I was out of the country with no email or phone for ten days. Then a customer/friend writes me to let me know what is going on on this forum. I am not on-line 24/7. I have work and other concerns. And Kirk, who is a friend of a friend of mine, is still on the bandwagon after he tried to way overcharge me..yes $900 for a pair of earrings, years ago. And he sure liked my Suisse at that time.
I have been involved in absinthe for about 10 years. I have no need to defend myself. I have been ripped off by customs. I never have said my prices were cheap. Anyone who does not want my wares can go elsewhere. If I am so wicked then why I do have a strong and loyal customer base? And no, I will not listen to cussing or nastiness. A few of you have been really kind and some have already been helping me with info for the next edition of my book...for which those persons will be credited.
AND UNLESS ANYONE CAN ASK A QUESTION POLITELY AND SINCERELY I WILL NOT BE RESPONDING ON THIS FORUM.
betina

The earrings you had me custom make for you are worth more than $900 Betina,
but what I was asking for (since you are a friend of a GOOD friend) was 3 bottles of booze which I never got.
So how much did you pay for your custom made Colombian emerald earrings with fairy wings on them that you talked me into making for you?
$10?
$100?
$1000?
Oh wait, that's right, it was zero. Who has the emerald earrings today, Betina?
And guess what? No amount of money will pay for them now, they are yours but you will be paying for them from now on.
But thank you for at least addressing the issue,
is it OK if we go over a couple more of your questionable deals?

Is that "anyone" or everyone?"
A couple of people have been rude.
I can understand why you would not want to respond to them.
Still, everyone else has made an effort to get along
and it seems as if you have at least one friend here.
It would be a shame to let the rude ones define the place for you.

We have strong free-speech norms here.
Just as in the larger society, they are costly to us at times,
when we are exposed to speech we do not agree with or like.
I am sorry that people used their free speech to upset you.
I hope you understand that the mods' and admins' support of free speech
does not consitute support of everything that is said.

You were obviously invited here because you have a wealth of information to share.
Hopefully, it can be beneficial to you to be here, too.

I would like to add that when you told me they had to be the finest grade of Colombian emerald known to man it really set me for a loop.
I take that kind of thing seriously.
When I tried to obtain a matched pair for earrings my gem supplier (an ex- Colombian drug agent) grinned at me, ( he has a scar from above his right ear to below his left ear and when he grins it's scary) and shook his head.
It took me 3 months to find those stones, (and I have great access), no one else could have made those earrings like that, at that price.
The stones cost me $240 dollars a piece, I still have the invoice.
They are crystal clear, grass green and perfectly matched, they look like fake emeralds they are so fine.
I put $100 worth of gold into them and about 8 hours of labor,
That's $580 my cost plus my labor, if I charged you $12 an hour it would make the earrings $675, so I told you to send me 3 bottles of booze at $225 each.
You said I was ripping you off, you couldn't afford and told me to scrap them, (after custom ordering them)so I gave them to you,
and now it is I that owes YOU.
I might add, it took me a lifetime to learn how and $12 an hour is too cheap.

I am concerned.
I have known you a while now, Kirk,
and you have always been an honest and generous man, to a fault.
Clearly, there is a point of contention here.
Are you looking for resolution?

I'm just on for the ride,
I can see no resolution
I'm pissing up a rope
shoutin' in the wind
I just am so frustrated with her, I don't think it will ever go away.
You guys know me, if I have it and you like it, it's yours
I live in a fuckin' shack and produce art from money
everything I have, I give away
I can't believe someone would treat me like that,
she never even said "I'm sorry"
she didn't even tell me she liked them,
in fact, she sent them back and had me cut off the handmade french wires and tack straight posts on them, at the same time she was telling me she wasn't going to pay me.

Hey, Betina. It looks like your title for this thread must not have turned out as you intended. Please feel free to PM me with your title, if you would like me to fix it.

My rock man's face has furrows so deep he seems in pain
I don't know how skin gets that bad and still lives.
When he was in Columbia he was the head of an 80 man special op's drug squad.
They had a simple interrogation technique;
They would grab the suspects in pairs
tie their hands behind their back and stand them on a railing of a famous bridge in Colombia, The Columbian dealers are well known for staying silent,
invariably they would refuse to answer any questions,
with a gleam in his black eyes he said " we simply push the first one off"
and then he would hold his hand up in front of his face and flutter is fingers as he lowered his hand saying, "blub blub blub, they always got very talkative then"
The guy is really a sweetheart, generous and kind to a fault, he was shocked when he heard what happened to those rocks.

That kind of frustration, Kirk, will make a gentle person less gentle.
You are a man of your word and of your ethics.
You do deserve to be treated well.
If there were resolution to be had, it would be a matter for the two of you.
I hope that Betina will show herself to be similarly ethical in her dealings
and commit to working out your conflict.
Thank you for taking the time to make yourself heard in a respectful tone.

I keep Kirk and his sausage
in a special place inside me.

Kirk is a jewel of a person.

I'll bet those earrings were spectacular works of artistry.

It is a shame when generosity such as his is abused.

word.

I continued to ask him for the price and he refused to tell me and then sent me the huge bill after the earrings were finished. Believe who you want. I have no reason to lie. I brought up the subject.

How much did you pay Kirk for the earrings?

