When choices make cents
4th March 2024 - Customer location: Biboohra, Queensland
The scrap jewellery to be recycled. Some gold, some not.
It would be nice to have endless money but if you are like me then then you have limited resources. This customer had a budget and some old broken jewellery from which she hoped to be able to make a new ring. Compared to the cost of creating a ring from all new materials we were in cents on the dollar mode.
Article: Recycling jewellery - Cost benefit analysis
I informed her that the budget would mean that some choices would make themselves as all other options would be too expensive. She still wanted to look at this.
What to use and what not to use
Sorting what to use and what not use.
Some of the jewellery was not gold. Other pieces were either not hallmarked or hallmarked but just did not look right. Rather than spend hours of cost in acid testing these small pieces of gold (a cost we could not afford in our budget) I sorted out the best and set aside the rest to be returned to the customer.
A secondary concern was also that the inclusion of even just a small amount of poor metal with the good could render it all unusable. This was a risk neither myself nor the customer was willing to take.
The design
The chosen design
The design needed to be one that I hade made before that was non exclusive. Not having to create the design from scratch and already knowing how to make it would save us some time and money.
Most of my non exclusive designs are ones that I have made at some stage for stock or fun, such as those I made during the COVID lockdown in the “Make and Melt” series.
The finished ring
A touch of colour in an old world design.
The final choices for this ring were what gems to use? This customer never takes her rings off so the hardest gem available is a perfect choice for the main gems in her ring. BTW never taking your jewellery off is something I do not recommend but if you read the article below and choose to still do so then you have made an informed decision and know what to expect.
Article: Rashes and repairs
Mined diamonds of any half decent quality were nowhere near our budget. Lab Grown diamonds were however. E colour and Vs1 clarity grade Lab Grown diamonds were used and she gets the strength of diamonds as that characteristic is almost identical between lab grown and mined diamonds.
She wanted to explore the addition of coloured lab grown diamonds but that was also outside our budget. The hot pink sapphires I had on hand were gems purchased many years ago before prices went crazy. She loved the look of them so that was the finishing touch of colour.
All the unused scrap and left over recycled metal were returned to the customer. She can sell that to a bullion dealer to offset some of the cost (if not all and more) of making the ring. Great result given what we had to work with and most importantly……she loves the ring!