|
Those look absolutely great. A fantastic use of the colored gems with yellow gold. I like the wider cocktail ring style. What is the stone on the left?
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 03:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 19:57 |
|
|
errol _flynn posted:Claes! Johnny! Very nice! My guy won't wear rings like this - wish he would - you could even do as a his and hers!
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 04:23
|
|
|
Johnnybaby, it's a sapphire ( lab sapphire, I live in an unfair universe and thus I have only so much money) with a window that closes right up when I put the ring on. I loving love it. Thank you for the compliment! I am so glad you like them as well. The green is so rich and it just sparkles like mad! *chick bling boner* Thank you again for the stones I got from you-- the amethyst, the tourmaline and the prasiolite. I had the checkerboard amethyst set into a ring for my mother in law last summer, and I have the prasiolite to *hopefully* have set in something really simple for my stepdaughter for Christmas. I flipping LOVE the rich green in my ring and it's supercomfy to wear. I don't do things like this for myself as often as I'd like, mainly I make things for others really, so it's wicked nice to have some sturdy, simple things just for myself. Plus, yay, I had the jeweler set my old diamond engagement stone from my first marriage made into a pendant for me. I love that as well. My husband Joe just shakes his head and says, "Chicks and shiny rocks...."
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 04:24
|
|
|
sternstuff posted:Very nice! My guy won't wear rings like this - wish he would - you could even do as a his and hers! Hiya Sternstuff!--- yeah, they came out much more manly than I expected but they look effin' cool on my hands. I love the BAM POW punches of color in the simple gold shapes. I'm not against that manliness either, they could indeed go on either a man or a woman's fingers. I've always had girly rings in the past, these are new for me. They're wicked heavy gold with comfy, thick bands-- I love them and their jaunty unisex look.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 04:38
|
|
|
errol _flynn posted:Claes! Johnny! I like rings, but don't usually go for jewels. I'd wear those rings any day though. Beautiful.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 06:35
|
|
|
God, these are gorgeous! I love the simple settings. I have something similar planned in amethyst and rose gold, but it'll have to wait til I get a bit saved up. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 10:21
|
|
|
Thanks, I love them and am pleased as punch with the whole experience! I really enjoy wearing them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 00:34
|
|
|
Question for you guys cross posting from the engagement thread: Figured this is the best place to post this: My wife's diamond came out of her engagement ring and it's missing. We filed an insurance claim, but since we've been married 7 years, we've been looking at upgrading. Right now it looks like our insurance has a wholesaler they go through to replace the ring (We gave them an appraisal that lists the 4 C's) and they'll basically just send us the replacement stone and then $100 to get it reset in the current band. 1) It's a white gold band, but we're thinking about upgrading to platinum due to its strength (she works with her hands a lot and was constantly bending the prongs on the ring). Any idea ballpark how much it costs for a platinum band over white gold? It's a solitaire setting with a round cut. I'm guessing we could go to a jeweler and turn in the white gold band and trade that towards the platinum? 2) If they send us cash, she's very against going the whole blood diamond route again and is open to moissanite. Any reputable places to do this? I wouldn't think a standard jeweler would stock much moissanite. Also, I found out that they will give the wholesale cost of the stone, which is appraised at $950, plus 100 for setting it. It's .43 carat stone, and they said it would normally retail for about 1500.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2014 17:52
|
|
|
So my girlfriend knows exactly the kind of ring she wants and adiamor.com has it, and it seems legit. Does anyone know much about them?
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 05:06
|
|
|
nwin posted:1) It's a white gold band, but we're thinking about upgrading to platinum due to its strength (she works with her hands a lot and was constantly bending the prongs on the ring). Any idea ballpark how much it costs for a platinum band over white gold? It's a solitaire setting with a round cut. I'm guessing we could go to a jeweler and turn in the white gold band and trade that towards the platinum? Somewhere between $750 to $1,500 for a plain solitaire. Much depends on the style you choose. Any jeweler can order in moissanite. It's only available from a few sources so they'll know who to call.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 00:18
|
|
|
Please forgive me if this was asked and answered, but with the first chick I almost married, Tension Mount rings were all the rage. I loved the look, particularly the more twisted designs. When I did get an engagement ring from my lady-friend it was actually only made to looks as if it was a tension mounted ring. In actuality there are two long gold prongs that follow the length of the cushion cut topaz that is the centre stone in the ring. There are no prongs to the front or rear and the stone comes to a point on the bottom slightly above the rest of the ring. I liked it in the beginning, but because there was only a small space between the stone and the base of the ring it was "floating" over it would get dirty fast, loose it's sparkle and be a pain to clean. We didn't work out so I don't wear the ring, and that was about 8 years ago. Now I have a fine gentleman who wants to get me a ring so we went ring shopping to see what stiles were and such and though I know fashion ebbs and flows I was surprised I didn't see a single tension mount ring anywhere and none of the jeweller droids (we only visited some large ugly mall big name stores) no one had any idea why they didn't make them any more. A few questions : Why did they stop making them? Anyone have an educated guess why the ring I had wasn't a full tension mount and had just the look of one instead? Was the topaz perhaps too soft? Say if we did find a tension mount ring or perhaps had one made for us can one only use certain metals in the rings and certain stones? Right now we are looking at Mossinite and either a shiny silvery, silver mokume, or very dark mokume band. Any and all observations greatly adored!
