Oh dear. Very very sad to see Victoria N auction a Kaori pearl bangle set in nothing but stainless steel. Nice, but not Gems.?.
I went on their website yesterday to look for a new topaz ring. It is terrible to navigate and a right ole palaver trying to narrow down the choices. I narrowed the search down as much as I could, but I could not see a way of selecting what colour of gem I wanted in the topaz stone. Gave up. Maybe I am just not doing it right I don't know, but their website just frustrates me, and their videos are awful. I have also noticed that they don't show the ring 'live' very much, but mostly in the light box. That puts me off too as I wonder what they are hiding.
It is all about the light box view now, they don't show you many (if any) 'live' close ups on the hand of a presenter and they don't give a clear sight of the shank of a ring or the pendant bail, so that you cannot see how thick the setting/band is. They do flash up at the bottom of the screen the metal weight in which the gemstones are set, but it's all "blink and you'll miss it" type display. Re: selecting the colour you want, they used to have a pull down menu towards the top of the screen, where you could select the gemstone colour - but having said this, it's so long since I went on their website (which I agree is not user-friendly) that it could have changed.
I cannot find a menu to select colour any longer Historymystery. It may be there but I could not find it. The old website used to be rubbish too - but it was better rubbish!
I agree on the website front. It really isn't the best, especially when they apparently won awards for being "e-tailer of the year" (or something similar). I have to say, Rocks&Co's site is one of the better ones. TJC has always been dire.
What's sad about Gems is that us customers from way back in the days of Scott, Rae, Lynn et al really really do know what we're talking about when we say things have ground to a halt or have gone downhill.
Just looking at Kate McCarthy's morganite show, all the designs are dull. You could buy the loose gem, a setting from Cookson Gold and do it yourself. You would also avoid paying for grey I3 diamonds ruining the piece. It's so noticeable that the bands on the gold rings tend to be cheese wire thickness too. Hardly anything over 2g in total (and that's an AVERAGE across the sizes).
I also hate the constant comparison with coloured diamonds sold at Sotheby's. Steve used to extol the virtues of coloured gems for themselves. Far, far too many shows now with coated or colour diffused topaz and quartz (leave that to TJC!).
The trouble is, once you've educated your audience, you can't go back and treat them like idiots.
Sigh. (Rant over! ��)
[/QUOTE]I find Angeline even more annoying than Sheridan was. I think Sheridan has left, but who knows, people disappear regularly from the channel. I'm not sorry if she's gone, as she seemed unsure of her job description as a producer! The producer is not there to muscle in as a presenter, and the presenter should not keep calling out for the producer to co-present with him/her - it got to the point where it was ridiculous, they were like a double act of 'ham' actors.
QUOTE : Anna;898290]I've just realised that I haven't seen Sheridan for ages either. Thank God for that. I hope she has left. She was well annoying!