The Introduction:

A lady contacted us via our website.  She wanted a custom design, “something different”.  And could we use her old gold and diamonds?  Responding by email at first with some questions about what she wanted, and we followed with some ideas.

This led to her coming into the store.

What to do with the old items?

When we looked at all of her older items, some were worn down and a bit dated, but her main diamond was fine, and she had value in her old gold rings.  They were all useable.  When it comes to using old gold, we typically do not use it directly.  We prefer to start with new metal so that we can control the finish and color.  However, we give back the value of the old gold as though it is cash.

Can you use my gold and diamonds to make one ring?

Let’s discuss some ideas.

Full dislosure here; this client was very easy to work with and both her and her spouse loved almost any idea we put down.  Not that some clients are diffiuclt, just that indecision can delay the progress.

We came up with a few ideas out of our showcase and then mentioned a few custom items made recently.  One resonated with the client immediately.  From the concept to a quick sketch and things started to roll.  We came up with a more refined concept and gave an estimate for the work and the value of the client’s old rings.

Can I see the design?

Our next steps were to remove all the diamonds from the old rings, clean them and get measurements.  From there, we took our sketch to a working model in the computer which the client could see. This is known as a computer aided design rendering.  

The computer rendering with measurements of the design.

  The ring filled in with the metal color and diamonds.

We show our clients the filled in view from a few different angles.  At this stage the client can make many changes quite easily.  For this ring, we added a couple baguette diamonds and did not use all of the diamonds from the old rings as some of them were very low quality and poorly cut.  

A couple small changes and we had the final design ready to make into white gold.

Finished and ready to deliver.

When we have the ring in metal, our goldsmiths finish and polish the ring, then set the diamonds into the ring.  

And then…

The finished ring ready to wear.