[Jewelry making - Article 00465] - Re: [Orchid] to Glue, or not to Glue.....

[Andrew Cooperman]

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    Doug,  interesting question.  I met a jeweler several years ago who
    worked for  a very well known, quality company that produced a very
    clean, contemporary, sleekly modern line of fine jewelery.  Lots of
    hammerset mellee and colored pears and marquis, stuff like
    tourmalines, fine amethysts, corundums, iolites, etc.  At any rate, he
    was a setter and his dad was a setter  -- his work was beautiful-- and
    his beef w/ the company was that they routinely dulled or rounded the
    points on the trillions, marquis and pears before setting: standard
    practice. 

    Problem in his eyes was 10 years down the road when the client went
    to have their jewelry up dated, stones reset in something fresh, etc. 
    The points, which before were hidden under bezels or chevrons would
    then be found to be missing.  Interesting dillema in that the client
    would then find out that what they had assumed was a fine gem had been
    altered, even mutilated from the get-go. 

    This raises a point concerning disclosure and really what they
    assumed that the  piece was  they were purchasing.  Were they buying a
    fine, well cut gem set into a piece of jewelery;  or were they buying
    a completed piece in which the stone played only a supporting role? 

    When a collector purchases one of my brooches from a gallery, they
    are buying and responding to the piece, its content and concept and my
    personal aethetic rather than to the intrisic value of the materials
    themselves (I would hope).  But when I have a custom client for whom
    I designing an engagement ring, then they are purchasing something
    else, the value here resting much more on the worth of the diamond
    etc. 

    Sorry about tyhe rambling here, it's early in Seattle.  At any rate
    to alter a client's stone is unthuinkable.  To alter a stone that the
    client has selected and about which the piece is built is also wrong.
    However a piece built on spec.  may be a different matter.  Again, if
    the intent of the piece is that it is fine jewelery I would consider
    the object-- ring, pendant, etc.-- as almost a transient object which
    may sooner or later be disassembled and reworked.  An "art" piece is
    about something different however, and here stone altering-- such as
    darkening opals w/ a black background-- may be fine.  Perhaps the
    answer lies in disclosure.  I routinely use opals in my work, some
    solid, some boulder and some fine doublets.  I refer to each properlay
    on the list of materials, just as I would a synthetic stone.  To
    collectors the intrinsic worth of the material is, again, not the
    issue for them.  As long as they know...... Good question. Andy
    Cooperman 


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