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2014 14:34
|
|
|
I am by no means an expert but I did once try to get a tension set ring. I think they look great but I have a few guesses why it wouldn't be sold anymore. 1. Gem material absolutely matters. The gem is held in place by a ton of pressure and if it's too soft it'll just crack, if you can even get it into the setting. Honestly I've only seen true tension sets with diamonds. 2. You cannot tension set with gold/silver/plat, they're too soft to hold the pressure needed to keep the gem in place. Might also be why your ring might be a faux tension set. I've really only heard of steel/titanium being used but there might be other metals where it'd work. I can see people being upset with a "cheap" metal ring instead of a "valuable" gold ring for their diamond. Xun fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Oct 3, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2014 17:08
|
|
|
I'm sorry if this has been posted before; this thread is long! What is the benefit of a natural sapphire over a lab-created one? Also, is the sapphire "guide" in the OP (i.e. buy one that you like the color of!) accurate? Or is there a better way to pick a stone?
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2014 18:43
|
|
|
soap. posted:I'm sorry if this has been posted before; this thread is long! I don't think there is much of a difference between a natural and lab created gem? There's a bit of a stigma around lab grown gems but I feel like most of it is propaganda. Picking out a stone depends on what you're looking for, definitely go for a color you like! You could also get picky about the cut, make sure there isn't a window and that all the facets are lined up right.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2014 19:32
|
|
|
^^^Exactly. Get what you love!Lypiphera posted:Please forgive me if this was asked and answered, but with the first chick I almost married, Tension Mount rings were all the rage. I loved the look, particularly the more twisted designs. Stone hardness is part of it, but also how well they "cleave" which is more related in how the gem material grows. I'll answer more below! Xun posted:I am by no means an expert but I did once try to get a tension set ring. I think they look great but I have a few guesses why it wouldn't be sold anymore. 1. Ding! Gemstones sure hate pressure, especially weaker ones. Like any other fad, people capitalized on it with rings and gems that should probably never be used in tension settings ever. This leads to cracking, or more commonly the stone just falling out (although that has to do more with the ring than the stone). Which leads us to... 2.You're half correct! You can indeed make tension set rings with gold, and platinum (silver is too soft as far as I'm aware). The key issue here is how it's made. Most rings (and by most I mean almost all) are made using cast metal. Make a wax model, put that in plaster, melt out wax, fill hole with metal, ta-da ring! The issue with cast metal is it's much less dense than it's counterpart, forged metal. Forged metal is what happens when you take a piece of metal and bash it with a hammer to compress the metal structure as tight and compact as you can, giving it strength and spring. You've probably seen blacksmiths do it with red hot iron, but with precious metals it is primarily done cold. So if you take a small bar of gold, hit it enough in a certain way to form the relative shape you want and then clean-up and polish it, it will be able to hold the required tension to keep a diamond in place and not have it fall out. The band for true tension set rings is thicker than usual to add strength, and in general you have to use special alloys of gold to again increase strength. This is a pretty basic example but hopefully it gets the idea across. I know a manager at the People's diamond store in Toronto, and he says they still get an astronomical number of people coming back with missing stones from the tension set years, which is probably why they don't offer them any more. The more you know! Tension set rings were first introduced by a company called Niessing, from Germany. They're the bees knees as far as artsy-ish rings go using pretty nuts metal techniques (seriously, google them and check out the rings that fade between types of metal), and because of that are my favorite ring company! soap. posted:I'm sorry if this has been posted before; this thread is long! The joy of having a natural stone I guess? A lab created sapphire is chemically the exact same as it's natural counterpart, although it's often quite clean on the inside. Natural stones can have cool inclusions or little things inside them that make them more unique. I've found it's a personal preference thing, some people like the man made colours, while other may prefer that it's a natural stone with all it's natural imperfections. The more expensive the natural stone, the less inclusions there will be and it will be more vivid or desirable in colour.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2014 19:39
|
|
|
Xun posted:I don't think there is much of a difference between a natural and lab created gem? There's a bit of a stigma around lab grown gems but I feel like most of it is propaganda. Picking out a stone depends on what you're looking for, definitely go for a color you like! You could also get picky about the cut, make sure there isn't a window and that all the facets are lined up right. Good to know! Thanks. So is the lab-created sapphire the only reason this ring is so cheap? Aside from the sterling silver band, that is. Or is there something wrong with it?
