Jewelry Restoration

The band is thinner on one side, because of the way she held things. The engraving has gone soft under sixty years of her hand. One small diamond is missing, and nobody remembers when.

None of that is damage in the ordinary sense. It is the record of a life. Restoration is the work of making a piece safe to wear again without erasing the person who wore it.

Polishing is the easiest thing to do to an old ring, and the hardest to undo. It removes metal, and with the metal go the fine things: hand engraving, the tiny beaded edges, the soft darkness in the recesses that gives an old piece its depth.

So we begin with a conversation about what to keep. Some guests want a mirror finish. Some want the ring to look exactly as it does in a photograph from 1962. Both are right. It is yours, and you should recognize it when it comes home.

A foundation worn thin can be rebuilt. A crown can be retipped or rebuilt, so a gem is held by metal again and not by habit. Clasps, hinges and links can be made sound. A missing diamond can be replaced with one chosen to sit quietly beside its neighbors, and we can match antique diamonds and gems, so what is replaced looks as if it was always there. Detail that has worn away can sometimes be recut by hand.

The work is done by our own goldsmiths, on our own benches.

Some things cannot be brought back. A chipped diamond cannot be mended; sometimes it can be recut a little smaller, and sometimes it is better replaced. Some antique settings are too fragile to work on without remaking them. When that is the case, we say so before any work starts, and we tell you what we would do if it were ours.

If you do not know what a piece is, or what it is worth, find out before anything is changed. An appraisal is the place to start.

And if the piece will never be worn the way it is, there is another road. Her diamond can live in a ring that is yours. That is custom design, and it begins with the same conversation.