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What Do Oris Watches and Staghorn Coral Have In Common?

October 2, 2017 by Jodis

We’ve all seen high end watch companies partner with car companies, racing teams, sports teams, etc. Rarely do you see them partner with an environmental non-profit like the recent joint effort between the Coral Restoration Foundation and Swiss watchmaker, Oris. The watchmaking company was moved by the work of the foundation and was inspired to create a special model of the Aquis dedicated to supporting the Coral Restoration Foundation.

Oris Staghorn Engraving

Corals are vital to the ecosystem. They provide a barrier break to waves and tides. By doing so, they prevent erosion and protect coastlines from storms. Coral reefs also provide food and shelter to sea life, thus creating income for coastal communities through tourism and fishing. Over fishing, pollution, development and irresponsible tourism exacerbate the destruction of coral reefs.

Oris Staghorn Restoration Limited Edition

The sale of the Oris Staghorn Restoration Limited Edition watch will help the foundation in the preservation and renewal of the world’s coral reefs. In 2015 the non-profit replanted over 20,000 native corals and began preparing 40,000 more for future replanting. Given that Oris has been making diving watches for over 50 years, the pairing was an easy choice. Oris has partnered with other conservation groups and the Coral Restoration Foundation’s outplanting program was an inspiration to the environmentally-minded watch company.

The watch, itself, is quite inspirational. The dark blue dial and white markers are punctuated with bright orange, an homage to the colorful Staghorn coral. The easily visible color highlights the bezel’s zero marker, the central seconds hand and the day and date indicators.

Like all Oris watches, the Staghorn Restoration Limited Edition is an automatic mechanical watch and it features a uni-directional rotating bezel with a ceramic insert for timing dives. Decorating the back of the 43.5mm stainless steel case is a Staghorn coral and the limited edition number.

More information about the Coral Restoration Foundation and coral replanting can be found at https://coralrestoration.org/

You can find a wide selection of Oris watches, including the Staghorn Restoration Limited Edition at http://throckmortons.biz/watches/#oris

Filed Under: Watches Tagged With: coral, environmental, Oris, restoration, Staghorn

4 Med Spa Services That Will Definitely Improve Your Jewelry-wearing Experience

August 29, 2017 by Jodis

What does a jewelry store blog have to do with fillers, lasers and Botox? Well, after a certain degree of… let’s call it… maturity, potentially a lot.

For millennia, humans have used jewelry to adorn themselves. Putting those sparkly objects on our bodies is meant to, and does, bring attention to us. While we love for someone to ask about Granny’s antique platinum ring, we often dislike seeing Granny’s hands when we look down, which brings us to the reason for this blog post.

I feel like I have always had “old lady” hands. I’m thin and wiry and I work out, so my hands have always been a bit knobby with visible veining. End of the world? No. But add to that sun damage, my frequent contact with chemicals and detergents, and the fact that I’m in my 40’s; suddenly it’s an issue.

It’s starting to affect how often I wear jewelry—not a good thing for a jeweler. I put on my large, fun gemstone rings and then pull them right back off when I see my hands. I sometimes feel like these carefree rings belong on a hand that looks more like my daughter’s and less like my grandma’s.

Apparently, I’m not the only one with this issue of jewelry and aging. A large number of our customers complain about their earlobes or automatically remark about their “spotty” or “wrinkling” hands when they try on a newly sized ring.

Now that I’ve reduced you all to tears, I will tell you how lucky we are to live in a world with some pretty incredible fixes for these common, albeit annoying, issues. My friends at Body Tonic Med Spa gave me the run down on some of the services they can use to help us confidently show off our jewelry.

For Sagging Earlobes

Our earlobes lose volume as we age, just like our lips. This can cause earrings to dip forward or hang extra low. Misplaced piercings are another issue, along with a history of wearing heavy earrings. All of these ear errors can be helped with dermal fillers. The fillers are injected into the lobe to plump the lobe to help the look of thinning, create symmetry and provide foundation for the earring to sit on.

 

For Neck Bands….and Worse!

Necklaces are often the first jewelry we wear, as they require no piercing and no worries over ring size. The neck gets a lot of sun over the years, that damage, along with gravity and repeated positioning (hours and hours of playing on the iPhone), results in lines or rings, and not the blingy kind we like to have. A more advanced way that the neck shows aging is the development of the dreaded gobbler, that loose skin and extra texture that reminds us just how closely tied by genetics we are to our Great-Aunt Francis.

Because counting one’s rings to determine age is best left to trees, aesthetic injectionists use dermal fillers to fill the neck creases and, just like that, the rings are gone. And that gobbler? A combination of lasers, Botox and filler can make an amazing difference!

For Chest Creases

Along with the neck, the chest is the stage for a beautiful pendant or necklace. Age, sun, smoking and sleeping habits can cause some pretty deep lines in the chest; an absolute tell-tale sign of age. This one is especially annoying when you reside in Texas and must live uncovered for most of the year without turtlenecks to hide behind. These deep lines can be smoothed out with dermal fillers and the sun damage erased with lasers. The results are nothing short of a miracle.

 

For Granny Hands

To make our hands more youthful there are lasers to resurface the hands, ridding them of brown spots, wrinkles and improve the skin quality. Dermal fillers can add volume to diminish the look of tendons, veins and wrinkles, as well as improve skin texture and quality. No more knobby hands and the perfect perch for a sparkling new ring!

