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Mangled antique jewellery repair

1 reply

ORLt · 26/01/2024 17:01

Antique ring, very very cheap, the stones the sort of they use for toilet, bathroom and kitchen tiling in rich countries. However, massively sentimental as great grandmother had it as a girl. Victorian, Scottish pebble ring. Shank broke. Took it to the jeweller, said, please just weld it back, no re-setting. Was specific about re-setting as when I showed it to other jewellers, they said 'oh, let us re-set it'. Jeweller said he would have to send it to Hatton Garden to a partner, but would phone and let us know repair options. Never phoned. I went to enquire and he produced a repaired ring - they re-set the stones. The ugliness of it, the fact that it was not even flush, gaps and out of kilter. First thing I said, shocked 'Who did it?' The answer came 'None of your business'. I asked whey he had not phoned, he started saying 'the ring is now in a better shape than before'. I asked if he knew that interfering with an antique thing immediately devalues it, de-authenticates it, he said 'Rubbish! You are talking nonsense!' I left the shop absolutely upset. Surely this is not normal? He was also saying - no other way to mend it but to re-set it, too old, they used tar to glue the stones in, etc. I know the ring can't be made back to the original, but surely this is not normal behaviour from a jeweller with a proper shop in a High Street?

OP posts:
Poppity3 · 26/01/2024 17:17

Wow that’s not right at all, so sorry to hear that was your experience. They should have called you with options before putting their hands on it.

Solutions: do you have a picture of the ring from before? Probably your best option is to take it to someone who specialises in repair, or get a likeness of the ring remade. It might be the stone is tricky to work with because it’s such an unknown quantity in terms of softness/porousness. But a decent jeweller should be able to tell you what the options are. Unless it’s chalk, surely nothing can be that un-settable!

Hatton Garden is good but not an automatic guarantee of quality. When I was a jeweller I had my preferred setter/polishers in the Garden and had found them through bitter experience- not every workshop is reliable or good quality.

Really hope you manage to get it resolved! And I hope they didn’t charge you for that shambles!

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