After my divorce, I put my wedding ring in my jewelry box and left it there. Every once in awhile, I'd run across it when looking for a pair of earrings or something to accessorize my outfit, but for the most part I forgot about it. After L. and I got engaged, I thought about my old wedding ring and thought of what a shame it was to just have it sitting in that box with absolutely no current purpose. I knew that the stones were very good quality, because C.'s uncle was a jeweler and had saved them for something special, which happened to be C.'s and my engagement. Even though I didn't clean the ring as often as I should have, the stones were always very sparkly and I always got compliments on the ring. It was perfect for me in that relationship, in that time, and in that place. But after the divorce, that was no longer true.
So, I decided to have the stones reset in another piece of jewelry. I commissioned our friend, A., to make a pendant with the stones, and he just finished it and dropped it off a little bit ago. I'm absolutely stunned. The piece is beautiful, and it is now something that I will wear and love again. In the end, C. may have been a big knucklehead, but at least he knew enough to put good stones in that ring. It's weird how some things that had a certain meaning a few years ago no longer mean the same thing, but it's good that I was able to do something with that gift and make it something that is applicable to my life now. I remarked that the pendant is too beautiful and nice to wear on a daily basis, but A. quickly disagreed and said that I should wear it often. Why keep it hidden away for only special occasions? And in a way, he's right. I mean, I'll still wear my regular ol' fun necklaces and such from time to time, but I can throw this new one into the mix.
And, I have to say that A.'s work is amazing. I've known him for years since he became friends with my cousin in college. He worked with L. to design my engagement ring, and I couldn't be happier with that either. I now have a real go-to person for my jewelry needs and wishes. There is something really neat about having a piece designed just for you. The elements of the design are found in other pieces, of course, but I was able to take ideas from different things and pull them together in one thing that I really wanted. That is very cool.
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5 comments:
So, why didn't you return the stones to your ex-husband? It sounds like they were a family heirloom? Or were they just good stones?
Nah, they weren't an heirloom. His uncle bought the center stone from a woman who had chipped it. So, he recut it and it went from about a 3/4 carat to about a 1/2 carat. He knew that it was really good quality, so he kept it around and waited for someone in the family to choose a setting with a round brilliant, and when I did he used that stone. The other stones are very small.
Because we were married, I was under no obligation to return the ring to him and he kept his ring. At the time, I thought about pawning it to get money out of it for something, but figured that I'd never really get what it was worth that way. So, I just let it sit until I figured out what to do with it.
So what kind of stones were these...I'm guessing not diamonds, cause how do you chip a diamond? Unless it's with another diamond...
What did you do with the ring part? Gold is trading pretty high now, maybe you should sell it? Then again you might need it in the future to buy food!
They were all diamonds. People get that wrong all the time. Diamonds can be chipped, but they are difficult to chip. In fact, certain cuts can make the stone more brittle. Princess cut diamonds can be chipped easier because of their severe angles on the edges. This particular stone I was talking about was a round cut radiant, and I have no idea how the lady chipped it. C.'s uncle is a jeweler and does a lot of replacement jewelry for insurance replacements, so he comes across things like this here and there. Instead of having the stone recut and keeping it, the lady decided to sell it to him and get something else. So, he recut it and kept it. The diamond used to be over 3/4 of a carat and and when he recut it the stone went to just under 1/2, so the value went down for her and no longer fit her setting. But the recut was very good, and it didn't matter to me because I didn't want a large diamond. I have looked at it under the loupe and it only has one small inclusion and the color is a G (with D being the best), so it is near colorless.
Oh, and for the gold, my friend who did the ring gave me a credit for it because he can use the gold in something else. It was yellow gold, and I wanted the pendant in white gold. So, he essentially paid me for it by giving me the credit.
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