10th November 2020 - Customer Location: Townsville

The original “make and melt” design is shown above. It used a .50 carat diamond as the main gem and was created in white gold. We made a few changes to the next version of the design.

For this version of the ring we used a slightly smaller .40 carat round brilliant cut diamond to meet our budget still using a colourless eye clean diamond. The diamond is GIA lab certified the highest “excellent” grade for cut, polish and symmetry.

This ring is also two tone gold with the setting made from 18ct palladium white gold and the band 18ct yellow gold.

The side view is almost identical to the original. You may however notice the omission of the mill-grain from the shoulder work.

This design has scaled well to accommodate a slightly smaller diamond and considerably lower budget. Often reducing the main diamond size by a small amount can reduce the price greatly without being too detrimental to the appeal of the ring.

With some designs smaller designs actually work better. This is certainly the case with a lot of antique designs from a time when engagement ring gems were usually far more modest than those of today.

Article: The age of the modest engagement ring. Part 1 of 2

We have started to head into that very busy period before Christmas. Last week I tried to get a break in Barron Gorge late each day and then head back to work into the night.

That meant I was often in the Gorge until after dark. This was the view as I headed out under the road with cars leaving and that full moon rising.

Apparently the next night it was a Blue Moon but it did not look too blue to me when I went out to watch it. Still beautiful but not blue to my eyes. Have a great week.