That is not true Betina, I have the E-mails that show me asking you repeatedly what your price range was, your only answer was that they had to be flawless, you were used to the best and "I paid 400$dollars for my water bill last month"
I took those statements to mean that you were serious and could afford what you were asking for.
Are you saying they are not worth my price?

$400.00 a month for water. Sounds decadent. Or maybe you need to fix your toilet.

Again Betty,...How much did you pay Kirk for the earrings?

I never bought the earrings! Yes, he asked my price range when I kept asking for the price....what does my price range matter? I asked for the price. He never gave it to me . Just sent them and assumed I would fork over the money.
This is my last reply to this subject.

Maybe he needed to know how much effort to go through while looking for
the flawless materials and based on your response, assumed you could afford them, especially in trade.

Where are the earrings now, do you still have them?

Just a friendly neighborhood mod reminder to be civil and polite with Ms. Wittels.

That is all.
Resume your binges.

So you admit I tried to find out your price range and you wouldn't tell me, ah hah!
I asked many questions to try and determine what you were after, I told you availability and price changes on Colombian emeralds from moment to moment.
You never bought the earrings, true, who owns them now?
I feel I have made my case, with your help.

I don't think I'm ever going to buy from Kirk if he's going to be that acommadating. Sheesh.

Three bottles of booze for handmade earrings with rare gems in them?
Sounds like a good deal to me, overly generous even.

um, no you didn't.
click on your statement.

Betty, you are lucky I didn't make them expensive.

So, he eventually did give you a price, and you ended up contesting the amount down to zero?

Uh, yes, that's the problem Betty, how do you explain the fact that they are yours, in your possession?

When you are having something made that does not exist yet price range is very helpful, that's why I tried so hard to read your mind, I think you knew that and that's why you told me about your water bill and how you were used to the best.
Apparently you lied to me about something.

IMHO,

It really just sounds like Betina was in over her head & couldn't afford (Kirk's price seems far below what they are truly worth) the custom earrings Kirk had made. I think this is the first instance I've seen where a high water bill was used as an example of wealth.

I've ordered several pieces of custom made jewelry for my wife, and in every instance we discussed design, materials, timeline, and price range. With custom items, your not going to know the exact price until after the item is finished.

It doesn't seem like malice on Betina's side, just inexperience with ordering high-end custom items. That doesn't help the fact that Betina's inexperience has caused Kirk so much pain.

Yes, but Kirk had requested 3 bottles of booze in trade. Could she not afford that? If there was any concern on her part could she not have stated her limitations sooner? Did she attempt any payment?


Inquiring minds want to know.









It seems to me that recompense can still be made

Apparently she didn't have the booze at the time, because that would have been a great trade to make.

The cost of the item paired with her possible financial limitations versus a persona (well to do) she was trying to maintain could have backed her into a corner. She just made some poor choices in the way she dealt with this situation.

This is all speculation of course.

Come on guys, get it over with. I was sitting on my couch yesterday and I watched to friends laugh their asses off over this dispute. All of this to me sounds like someone should kiss and make up. Well forget the kiss.

Betina, be a good sport. Put 3 bottles in a nice box and sent them of to Kirks place. Shit like this is bad for business. You should know that.

So go ahead, grab three of your bottles of your best La Bleue, put them in a box with a small note attached and hand it over to your mailman. Small gesture to make and you'll create a lot off goodwill.

Oh and Kirk, if she sends those bottles, just accept them and just think "better late than never". ;)

Or simply give the earings back. After all this, I would consider them a one-of-a-kind bit of absinthiana from the modern revival.

Kirk sez-
"Uh, yes, that's the problem Betty, how do you explain the fact that they are yours, in your possession?"

Everyone knows possession is 9/10s of the price.

Actually, possession can be 3-5 years.

'Pends on what yer holdin'.

Kirk's holdin' his own.

Butty's holdin' his too.

I think she's 'ard of 'earing(s).

That was bad. really bad.

The thing about just giving them back is that they were commisioned to be exactly what ONE person wanted. When somebody commisions a piece of artwork, with special design requests, the artist creates a piece that is going to be harder to resell to "just anybody".
When I'm commisioned to create an illustration for a client, and that client doesn't want to pay for it, I can't just put it on ebay. It was made to fit one person's needs, and may not be saleable on the open market.

True, Kirk's jewelry is more resaleable than an advertising illustration, but he used much more perfect stones for this custom job than a normal jeweler would use for such earrings, and so they're more expensive than most people are going to be expecting for such earrings. He also had to make them with posts instead of the french wire, which had been his first choice, probably because that's what most people would have wanted. They might be hard to sell, now, on the open market, for anything like what it cost him to make them.

Artists have a no-return policy on custom work for a reason. If you decide not to pay for a custom job, simply returning the work to the artist doesn't fix the problem.

Man, lotso words up there above me.

Too many to bother w/.

Sorry.

Returns Sux.

Succinctness sings.

Hey, I'm trying to be open minded.

Why would anyone intentionally fuck over Kirk?

Who the fuck is Bowler?

Aye, perhaps more than "most people" expect, but not necessarily more than a "normal jeweler" would expect, even for a non-custom item.

I had no idea how little I knew about emeralds. For example, did you know many on the market are "lab-created?" Cheaters! I wish I had the time and space to kick back with Kirk and get some edumaction.

A LAGN's job ain't pretty, but someone gotta do it.

Or not.

Not.