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2014 20:20
|
|
|
soap. posted:Good to know! Thanks. I'm not sure where they are getting their lab created sapphires, but the ones I can source are certainly not that cheap for that size. Who knows maybe they get a massive bulk discount? Also the setting in those pictures is very poorly done  . To be honest even trained gemologists I doubt could say for certain if anything is wrong with it unless the stone is in front of them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2014 05:51
|
|
|
They were probably grown using the verneuil method instead of flux method. The verneuil method is really fast and inexpensive, but growing so fast (10mm per hour of growth!) creates really telling stress lines as inclusions. However, by "really telling" I mean that it would be obvious to me, a trained gemmologist, with a loupe or microscope that your stone was verneuil method. The flux method, mimics more closely the high pressure high heat way that stones are created, and takes between 2-8 months to grow a stone. To the untrained naked eye both would probably look great. Lab grown stones tend to be less included than natural stones. None of this will affect the durability of your stone though, only the resale value if, god forbid, you ever decide to get rid of it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2014 12:23
|
|
|
Claes Oldenburger posted:I'm not sure where they are getting their lab created sapphires, but the ones I can source are certainly not that cheap for that size. Who knows maybe they get a massive bulk discount? Also the setting in those pictures is very poorly done Sapphire is dirt cheap in bulk. Just look at the giant boules made for apple. Maybe that process (Czochralski?) can't be used for gem grade stuff. But it works for semiconductor grade sapphire 
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2014 16:12
|
|
|
Zratha posted:They were probably grown using the verneuil method instead of flux method. I guess Chatham synthetics are the flux method?
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2014 17:57
|
|
|
Claes Oldenburger posted:I guess Chatham synthetics are the flux method? Yup! Chatham method/flux method are the same thing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2014 22:24
|
|
|
Zratha posted:Yup! Chatham method/flux method are the same thing. Cool! 
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2014 03:45
|
|
|
Claes Oldenburger posted:Tension set rings were first introduced by a company called Niessing, from Germany. They're the bees knees as far as artsy-ish rings go using pretty nuts metal techniques (seriously, google them and check out the rings that fade between types of metal), and because of that are my favorite ring company! This doesn't seem to be quite the thing you're talking about, but drat they make dope rings! 
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2014 07:32
|
|
|
soap. posted:Good to know! Thanks. I highly doubt that that's a synthetic sapphire. It's a common trick these days to sell a CZ as a synthetic gemstone (or lab made diamond). The proper term would be "imitation gemstone" as it has none of the right optical properties.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2014 18:45
|
|
|
Missouri Fever posted:This doesn't seem to be quite the thing you're talking about, but drat they make dope rings! They sure do! I was talking about these:  I've heard the patents for whatever technique they use to do this run out in the next few years, so I can get my grubby hands on their secrets! I don't know if I would actually want to wear one, but drat they're a metalsmithing feat. Also if you're Niessing you get bored with normal tension sets so you do things like this:  Pretty sure that one has to be in stainless steel because any slight change would pop that stone out.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2014 19:34
|
|
|
Or titanium. My ring went like that after copping a fairly sizeable whack that must've gotten the whole ring to go sproing! for a microsecond and the stone slipped. I sent it back to get it put right though, didn't like the wonky look 
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2014 21:49
|
|
|
A question for you jewelry consumers out there (and veterans like JohnnyRnR): Do you pay attention to AGTA treatments and codes? One of the places we sell jewelry is on Amazon, and due to our volume they're sticking some new rules on us. One of these rules is disclosing the treatment regime for every gem-set product (this is in a larger movement to get Amazon listing standards in line with FTC publication standards). Some of my vendors are very, very good about this stuff, and some are... less good. For the latter, I'm erroring on the side of assuming a treatment has been done. What that means is that most gems have a 'default' treatment, and that default treatment is going to appear on our product descriptions like so:Our Amazon product page posted:14K White Gold Diamond And Sapphire Earrings Now my gut says this is going to be scary as hell to the average person (especially R: Irradiated omg radiation), but what do you guys think? Does this fill you with more confidence, or does it make you feel "euh what a cheap treated gem!" and want to move on? (side note: The vast vast majority of all sapphires are actually heat-treated) Side question for JonnyRnR: In the rare case where I don't have a hard AGTA/Code and/or Report I'm assuming a gem has been treated with it's E treatment, as well as any treatment marked Usually,Commonly, or Always as indicated by the AGTA Gem enhancement manual. Assuming too much you think?
