Graziella, temperatures rising...

Graziella is an Italian Jewelry manufacturer and boy do they have the pulse of their customers. Graziella is selling like hot cakes in the market. Their jewelry is not for the wallflower. Its bold, chunky and in your face gold.

Their jewelry is usually in 21kt gold , the current range has silk pieces interwoven in the jewelry pieces. How deliciously different and exotic is that.Ive definitely got my heart set on atleast owning one piece.......

Retailing at Ruby Damas. Old Gold souk.

Gold Souk Dubai

This post is a brief description of the Gold souk in Dubai.Gold souk is in the heart of  Dubai. It faces the Dubai creek and is approximately a 20 minutes drive from the Dubai airport. For someone coming directly from the airport by metro should get off at the AL RAS metro station. You will need to change from Red line to green line at the Union station.

The Gold souk is a market where mainly gold jewelry is sold in all its various forms. Finished products of jewelry, gems, unset jewelry, workshops, manufacturing, all is done in the gold souk. You will find diamond jewelry, precious stone jewelry, plain gold jewelry, bars, coins, designer jewelry, branded jewelry, jewelry produced locally and internationally. Gold souk is one of the main hubs for gold jewelry trading and retailing.

All karat-age of jewelry is sold: 14KT, [ not commonly though], 18kt,21kt , 22kt, 24 kt. Gold comes in white gold, rose gold, yellow gold, white gold, copper colored and all various colors including green. Usually this colored gold in is 18kt purity. [ Gold is colored by changing the percentage of alloys mixed in gold but maintains the 18KT purity of gold.] When buying such jewelry always look for the 750 or 18kt mark or ask the sales person to show you the purity marking.


The jewelry stores sell a vast variety of jewelry. Besides gold  jewelry, there are stores selling luxury watches, second hand watches, certified diamonds, loose gemstones and un-setted jewelry [jewelry without stones for other jewelers to buy] and silver jewelry.

There are shops in the gold souk that will exchange your old gold jewelry against your new purchase. Some will purchase for cash [ very few] . The stores that purchase jewelry against cash, usually ask for receipt and contact details to prevent fraud and reselling of robbed jewelry. So make sure you ALWAYS retain your jewelry receipts.

Besides being the heart of jewelry stores, the area around gold souk has plenty to offer locals and tourists. From the famous spice souk where a dearth of loose spices are to be found to stores selling cloth , perfumes, oud, cutlery and crockery stores, stationery, scarves, abayas, electronic stores, laces, toys, footwear ..and the list goes on. The Gold souk area has plenty to offer everyone.

If you get tired of looking around there are plenty of small cafeterias and famous shawarma booths to be found at nearly every corner. Do try their cocktail and fresh juices too. There is also a Baskin Robbins to be found in the Gold souk. This is in fact one of the first few Baskin Robbin shop that opened in Dubai and is roughly 20 years old or more.

Do not forget to pay for your parking it is 2 Dirhams for one hour, 5 Dirhams for two hours, 7 dirhams for three. hours and 11 Dirhams for four hours.

If you are in an adventurous all out exploration mood you can walk to the creek, take the famous abra [boat] ride , cross the creek and explore the opposite side called Bur Dubai.....

Hope you enjoyed reading this post. I would love to answer any questions you may have about the gold souk....

Thank you :)

Education for the Jewelry Field : G.I.A

G.I.A Gemological Institute of America is one of the most established , well known and well recognized institutes in the jewelry Industry whether it be education or their expertise in gemstones and certification. If you are looking to entering the jewelry field but lack knowledge, or just looking to gain some education in the vast world of jewelry - enrolling for some basic courses in this Institute is an excellent place to start. Plus interning at a jewelry store will always help.

The best thing about G.I.A is regardless of the fact if they have an institute in your country or not, they offer correspondence courses and usually hold workshops. The workshops are not held everywhere but in certain countries, but since G.I.A is so well internationally established that if your country does not have G.I.A workshops, a neighboring country definitely will.

For us Dubai-ites, the good news is that G.I.A has opened up their office in DAFZA and regularly hold classes and workshops. You may attend their classes or simply learn online and give your exams. The highest certificate given by G.I.A is the Gemologist Diploma.


Here are a few links to help you in your search:
Educational Programs
General Education over view

Do check their website out, even if you do not want to enroll G.I.A works towards educating the customers as well about jewelry and their website has some helpful links.

G.I.A also takes in stones for certification. The stones should be un-setted  [i.e loose; not set in any jewelry item].

