My client is devastated. Her engagement ring is missing a stone. The custom design incorporated rubies from her grandmother’s ring and gold from her grandfather’s cufflinks. After decades of wear the claws were so worn, they could no longer do the job. It would be a costly repair, and a challenge to find a good colour match for the other two rubies.
Sadly, this is not an uncommon story. Jewellery, like any valuable possession, needs to be cared for. We buy a car and service it regularly, we invest in an expensive coat and dry clean it at the end of winter; jewellery needs maintenance to look its brilliant best.
Modern designs mean the need for cleaning and care is more important than ever; today’s designs are finer, lighter, with less metal, more diamonds, and a prevalence of white gold. Eighteen carat white gold is an alloy. Made from 75% yellow gold and mixed with metals that have a silvery-white colour, such as palladium, white gold is also plated with rhodium, which gives the ring its ultra-white colour. In time the plating will wear, the ring will dull, and develop a yellow tinge.
With a little upkeep and a small investment, your ring can look like it did in the window, the day you bought it. A good jeweller will re-plate the rhodium if required, check the claws, and clean and polish the ring.
My client fervently wished she had heeded her grandmother’s advice, “a stitch in time saves nine”, and had her ring cleaned and checked regularly. Happily, lady luck smiled on her – when one of her staff was sweeping the floor of the lingerie boutique she owned, she found the ruby. Re-set, claws repaired and cleaned, it is once again gleaming on her hand.
If you purchase a ring from Robert Cliff Master Jewellers, you receive free cleaning for life.
Robert Cliff Master Jewellers is a family business, spanning four decades and two generations and is located at shop 380a, Castle Towers, Castle Hill. Phone: 02 8850 5400
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