It’s best when you want to propose to your girl for marriage; luckily, you’ve got a precious heirloom diamond.
While many people disagree, you can consider gifting it as an engagement ring even when the setting is outdated, worn out, and doesn’t suit the requirements of your fiancé. The idea would be to reset the family diamond into a new modern engagement ring according to her favorite choices.
People are moving towards custom diamond rings as they are more unique, have a higher sentimental value and carry on generation to generation. Heirloom jewelry has sentimental value, but it might appear differently. It’s best to have some customizations to modify it to its prime, and the article lists some best ways and tips to bring it back to life.
1. Choosing A Unique Style That Matches With The Preferences Of Your To-Be Spouse
The proper discovery of a style helps in heading in the right direction of designing. A few choices can be pronged, halo, and pronged. Make sure that any setting you select can be customized to accommodate the center stone.
Whether oval, emerald, cushion, Asscher, heart-shaped, radiant, or a subtle colored gemstone, you must adjust things accordingly to get the best setting for displaying the stone.
You can begin by searching for ideas. With a simple window shopping session at the local jewelry store, you get hands-on experience in helping you to narrow down the search for discovering your likes. You can think of it as jewelry you’ll put on your hand for your life. Thus make sure to have the perfect thing.
2. Assess The Quality And Condition Of The Diamond
Before finalizing the jewelery for modification, ensure that:
- You’ve got an original piece
- The diamond is more prominent than 0.50 carat
- It is free of any scratches or chips
- It is GIA graded
- Your family agrees on its modification
To ensure the best protection, you must get the diamond grading at a reliable gem lab. With this step, you know about the current quality, and they also pin out any condition issues like inclusions or chips that can be vulnerable in the setting process.
Old diamonds are not worth the investment: small stones might only be worth designing a new ring if they’ve got solid sentimental value.
When you’ve got a heavily worn family ring, the diamond might have chips or scratches that dull its sparkle. You can also remove any small chips and scratches after repolishing, which doesn’t lose weight.
However, larger chips result in smaller stones. When it has severe damage, it would be better to leave it in place instead of risk damaging it in the rigors of setting and unsetting again. And recutting wouldn’t be worth the investment if you get a smaller result.
3. Get A Timeless Personalized Ring Design
You can use these steps to form a family diamond:
- Check the diamond for damage and chips
- Get it removed and check its GIA grading
- Find the correct ring size for the new ring.
- Select the design for the new ring
- Select the metal for a contemporary setting
- Reuse old settings when possible
You can set the latest designs, like the halo engagement ring. You can make rings in order to draft the rings to fit the current diamond. A single drawback of designing a family diamond is that you need help selecting the diamond’s shape and size.
When the family diamond is round but wants a fancy shape such as a square or cushion, you can give it a beautiful look after getting a more petite diamond halo that provides excellent condition.
When the family diamond isn’t white like you want, you can set it in yellow gold or rose gold: even the minute details in warm metal, such as bezel or prongs, help trick the eye and provide the stone with a white appearance.
When the family diamond is an old cut diamond like a European or an old mine cut, you must be cautious about setting it with brilliant modern side stones unless they’re small. After comparing a vintage-cut older diamond to a modern-cut one, it would be simple to note the differences.
Matching older cut diamonds would be difficult. When you have a three-stone engagement ring with an older diamond in the center, you can also have pear cushions or shapes on the side rather than rounds. Don’t recut older style diamonds in good condition: the older cuts are fashionable, and you get higher value compared to the modern style smaller one.
4. Craftsmanship Must Be Of Utmost Importance
The care and skill in hand crafting are among the various things that make the heirloom engagements unique. Whatever style you’ve got for the new ring, make sure it’s long-lasting.
What does a well-crafted ring mean? Firstly, you should design it from scratch and later proportion it to fit the finger and diamond perfectly rather than chop it from the stock setting.
The small details also matter: the ring must appear good from all angles and have well-made finishes on the inside and back, like the front. You should securely set all stones. Finally, it would help if you sourced all gems that would complement the family diamond.
5. Old Setting Options
After removing the old setting from the diamond, you need to decide whether you should reuse the old location for anything else or trade it and apply the metal value to the new one. Sometimes, you can use old band metal to create a new one.
Generally, the worn-out setting would only meltdown like scrap. However, if the old set has an attractive design or sentimental value, you must set a color gemstone instead of the diamond you are removing.
When a family member gives you a ring, and you might enjoy having it back, this would be a grand gesture to reciprocate the ring gift. For this reason, you’ll get plenty of options, many being very affordable.
6. Make Your Heirloom
Are family diamonds not available? You can form your own when you do not have heirloom ring access. When you have a family ring with a lot of meaning to you, but the current ring owner is still putting it on, you can take inspiration from your custom engagement ring.
Most vintage rings are making comebacks from the classic engagement rings to the traditional, timeless class engagement ring with old-word inspiration that can instantly become an heirloom. You can design a style like a ring that inspires you or references a detail with meaning. The new creation will act as an heirloom for the upcoming generations.
Conclusion
The tradition is to wear wedding and engagement rings on the same finger, so you should discuss the fitting of two rings with the jeweler. The jewelry designer sketches the dream rings to give you an idea about the fitting.
There are many sources to help you visualize the best bridal jewelry. Regardless of its price, having a vintage stone ensures that the finger with the ring looks unique.