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 01:13
|
|
|
The FTC rules require full disclosure of all treatments that affect the value of a gemstone. So, all treatments. The AGTA codes are the simplest way to communicate the different treatments, but they're designed for B2B transactions; not consumer marketing. They do come across as much scarier than need be. For retail sales I prefer to explain the treatment in plain English. Unfortunately, you can't assume anything good. If you don't know where a gem has been (cradle to grave) then it needs advanced testing in a lab to be definitively represented. Commonly treated materials generally don't need disclosure within the trade as all players should be aware of the process. Mostly these are materials that are low priced enough to make advanced testing unrealistic. But you're still required to inform any public customer - So it's best to say "This material is commonly irradiated/oil/etc."
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 02:38
|
|
|
What's the best way to wear a white gold ring as a necklace so it doesn't get scratched? It has engraving and milgrain I'd refer to avoid obliterating. It's set with a sapphire, but I think that part would be a bit more durable.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 22:06
|
|
|
I'm a 3D artist in the games industry and was curious about jewelry design/freelance. Anybody know of any companies or people that would hire a freelancer to design stuff in 3D, and get printed in wax/metal/plastic/etc at shapeways or something? Here's some of my work for reference: http://www.curtbinder.com/ I figure jewelry shouldn't be too difficult of a transfer of skills, just more precise/clean I assume. I've always had an interest in jewelry, mostly due to the lack of cool male jewelry. Plus could always use some small freelance gigs to work on outside of my full time gig
ceebee fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Oct 7, 2014 |
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2014 05:01
|
|
|
I know of a place where I can grab a beautiful diamond. It's irradiated and the deepest shade of green you've ever seen but still has a fantastic brilliance. I'm already married, so what should I do with this guy?
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2014 09:10
|
|
|
I'd wear the heck out of any gemstone regardless of its popular significance! Post pics if you get it
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2014 11:04
|
|
|
What the heck is "homaica"? I've got a wholesale supplier who has been pretty good in the past, and now he's throwing these homaica jesus pieces at me. Is it like lucite, e.g. another word for plastic?
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2014 01:23
|
|
|
Yeah, probably plastic. But I've never seen it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2014 15:47
|
|
|
I tried to find out what it's made of but couldn't, seems they use it in other products that would be made with plastic so that's probably it. EDIT: To your earlier question, I tell people about gem treatments always and have yet to have anyone worried about irradiation. Mostly the response is "cooool!" 
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2014 18:26
|
|
|
Can anyone suggest any good locations to buy pearls from? My wife's expressed an interest in a necklace, but the city doesn't seem to have much for selection or salespeople willing to discuss options. Looking online, I see some people recommending purepearls and some other online stores, but I'm not sure how well I trust them without having seen some of the items they sell in person. Given the prices and quality of what I see most chain jewelery stores selling for stones (e.g. opal) when compared to local goldsmiths, and the discounts claimed, I'm expecting a lot of their product to not be as good as they claim. if anyone has used any specific site that they can vouch for, I'd be glad to hear it. Specifically, she's fine with off-white/cream, and wants a single saltwater strand (not treated freshwater). Beyond that, things like golden / cortez / other variations seem fairly up in the air, unless there was some specific reason to get them. Birudojin fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Oct 9, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2014 07:42
|
|
|
A girl I went to gemmology school with has a store specializing in pearls. http://www.lauraaline.com/index.php I'm not sure if they do online sales, but they can serve as inspiration, perhaps.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2014 12:47
|
|
|
Birudojin posted:Can anyone suggest any good locations to buy pearls from? What length is she thinking?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2014 18:19
|
|
|
I'm not positive - "normal"? She's 6' and doesn't want a choker or something super long; most strands I've seen have been ~18", but I would probably need to measure some other chains of her to make sure that she doesn't wear longer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2014 18:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 19:57 |
|
|
Just wanted to make sure; some people get crazy 30"-40" (we even had 60" at one time) and get all doctor who scarf with them. At that height 18" is probably the minimum you'd want. Do you know the desired pearl size? e.g. 6mm, 7mm, 9mm I've got some inventory that might interest you, but we're an online only operation so I'm not sure how comfy you are with that. I can't PM you so if you want to know more I guess maybe put an obfuscated email address in a reply.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2014 20:08
|
|