I have had a number of clients recently wanting to recycle vintage or sentimental stones from inherited jewellery, heirlooms or simply rings which they want to rejuvinate. It’s a great way to make a unique piece of jewellery even more personal to you or to wear gems which have been sitting around in a drawer somewhere, getting dusty because you simply don’t like the ring they are in.
There is something quite satisfying in getting my saw out and cutting into a ring and extracting the gem. Kind of a reversal of what I usually do, wanton destruction (I nearly wrote ‘wonton destruction’… that made me laugh..).
Often a gem will have lost its sparkle, its lustre but after a little careful cleaning and polishing it’s looking its best again. Match that with a good design, more suited to the wearer and you have a brand new ring.. same same but different, recycled, rejuvinated.
There’s often a good story with the old ring too. One client recently let me in on the fact that the diamonds in the old ring were rare ‘blue’ diamonds from the mines in her home land of South Africa, that were flawless. Exciting for a gem geek like me..
Another client wanted me to make a wedding ring for her that matched the colour of her fiance’s vintage wedding ring (from his grandfather). I happily did so (see previous post about experimenting..). I also needed to re-size her fiance’s ring and so the little piece of gold I took from his I put into hers.. aww.. what’s his is mine and all.
That’s one of the things I love about this job – there’s a lot of beauty in it…