How to Recognize Craftsmanship in Fine Jewelry

Mark:  Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local Lead Generation.  We’re here with Sheetal Gupta of Maharani Jewels in Vancouver.  They’re award winning jeweller, custom jeweller in Vancouver.  How’re you doing today Sheetal?

Sheetal:  I’m doing really well, thanks so much Mark.

Mark:  So we’re going to touch on I guess quality; what’s, how do we recognize craftsmanship in fine jewelry?

Sheetal:  That’s a really good question Mark, I feel that we live in a time right now where jewelry is mass produced and when something is mass produced unfortunately quality does suffer and you don’t see the same level of craftsmanship that existed maybe 50 years ago where you had gold smiths and craftsman that made jewelry by hand but there are some things I want you to look out for when you are purchasing jewelry, in particular I’m going showcase rings today so I’m going to talk a little bit about what you can look out for when you are purchasing a ring or an engagement ring for example. 

So I’m going to take you over to a slideshow, please bear with me as I take you over there.  We’re going to start here with point number one; firstly when you purchase an engagement ring or any other piece of jewelry it should be stamped.  Here you see a gold band and on the inside it shows the 18K Stamp, if it’s platinum it’ll be stamped with platinum, if it’s 14 carat it will be stamped with 14 carat but it needs to be stamped. 

The second piece is, is that the gemstone in this situation you’ve got a diamond, it needs to be set with prongs that look strong and not thin, so the arrow here is pointing to a prong that’s, well there’s one of four prongs, that it’s pointing to which is round, it’s not just proportional but it’s solid, it’s covering up the diamond.  The purpose of the prong is to keep the diamond held between them so that it doesn’t get loose; so that will be point number two is that the prongs should be strong. 

The third thing is that overall the ring should not be lightweight; there should be a decent amount of weight to it.  A good indication of that is the overall width of the ring.  In this case we’re looking at the shank; the shank is basically the bottom of the ring and here where the arrow is pointed you can see that the area is quite narrow and what happens when the shank is very thin is that over time it can break, so this next slide will show a shank that is quite thick and that’s a good weight so when the ring is being worn for years and years, sometimes decades even with a bit of wear and tear that area is still going to remain strong and solid and so it will resist not just any sort of bending but breakage as well. 

The next part is, is that where the diamond setting actually meets the actual band; so here you see the arrow pointing to that mid-section there; that area needs to be thick, it needs to be strong and solid.  When that area is narrow, when that area is very thin as you can imagine with wear and tear that entire top structure can actually break off if it’s not solid enough; so what you need to look out for is where your diamond is set, the connection between the setting of the diamond and the actual band needs to be strong. 

Now I’m going to talk about specific settings; this particular setting is known as a channel setting, the mark of a good craftsmanship is when those rails or those channels are straight, they’re in a beautiful straight, continuous line, they’re not irregular.  That basically shows that the workmanship is clean and crisp.  And the next type of setting here is called a bead setting; the arrow points to those round circular beads also called mill grain beads.  When those beads are perfectly round, they’re crisp, they are clearly defined, again that’s a sign of good craftsmanship.  When the beads are irregular, they’re not all perfectly round, again that shows that the craftsmanship isn’t as nice and not as crisp.

So those definitely are the five indications, I think the only thing I would like to end with is the finishing.  The finishing is something that happens to a piece of jewelry at the very end, this is after the diamonds or the gemstones have been set into the piece of jewelry and you want to make sure that everything is even.  When you see irregularities in the ring, when you see bumps, when you see solder marks or you see any sort of nicks and scratches those are again signs that the ring hasn’t been finished well so you do want not to just focus on the little details but the overall polish, the overall finishing of that.

So those would be my top six things for you to look at when you are looking at quality craftsmanship in a ring.

Mark:  So if you want expert information about your next jewelry purchase the person to talk to is Sheetal Gupta in Vancouver, Maharani Jewels.  You can reach her at 604-727-0149.  You must call to book or go to her website maharanijewels.com, full of great stuff you’ll love.  Thanks Sheetal.

Sheetal:  Thanks a lot Mark.