This blog is written by Ralph Jacobs, a jewellery designer and maker in Secunda, South Africa. It exists to help you understand jewellery well enough to choose with confidence, whether you buy from us or anyone else.
Why first. Every article starts with the reason a reader needs it, then explains the facts behind the answer in plain English.
Facts, with sources. Factual claims are linked to the sources we relied on, such as gemmological laboratories, standards and industry bodies. When a source can’t be checked automatically, we check it by hand before publishing.
Balanced, not a sales pitch. We explain the trade-offs of each option, including ones we don’t sell. A page mentions Ralph Jacobs at most once, and only where it is genuinely useful. We never accept payment from other brands for what we say.
No prices, and not advice. Prices change and differ by country, so we explain what drives cost instead of quoting figures. Our articles are general information. They are not legal, financial, insurance or medical advice, and they never change the terms that apply when you buy. Those are on ralphjacobs.org.
How AI is used. AI tools help us research topics, draft articles, check facts against sources and create illustrations. They don’t publish anything. A member of our team reads every page, can send it back for changes, and decides whether it goes live. Illustrations made with AI are marked as such. They are illustrations, not photographs of real pieces, and they don’t show what you would receive. To learn what readers want to know, we look at the questions customers ask us, with names and contact details removed first (Privacy Notice, section 3A).
Customer stories. We publish a customer’s story only with their written consent, and never anything that shows where they live. See our Story Submission Terms.
Keeping pages current. Each page shows when it was last checked. If we correct a fact, we say so on the page, with the date.
Tell us if we got something wrong. Write to feedback@ralphjacobs.org and we’ll look into it. To ask us to remove something about you, write to privacy@ralphjacobs.org.