irregular shape.

Even though freshwater pearls are irregular that doesn’t mean they’re of a lower quality. Because they’re completely made of nacre and don’t have a bead in the middle, they are actually very durable.

There’s no set way of grading pearls although many retailers use a common system. To a large extent it comes down to personal taste. You may prefer your jewellery in a classic design with round or teardrop shaped white pearls, or you may prefer a necklace made of irregular and multi-coloured pearls. The choice is endless and because there are so many different varieties of pearls, you’re sure to find something you like.

We may be in the middle of a credit crunch, but the gold jewellery market is buoyant with gold a better investement than ever.

As the value of currencies fluctuates, more and more people are putting their money into gold. It has a special status as a sort of universal currency - valued the world over, gold is a steady investment and unlike numbers in a bank account, you always know where your money is!

Of course if you invest in gold you’ll only invest in the best - at 750 we only sell 18 carat gold jewellery so we understand the need for timeless quality. Take a look at our collection to find out more.

Pearls have been valued for their beauty and rarity from ancient times, with texts from as far back as over 2000 BC detailing their use in China as gifts to and from Royalty. When explorers first found America, the native population used pearls in their jewellery and as items of trade. The Romans valued them so highly that they tried to ensure only the very highest echelons of society were allowed to wear them. It seems that almost everywhere in the world where pearls were discovered, they were valued as gemstones and items of worth.

So why were pearls so highly valued? Well their rarity probably had a lot to do with it. Pearls grew in nature and had to be found by divers or fishermen, and even if you found a mollusc that produced a pearl, the pearl wasn’t necessarily round or smooth. It might be full of flaws and an odd shape making it difficult to use in jewellery. The sheer time and effort that gathering pearls took meant that only people of status could afford them.

The natural lustre of pearls also certainly contributed to their popularity - there’s simply nothing in nature quite like the colour and shine of a pearl and it’s no wonder that ancient people coveted them.

Why are pearls so affordable today? Natural pearls are actually still very rare and expensive - even more so than ever before in fact. Over-fishing and pollution have wiped out much of the mollusc population so places where pearls used to be found don’t produce them any more. The pearls that everyone uses in their jewellery are actually cultured pearls. Not quite man-made, these come from molluscs that are specially bred, and the process of pearl formation is physically triggered by people. The supply is therefore predictable and steady, and the pearls that are produced have a uniform colour and size so it’s a lot easier to match them for jewellery.

Having said this, there are still varying qualities of pearl even in the cultured pearl market. Some have very thin layers of nacre (the shiny surface) and are of a lower quality than pearls with a thick nacre layer. We only source the best cultured pearls from reputable suppliers - the better quality the pearl the longer it will last if you take care of it, so the better the investment.

Unlike for diamonds, there’s no industry-wide system of grading pears. This means that it can be difficult for buyers to understand exactly what quality of pearl they’re getting. When it comes to pearl jewellery there are a lot of different considerations including the size and the matching of all the pearls that make up the piece (for example a necklace). To some extent individual quality is less important than the overall effect. However, sellers do have systems for grading the flaws, lustre and nacre - the three most important aspects of a pearl.

The two main grading systems are called the AAA-A system (usually used by sellers) and the A-D system (usually used by producers). The highest quality pearls (AAA and A respectively) have the least flaws and the highest lustre, whereas the lowest quality (A and D respectively) have the most flaws and the lowest lustre. Pearls with many flaws are considered unfit for use in jewellery.

Nacre is the outer surface of the pearl and the thickness of this nacre determines how durable a pearl is. Looked after properly pearls can last for generations but a thick layer of nacre helps - Tahitian pearls in fact aren’t even sold if the nacre is less than 0.8 of a milimetre.

What do diamonds have to do with tennis? According to Wikipedia, in 1987 champion tennis player Chris Evert was wearing a thin, diamond bracelet made by famous jeweller George Bedewi. During the match the braclet snapped, and play was halted so that Evert could find the diamonds. From then on, that style of bracelet gained the name ‘tennis bracelet’ and became increasingly popular.

What a great story! We’ve got our own special diamond tennis bracelet letting you save almost £1000 on the RRP.

Selling your scrap gold is a fantastic way to make some extra cash. Whether you have a ring you never wear or a necklace that’s become tangled and broken, you can exchange it for money quickly and easily. You might even want to invest in some new jewellery with the proceeds.

At 750 we buy gold jewellery of all carat values. The price we pay depends on the gold content, the weight of the item, and the price of gold on the day we receive it. An 18ct gold ring will be worth more than a 9ct ring of the same weight, for example.

Gold is increasingly seen as a good investment because the value has gone up over recent years, so your unwanted jewellery might be worth more than you think. At the same time, the price of gold fluctuates day to day, but we do publish a to the sort of price you can expect.

Diamonds occur in many different colours, from pink through to brown, orange and blue. However, most diamonds of gem quality appear on a scale from colourless to yellow. The most intensely coloured diamonds are called ‘fancy’ and there’s an increasing market for them. Colourless diamonds have traditionally been popular, especially for engagement rings and the fewer the flaws within the diamond, the more precious the gem.

Diamonds are rated on a special scale, under magnification so that any internal flaws can be seen. Completely colourless diamonds are the rarest and most expensive - diamonds with flaws become more affordable as the number of flaws increase.

Hallmarks have been used in Great Britain as a form of consumer protection since 1300 AD.

Each symbol stands for something different; one says how pure the metal is, one records the year of manufacture, one records which assay office was used and one records the manufacturer of the piece.

Before a piece of metal can be hallmarked it must be tested (or assayed) by one of the UK’s four assay offices. All precious metals have to be hallmarked by law. There are three compulsory hallmarks:

The sponsor’s mark shows the company who sent the item for testing.

The assay office mark which shows which assay office has tested the item.

The standard mark shows the standard of the precious metal. For silver this is 925 and for 18ct gold it’s 750.

Each UK assay office has its own hallmark:

The leopards head is for London, the anchor for Birmingham, the Yorkshire rose for Sheffield and the castle for Edinburgh.

Since 1478 the hallmark has included a date letter indicating the year of hallmarking - this is unique for each year - when the alphabet has been used the style of the letter changes.

The final mark is the Fineness symbol. This is a traditional symbol denoting the fineness of the metal. It is a lion for silver and a crown for gold.

The H=hallmark for gold is now governed by the 1973 Hallmarking Act.

9ct Gold = 375 parts pure gold out of a 1000
14ct Gold = 585 parts pure gold out of a 1000
18ct Gold = 750 parts pure gold out of a 1000
22ct Gold = 916 parts pure gold out of a 1000
Platinum standard = 950 parts pure platinum out of a 1000