[Jewelry making - Article 00625] - Re: [Orchid] Good sapphires set in silver

[Helen Hill]

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>     Look at bridal jewellery - which is what we're talking about - and
>     I don't mean engagement and wedding rings. 

    Oh I see the confusion now. We'd have to ask the lady who originally
    posted the question, but if I recall, she was talking about the
    bride's necklace and the bridesmaids necklaces/pendants. 

    When I married my second husband in summer 2003, we had to fund
    everything ourselves. My husband had proposed the year before and
    bought me the diamond engagement ring and we both had plain gold
    wedding bands for our wedding rings. At the time it was more
    important to me to have the dream wedding dress as I'd not been able
    to do that the first time around, so I spent a fortune and bought a
    designer (Maggie Sotterro) wedding gown. My jewellery for the day I
    bought from a department store bridal department and it was a
    necklace and earring set which was as you say costume jewellery -
    plated base metal and faux pearls. Very pretty but also quite
    expensive. 

    However, if I was doing it all over again, I would much prefer a
    jewellery suite made of sterling silver with "nice" blue (perhaps
    lab) sapphires and CZ that I could wear again, than a cheaply made
    suite of costume jewellery with a "bridal" inflated price tag. 

    And that's what I'm talking about. But as to setting sapphires in
    silver, I have designed a necklace and earrings set for myself which
    I shall make soon and I've bought some gorgeous lab sapphires (lab
    corundum) which are my favourite blue colour and also some lab
    tanzanites (I think they're just CZ) which have just the right
    violet/ blue colour of good tanzanite and some very well cut
    colourless CZ's. I'm really looking forward to making and wearing it
    and it will be for nights out/parties, etc. When it's done it will be
    very pretty and if it was to be on sale in a jeweller's window on the
    highstreet, it would more than likely fetch hundreds of UKP and
    people do buy jewellery like that. At the moment in the UK, silver
    jewellery seems to be very popular - in fact people are even spending
    a lot of money on costume jewellery. Maybe it's different in the
    States, I don't know. 

>     But it goes back to how one defines a 'good' sapphire. Is it good
>     because its mined blue corundum or is it good because it has
>     saturated color with minimal zoning face up and overall looks
>     lively? 

    Again, we'd have to ask the original poster. 

Helen
UK
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