The Dubai Office  Location : GIA, Dubai Airport Free Zone, Bldg 6W- A Block, 8 Floor, Office No. 801
Tel No: 00971 4 2146843




The person to contact for Education Programs and courses is MS Shamona Coutinho and she is extremely friendly and helpful. So address her with all your queries and questions and she will definitely help you out.

I'm currently on the second last course towards completing my diploma and i have not regretted enrolling in G.I.A. Hope you find this information helpful.

Thank you.

Metal Purity

Ever noticed how your piece of jewellery usually has some sort of numerical marking in a discreet place? Well that marking carries a little value. It tells you how pure your gold is,or is supposed to be. These are also called ' hallmarks'

• 999 or 995 means 24 karat gold
• 917 or 920 means 22 karat gold
• 875 is 21 karat gold
• 750 is 18 karat gold
• 583 is  14 karat gold.

Jewellery in Dubai is pretty safe to buy in Dubai and that's one of the reasons why its Gold Souk is so famous. Of course the variety and competitive prices are other factors. The Dubai Municipality has set rules and regulations for selling jewellery and they make sure that they are adhered to. A municipal official can come unannounced to a jewellery store and take random pieces of jewellery for purity checking. If the claimed purity differs from the actual purity result, the store is heavily fined and can be shut down as well.  

Therefore jewelers ensure that the goods they are receiving are of the purity they are selling it. Yet some instances do occur where upon selling a piece of jewellery or getting it tested for purity the customer finds out that the jewellery item is not of the purity they thought/purchased it as. Unfortunately these rare instances the jeweller is not always to blame, though they ensure [by testing ] pieces that their jewellery is of the purity they are selling it at, the goldsmith who actually manufactured the jewellery may have lessened the purity accidentally or intentionally. Thus, in some scenarios the jewellers are also unaware of the wrong purity. Though that does not excuse them.

 Usually jewellers do get random items tested upon purchasing jewellery or if the manufacturing is their own, they will be quite sure of what the purity of their item is. No reputed supplier, goldsmith or jeweller will cheat this way, since this affects reputation in the long run and they lose out on potential customers.

So when you go jewellery shopping next time make sure your pieve of jewellery is stamped with its respective purity. Rings and bangles usually carry the hallmark on the inside [ you must really strain your eyes to find it] and the earrings are stamped usually on the back of the earring or on the post of the earring.

Will post some reference pics soon :)

Hope you find this post helpful.

Thank you :)

Parking In the Gold Souk.

Parking in the gold souk happens to be one of the subjects I love to discuss. I believe it has improved my decision making and parking skills a 100 times. If anyone needed to learn how to become quick at making decisions and how to become a bully in the parking lot; Gold souk parking would have taught you lessons no one ever could have ever hoped to teach. Well now that has changed. Thanks to some changes done by the RTA. Thank God for that.

Anyways here are a few tips anyways, since during the free and peak hours, gold souk parking lot reverts to its old mad, crazy self.

First things first; Gold souk has paid parking. The paid parking hours are 9 a.m to 1 p.m and then 4 p.m till 9 p.m. therefore 1 p.m till 4 p.m its free parking. If you come to the gold souk around 12.00 p.m onwards the chances of you finding parking easily are slim. People in the gold souk have different shifts and sometimes no shifts :) . Just random working hours. But hope does prevail. Around 1.00 p.m onwards some people [like me] do leave the gold souk for lunch. So if you are hoping to visit the gold souk in the afternoon, the chances of finding hassle free parking around 2.30 p.m onwards are pretty good. Around 4.30p.m onwards it starts getting a bit difficult again.

The next gap would be around 7.00 p.m. But this gap is short lived so you have to be quick. It lasts for roughly half an hour. This is the time the office goers get off from work. So keep a look out. It is common in the gold souk for people to motion and ask if you need parking. If someone is walking into the gold souk parking lot it is  okay to ask them where is their car parked. Sometimes they will tell you sometimes they wont depending on the rush hour. The reason being; if there is a car already double parked behind their car [in hope of parking] and the person gives you the parking spot, it may result in a fight and police being called. at worst fist fights and being taken to the police station. Such scenarios were quite common before, but have thankfully eased now. 

Keep a sharp look who is walking into the parking lot, majority of the time they are walking towards their car to leave or to simply to renew the parking hour ticket. No one goes for a stroll in the parking lot :P. 

