[Jewelry making - Article 00701] - Re: [Orchid] Good sapphires set in silver

[Todd Goodwin]

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    I have no problem with the idea of setting sapphires in silver or
    copper. I've set diamonds in Silver too (and I'm going to set one in
    copper to be irreverent!) 

    As already mentioned, some people are opposed to Gold and Platinum.
    They just do not like these metals. For some of these people Silver
    is the choice and $3000 in diamond isn't a problem. After all, a
    $3000 diamond is never set in $3000 worth of gold. The perceived
    value of the metal isn't the issue. If it were, diamonds would never
    be set in steel and rubber, but we all know it happens. 

    Now I would like to address another issue brought up in this topic:
    Daniel R. Spirer wrote 

>     It (silver) tarnishes. When the background behind a stone (or
>     surrounding a stone) turns black, there is quite simply no way that
>     stone will ever look right and fulfill its goal to be a beautiful,
>     sparkling gemstone. If you have ever set a transparent cabochon in
>     a silver setting and seen it come back a few years later looking
>     not like the beautiful gem it once was, but like some dark, icky
>     thing because the entire background has discolored, you'd
>     understand this." 

    It's always been good practice to cut the backs out of settings for
    stones that are transparent or translucent to avoid these problems
    and to allow light to come from behind. Only opaque cabochons should
    have solid backs IMHO. And I've had requests of late to cut the
    backs out on opaque cab settings to allow skin contact as an aid to
    possible metaphysical functions. 

TL Goodwin
thepacifikimage.com
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