Check out more info on these treatments on BodyTonic’s blog http://www.mybodytonic.com/single-post/2014/09/28/Beauty-and-Your-Bling and call on the lovely ladies of Body Tonic for a consultation if you are interested in creating a more youthful place to hang you gems, then come to Throckmorton’s to decorate your new look!

And don’t forget, an ounce of prevention is work a pound of cure—use sunscreen!!!

Filed Under: Jewelry

Can You Fix This?

August 20, 2017 by Jodis

Can You Fix This?

Every day we field calls asking if we can fix a broken clasp, replace a battery, service a Rolex, fix Great-grandma’s platinum wedding ring, etc, etc.

Today I happened to pick up the phone and a gentleman told me that his wedding ring had been cut off and he wondered if it could be fixed. Oh, and it was cut off in two places and stretched out of shape, can it still be repaired?The answer, barring any bizarre circumstances, is a resounding yes! The caller seemed amazed and excited and it reminded me that even our basic repair jobs can be as fulfilling an undertaking as the creation of a custom engagement ring.

At Throckmorton’s Watches and Jewelry, we take all of our jobs seriously. Jewelry and watches often have more sentimental value than financial value. It’s very gratifying to see the faces of our customers when we find a way to make a family heirloom wearable for the next generation. Even if all we do is make a pair of clip on earrings into pierced earrings or put a new watchband on a 20 year old graduation watch, the end result is sometimes teary eyes or an emotional thank you. And we love every minute of it.

Some of the most common jewelry repairs that walk into the store are prong re-tipping, ring resizing and stone replacement. These repairs are the result of loving a piece and actually wearing it. Because maintenance for jewelry is par for the course, we encourage our customers to take advantage of our free quick clean and prong assessments. It’s much easier (especially on the wallet) to identify worn prongs and repair them, than it is to replace a diamond lost to prong failure.

Watch repair gets just as much love at Throckmorton’s. Besides replacing batteries and watch bands, we can replace crystals, polish and clean, do link repair, resize bands, replace movements…the list goes on and on. Give us a call to see if we can get parts for your watch or stop by and let us take a look. If we can’t help you, we’ll try our best to get you the information needed to get you on your way to repair.

So, if you need your wedding set clean, polish and re-rhodium plated or you need your Omega to start running, come by and see us. We can fix it!

Filed Under: Repairs

Baubles & Time

June 8, 2017 by Jodis

Welcome to Throckmorton’s Watch & Jewelry.

If you are a regular viewer of our website, you will notice some changes. We have a new, clean layout that makes it easy to access the information you are looking to find. We have fresh images that better represent our jewelry and watch lines and our diverse selection of styles. We have also added this blog.  

Our blog will have many facets; pun intended. Some entries will be educational and some entertaining. We hope all will be helpful to our customers and interesting to the reader. The focus of this first blog is to introduce us to you, in case you aren’t already familiar with the fabulousness that is Throckmorton’s. 

Let’s start with some history…. 

Owner and master watchmaker, David Throckmorton, has been keeping Austin’s fine watches ticking (yep, another pun) for almost 45 years. He and his wife, Tracey, a retired geologist, opened the current Oak Hill location 11 years ago. In the beginning, the store was run by just the two of them. This constant, direct relationship with customers is what shaped the foundation of our store’s core principles. When that customer comes to pick up their jewelry repair or makes a watch purchase there is no wiggle room; you must be confident that you have given the best service possible. 

Being human, we aren’t perfect, but David says the true measure of a company is how they make it right. That type of personal service is what sets us apart and we survive on it. There are a lot of big box stores in our industry, not to mention innumerable websites selling jewelry and watches, but there are not many watch and jewelry stores you can walk into and talk to the watchmaker and the jeweler. You know your repair is being made in this store and by a real, live person; that makes us accountable and makes you more confident you can trust us to do our best by you. 

Another uncommon aspect of Throckmorton’s Watch and Jewelry is the lack of a “sales staff.” We don’t have pushy people in navy blazers trying to sell you something that isn’t right for you so they can hit a quota. Instead, we have customer service providers who make no commission and are just as happy helping you pick a birthday gift for your niece as they are helping you choose a new setting for an engagement ring.  

Speaking of navy blazers, another thing you will notice upon entering Throckmorton’s is a lack of stuffiness, snobbery and uniforms. Our staff is small, and every one of us is a unique individual. You can count of David to be in jeans and a button down and the jeweler (that’s me) will likely be in a concert shirt and Converse sneakers. The rest of the staff tends to bring up our style game in dressier ways, but you will never be uncomfortable coming into our store, even in your navy blazer. We are here to help you make choices about things like repairing an antique family ring or choosing a graduation gift, not to intimidate you. 

What we don’t lack is a professional attitude towards excellence. We want you to be so excited about the watch repair work we’ve done or your custom jewelry purchase that you will want to tell your friends, neighbors, coworkers and the good folks at Yelp that we are the best. We want you to come back to shop with us because you know us, you trust us and you can count on us, because here at Throckmorton’s Watch and Jewelry, we want you to be a customer for life. 

Until next time, 

Jodis the Jeweler 

Filed Under: Misc

ADDRESS:

Throckmorton’s Watches & Jewelry
5716 Hwy 290 West, Suite 112
Austin, TX 78735

Contact:

Phone: 512.495.9997
Fax: 512.892.8986
Email: info@throckmortons.biz

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