This story starts with an engagement: the young man proposed to her lady with his grandmother's ring. The ring is a diamond solitaire, from the early 19's , made by the famous Jabel company. The ring shows the impact of time , but held up nicely during the nearly 100 years, undoubtedly due to extremely high quality and the die pressing fabrication process that Jabel developed. Nonetheless, the metal is thinned and weakened, as well as the diamond has a large number of chips and abrasions. It would not have been prudent to just make a simple band to fit this ring, because the old diamond solitaire was at a point , where it could easily snap , or the diamond may break without warning at any time.
In situations like this , we usually suggest a complete overhaul of the ring and the diamond: The thin parts - in this case the head and the bottom of the shank would need to be re-built or fortified and the prongs re-tipped. The diamond would have to be re-cut - if possible - or replaced. The customers did not want to alter the original ring, which can be easily understood given the sentimental value of the original ring. Re-cutting this size of diamond would have probably resulted in a very small stone.
Therefore I proposed a design, where the engagement ring would be built around with the wedding ring , similar to a ring guard, but of course more organically united. They also wanted me to create the grooms band in a manner that they would be different, but refer to each other at the same time. To make matters a bit more complicated the lady also bought an engagement ring for her fiance from me . This ring featured a raw diamond crystal.
We agreed that the common reference would be the use of raw diamond crystals in both wedding rings.
In the next parts I will show how these ideas were turned into a beautiful wedding suit.
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