Custom Update on a Family Heirloom Diamond Ring
Restoring an 80 year old family heirloom to new beauty for future generations.
Recently a client brought her mother into my Overland Park studio to discuss re-making a family heirloom inherited from her mother. The ring was originally her Great Aunt's. Her Great Uncle was involved with Las Vegas casinos in the 1930s. He received a 3.18 carat diamond on a debt and had it made into a ring for his wife. It was originally set in platinum using the side diamonds shown below.
My client's mother inherited the ring from her Aunt and switched from the original platinum mounting to a yellow gold ring. Now over 80 years later the diamond had chipped around the edges where it literally looked like a circular saw. It was also broken on the lower part of the diamond. We sent it to our Master Diamond Cutter to be analyzed for re-cutting. Part of the goal was to keep the diamond to the original old European cut and above 3.0 carat. With the amount of damage to the diamond we didn't know if this would be possible. After re-cutting, the diamond is still an old European cut and weighs 3.03 carat. It turned out beautiful!
Below is an image of the broken diamond and the re-cut 3.03 carat old European cut.
Before After
After the diamond was re-cut we started working on a design for a new platinum ring using all the diamonds from the original ring and bezel setting the 3.0 carat round in the center. We started with a drawing for the customer to approve. Then Marsha carved the wax model and hand sculpted the bezel for the 3.0 carat diamond. The ring is now being sent off to be cast in platinum and then we will finish cleaning up the casting, setting all the diamonds, and do the final finish.
This has been a fun project utilzing so many experts to produce the final product. In a future blog we will picture the finished ring.