But you have to be sharp and a little impolite. Do not keep two cars distance between your car and the car leaving the parking spot, otherwise chances are another car will zoom by and park in your spot before you can blink. So yeah it can be quite frustrating but hope does prevail.

The alternate to getting your car all the way to the gold souk is coming by metro. The Ras al Khor station is the one that is for Gold souk. Its a five minutes walk away and totally hassle free. I often recommend my friends to park in city center and take the metro from there and come, though you are limited to do your work/shopping/ browsing within a four hour time frame before you have to pay for your city center parking.

Hope this post was helpful.

Happy parking :)

Agate

Upon request I am writing  a post on the gemstone called AGATE. Also known as ‘AQEEQ’ in Arabic, Urdu, farsi and hindi.

Depending on the color of agate it is called different names. Example; a red color agate may be called ‘aqeeq ahmer’ [Arabic] or ‘aqeeq surkh’[urdu]. I was informed by the same friend [who requested me to write this article] about agate being called Sulaimani Aqeeq. I was quite unaware of this fact. So I googled it. This is what my search came up with;

             A certain banded ‘agate is also known as "Sulemani" agate or Solomon's Agate. Tradition has it that the source of this type of agate came from the legendary King Solomon's Mines. He existed about 3000 years ago, and built the Temple in Jerusalem, so it fits in with the timeline. Buddhism came along 2500 years ago and there would have been a plentiful supply of this kind of bead available, as they were traded widely along the Silk Road. It is entirely possible, but totally unprovable, that these mines were indeed the source of the agate.’  From what I can tell , usually sulaimani agate/aqeeq is ‘banded’ that is, has band like lines running through it. Like the picture below taken from http://www.ancientbead.com/sulemani_agate_beads.html

Sulemani aqeeq also known as buddhist beads

Agate is from the family of ‘Chalcedony’ and Chalcedony is formed from layers of Quartz. Other gems from the family of Chalcedony are Carnelian, Sard, Saradonyx, Jasper and moss agate. It is found  all over the world including: the Africa, Asia, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Nepal, and the USA.

Agate usually has a layered appearance consisting of curved or angular bands. The bands sometimes look like eyes, fanciful scallops, or even a landscape with trees. Moss agate is transparent to semi translucent with green brown or black inclusions that resemble moss and is found mainly in India and U.S.A.

Moss Agate

 Typical cutting style for agate is carving, bead and cabochons [rounded, smooth dome shaped cuts, usually flat on one side and dome shape on one side. Opposite to faceted stones that have angles]

Agates are quite commonly available. Their colors range from brownish black to orange ish red commonly to green. Their prices vary from quite cheap to expensive if the piece is thought to be unique. An idea of prices is available at this site www.gemselect.com

I hope this article was helpful. Would be happy to answer any queries. Thank you.

Coversion and purity

Todays post is about common terms and conversions used in The gold and jewellery trade.
I may not be able to cover all in one go , thus will keep updating this post InshaAllah :)

Usually gold / silver websites such as www.kitco.com publish the gold rates in U$ Dollars for an ounce of gold.

Example if the rate is published as U$ 1667 this is for one ounce of gold.
One ounce is equal to 31.10 grams.
In Dubai [ Middle east and most Asian countries] Gold rate is usually converted to grammes.

To convert to grams , ounce gold rate by 31.10 and then multiply by 3.65 to get the rate in U.A.E dirhams.

so (1667/31.1)*3.65 = 195.64 AED dirhams per gram.

The result is for PURE GOLD i.e 999.

This rate will be applied if you are going to buy a gold bar or Kilo Bars. Do bear in mind even for manufacturing Gold bars there are charges since their is labour involved in manufacturing them. These rates differ from company to company.

Jewellery pieces are usually manufactured in 22KARAT gold, 21 karat gold , 18 karat gold and sometimes [ applicable to U.A.E] in 14karat as well.

So, going back to our 999 gold rate which is also known as PURE GOLD. Since it has no other gold metals added to it and is pure gold.

To convert pure gold rate to 22kt gold rate take the pure gold rate and multiply by 0.920 and for 18KT rate multiply by 0.750.
so eg if pure gold rate is 195.64 x 0.920 = 179.99 or rounded off 180 AED.
FOR 18KT            195.64 X 0.750 = 156.73 or rounded off 157 AED

One ounce has 31.10 grams
One Ten Tola bar has 116.64 grams
one tola has 11.664 grams

A bar of equal weight but purity of 999 or 995 will differ in price.
999 will be more expensive than 995.

Hope this post was helpful.
Would love your feed back.
Thankyou.