Decades ago, diamonds were very famous as jewelry for both men and women. The cut and design were as flashy for both sexes, sometimes men even had bigger and grander diamond rings than women did, but somehow, the trend began to dwindle and soon it became taboo for men to wear extravagant and flashy diamonds. Nonetheless, diamonds are still continually used in men's jewelry in smaller sizes and subtle styles ? but of course, there will always be that unique set that is made for only the brave and those secure in their manhood. After all, it takes a man to wear a man sized stone. Today, jewelry designers for men have found ways of how to use diamonds subtly, but still managed to pack a punch and sufficiently elevate the value of pieces used.
Pav? Set
Pav? settings are very popular for jewelry because it's a way for jewelers to use smaller diamonds. Pav? translates into ?paved? which describes how the stones are set into the base. Small diamonds are inlaid into the surface of the jewelry, sometimes onto the sides to accentuate a middle piece. For men's jewelry, especially Men's Rings a Pav? setting is usually used to cover the surface of the piece. A Pav? setting is also commonly used in cufflinks and in earrings. So, if you're looking for some flash without resorting to very feminine looking solitaire and cushion cut diamonds, then the Pav? set is the best way to go.
Single Diamond Set
Another popular setting for diamonds in men's jewelry is when a single diamond is set in the middle of a big piece of metal plate or semi-precious stone. A very common design to this is one with an onyx plate and a single diamond in the middle. Another is a loop ring with a small diamond dab in the middle of the ring. Usually the single set is popular with the more mature set. This is one of the ways that men can wear diamonds without being too flashy.
Studs
Studs are famously used in men's earrings. We see a lot of famous celebrities that use these pieces of jewelry. One of the most memorable is the clip on earring that was worn by the actor Jamie Fox on the red carpet. That style choice made the stud setting for earring famous again, plus Jamie Fox helped elevate the status of earrings for men into something classier and not one that is dated and out of style.
The Future for Diamonds in Men's Jewelry
For the diamond lovers out there, we are very glad to say that the use of diamonds in men's jewelry has a very bright future. In fact, more and more men are trying out flashier pieces and the jewelers are responding to the demand. Now, it maybe a long time before we see men sporting 60 carat diamond rings to something other than a concert or the club scene, but, who knows - it is definitely something that shouldn't be ruled out.
Now be it a currency or commodity, some of the points below will clear up most common misunderstanding about gold when compared to cash.
What most people don't realize is that when it comes to comparing gold to cash is that there are two different ways of owning gold in a bank. One is ?Allocated Gold and Unallocated Gold. With this definition and terminology, technically, cash deposit on bank is Unallocated Gold. I am going to compare, however, cash on deposit with Allocated Gold as when people talk about gold, they usually conjure up image of gold sitting in a vault, nothing being done to it therefore not collecting any returns.
Allocated gold is not lent out One of the main reason we deposit money in the bank is so that it earns interest. And the greater the risk, the greater the returns should be as per Modern Finance Theory tells us. The driving engine for this interest returns is that banks lends out your deposited cash ? this basically means that you lent your money to the bank and they pay up with interest. With the ?business model? you basically take risk on the banks credit worthiness and the banks good decision making on who to lend the money to. The more money the bank lends out, the more risk you have taken by depositing your money with them and banks usually lend money 10 times more than its total deposits. Now this is similar to Unallocated Gold where it is lent to a 3rd party, often multiple times than what is actually in their vaults, and this earns the lease rate.
Allocated Gold on the other hand is not lent out and does not carry any of the risk as unallocated cash or gold, it is not lent to 3rd party hence there is no return of interest, and it may even cost you to store them in banks and get charged for storage and insurance.
Though it does not earn any interest, you can always walk up to the bank that hold your Allocated Gold and demand your gold to be delivered to you pretty much like when you hold your gold into a safety deposit box.
Cash on deposit on the other hand or ?Unallocated Cash? is pretty much owned by the bank and you as a depositor ranks as an unsecured creditor for the bank, meaning that if the bank goes bankrupt, then all cash on deposit will be divided among its ?secured creditor first, unless bailed out by the government of bailed via insurance. You really cannot just walk up to a bank and ask for your money in really large amounts, you can however demand for small amounts at a time. And if all depositors asked for their money all at the same time, there would not be enough cash in deposit to pay people.
Unlike cash, gold is always accepted anywhere. And that is not gonna change anytime soon as evidenced by the trade's survival for thousands of years. There is no issue of your bill being an ?old note? and you can go to any country and you can expect your gold to be still gold when you get there.
Gold is relatively scarce and is mined and not printed. Any country, if it comes down to just papers and inks, can print as much of their currency as they want, even that is no longer an issue as paper bills also has electronic equivalent, produce so much and the value is reduced in terms of goods and services. This is a huge difference in the obvious value of the two without being overly technical about it.
Gold is produced, money is printed
Gold is subject to price risk, but so is cash But by virtue, Gold is more secure and unlike cash, allocated gold are given exact identification numbers, records of manufacturer, purity and bar number, segregated in the vault and can be insured unlike cash wherein you have to rely on the banks accounting records for details of your account with cash that are no different from the others.
In all aspects, Gold is better than cash. No wonder it has been a form of payment for thousands of years.
Both Jason Tye & Raki are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jason Tye has sinced written about articles on various topics from Jewelry, Pets and Culture. ? 2008 Jason Tye. Jason Tye is the webmaster and owner of the emporium -