[Jewelry making - Article 00033] - Re: [Orchid] Setting customer stones

[Rodney Carroll]

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    I guess that everyone has these issues. We get lots of remounts from
    customers. Lots of times it is three of four rings with a couple of
    carats worth of diamonds. Unless the diamond looks like cracked glass
    we just set them like any other stone. If it looks really bad we tell
    the customer that this stone could cleve or chip in setting it. I
    have only been at this for three years and the largest diamond that I
    have broken was about a 5 pointer. I have set up to a 5ct diamond. It
    was sweet stone with a nice faceted girdle. I never gave it a second
    thought while I was setting it. 

    Now what does scare me is colored stones. At another store I worked
    at we had a customer that always brought in her own stones. Her
    husband bought her a 17ct Tanzanite. Did I mention these people are
    loaded? When I built the plat bezel for this stone, I kept the stone
    covered in wax on a polishing cloth. In the end I made the store
    owner set the stone. It was not too bad because it was laser set from
    the back. All I could see in my mind was reflect laser light would
    hit the stone somehow. 

    On another note. We are waiting for the other shoe to drop on
    another diamond deal at the shop. The owner of the shop spent weeks
    looking for a 3ct D VVS1 excellent cut with slight to no
    phosphorescence. We found a sweet one and the cost to customer was
    $97k. Now the customer instructs my boss to fax the info to another
    jeweler to make sure he was getting a good price. We faxed it and we
    were informed within 10 mins the deal was dead. The other jeweler
    says he can get him a better price. Now we are waiting for the
    customer to walk in with this other dealers stone and want us to
    design a ring and set his diamond. 

    Now for the WWYD (what would you do?). Now if you called dealers all
    over the country over the course of 4 weeks and found your customer
    his ideal diamond, would you fax all the information to another
    jeweler? We where told by our customer if we did not fax the info to
    the other jeweler, the deal was over. I told my boss if we did this
    the deal was over anyway. My stand was that we not fax the info to
    the other jeweler and if our customer had that little respect for us
    we did not need his business. My thought was we would still walk away
    with our dignity. But I guess that dignity does not pay the bills.

Rodney
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