Are you getting what you paid for?

May 6th 2015

With pieces of jewellery made using semi precious gems such as Amethyst, Garnet, Citrine etc the most valuable part of the piece is usually the gold content.

In order to get items to a price and maintain profits, much of the jewellery sold today is made in such a way that it uses as little gold as possible. The problem here is that it weakens the piece and reduces it life.

Many of the rings sold in the jewellery chains today are less than 1mm in thickness at the base. This Garnet ring is 1.3mm thick at the base ensuring that it is strong and resizable.

There is also no hollowing out of the shoulders on the inside that you see in almost all the jewellery sold by the chains today.

This article I wrote recently about a new engagement ring that was destroyed by this practise shows that the jewellery chains even do this to their more expensive pieces. What is more concerning is that when the store manager was challenged about the state of that ring he informed the customer that their jeweller had checked the ring and there was nothing wong with it.

Bottom line is that I could reduce the weight of this ring by nearly 50% and you would not know the difference...until it broke, bent out of shape or needed repair.

Remember to not only look at the top of a ring before you purchase it. Turn it on its side and check the thickness. Turn it over again and look at how much gold has been carved out and how thin the edges are. These factors determine how long the ring will last.