Don't ever, EVER, buy an engagement ring from brilliant earth. They fucked up my order big time

Don't ever, EVER, buy an engagement ring from brilliant earth. They fucked up my order big time.

What happened?

don't buy engagement rings at all. the diamond trade is a scam and marriage is doomed to failure anyway.

also, congratulations op

Truth. You'd be wise to listen to this user.

Story?

Two wise anons, here.

Basically, I made a custom ring and they fucked it up and instead of fixing it they sent it to me and told me to propose with it and then we can send it back for them to fix.

Hurdur, this op.

Fuck diamonds in general, a boring, clear, overpriced, common as fuck gem is a horrible way to propose.

Jeweler here. All diamonds are overpriced and most places that don't sell out of store retail or bulk usually are run by a few dumb people in a garage trying to get into the diamond trade and feign professionalism. It's more prevelant than you'd think. Also, diamonds suck, personal opinion. Get a stone with actual value vs inflated value, and something with beauty to it. I prefer jaspers, labradorite, Malachite, ect. But with faceted gems, tanzanite, emerald, imperial topaz, or fucking anything with a "heat flash." fucking beautiful. Or if you want diamonds, just get a ton of super small ones for 2 bucks a stone. Then sell high because "it's real diamonds FUCK I'M CUMMING!" I got into it because I prefer jewelry without stones. Make an actual design. Stones=/= a good design.

what's the stone in your pic, as a matter of interest? its gorgeous.

personally, I love tavelling down to the north coast of england, hunting along a few particular beaches for Jet. taking a stone you found yourself, faceting it and polishing it to set in sterling silver is one of the most satisfying things I've ever done.

one of these days, I need to make some of that incredibly viking age jewellery in silver with jet.

No matter how much proof you show them about DeBeers and the diamond trade, women value diamonds. They fucking love them almost to the exclusion of anything else. The only women who even look at other stones are ones who already have a bunch of diamonds. It's like some genetic trait that men can't understand. Flowers and chocolate are nice, but only diamonds will unlock that last level - the most subdued woman will do porn-tier nasty shit after you give her diamonds.

Labradorite. I love it when it gets gold flecks in it.

Just making something by hand, especially out of stone and metal just has a tangability to it. The physicality of refining raw material into something semi permanant...I love it. With sterling, use a nice liver of sulfer bath and rub it in to get a dark grey sheen to the metal. Add on polished ebony wood and raw non faceted gems and you got some viking shit my friend. Obsidian is great to work with as well.

Not all women, I've told my bf to never buy me diamonds, hell, I prefer silver over gold as well, the thought of spending so much on a simple ring or necklace is just dumb to me.

Diamonds are still king unfortunately, but thankfully over the last 5 or so years, colored stones have been making a huge dent in the diamond engagement ring scene. millenial girls seem to prefer tons of color. diamonds are too boring for them.

>Conflict free diamonds

You pussy. The conflict is what makes it special. The two of you are bound in the blood spilled over the diamonds. It's symbolic.

> Add on polished ebony wood

nope. they didnt have access to it. Niello, on the other hand... that they loved.

I'm a historian as well as a craftsman. I love trying to make exact reproductions of historical smithing, workmanship, ideally with the tools they had.

have a gold and smokey quartz right with blue enamel and niello from italy in the 16th C.

>thread about gems
Hell yeah

I used to be obssessed with rocks and minerals as a kid. Forgot most of what I knew though. Spinel was one of my favourites

I see this all the time. More girls want rings that are less expensive now because it's money that could be used for a trip or just a bunch of nice dinners. Its too much of a waste. But as a jeweler I hate it when someone gets a silver ring and then sets it with a super expensive stone. It's like, don't use a cheap metal with a stone that nice. there are plenty of real stones that are less precious and look just as good. Use a peridot or something. Even an opal. spend a few hundred as apposed to a few thousand. but small diamonds are like 2 bucks. you can encrust a ring in them for a hundred dollars easy.

I wish I could find diamond cut as a natural rhomboid, instead of modern brilliant cuts, to reproduce a ring like this

Pawnbroker here, this guy speaks truth. Diamonds are inherantly worthless, they're super common and their added value is thanks to debeers marketing the shit out of em ages ago.

Get a cool stone with some actual rarity or uniqueness instead, like opal or alexandrite or tourmaline.

haha, I do jewelry and I know about making it, but don't know shit about viking history, you got me lol. But most people don't care as long as the feel is emulated. They see a dark polished wood and are happy enough with it.

As far as historic reproductions go, I'm a huge fan of anything pre modern faceted. Love when gems were just polished cabochons. Love enamel as well, but it's so finicky. Can get uneven easily and slight contamination just sends it to shit.

Funny that you chose that pic. Amethysts are actually my favorite gem, and I don't see it as money that could be used for trips and stuff, I just think it's dumb to spend thousands of dollars on a stupid ring.

enamel is amazing - limoges enamels, or pictish stuff is insane. here's limoges enamel from about 1300 - no temperature meter on kilns, carved copper plates fired with enamels, ground back , then polished and gilded. insane stuff.

as a history type, I'm a stickler for the details, so doing that is fantastic.

and yes, love cabochons. I've handled a viking age sword where the belt strap had a 3-way splitter, which had a ring, with support spokes, and in the centre, an 8mm crystal cabochon. absolutely beautiful.

Saxon gold and garnet work is even more incredible. I'll post a photo of that in a moment.

You're one of the few wise ones then. I mean, I love jewelry, i work in it because I want to...but the first hand knowledge of how stupid people are being buying overpriced stuff gets to me. I prefer to main dainty rings. Usually silver with small semi precious stones. Ends up being like 10 bucks work of silver, 20 bucks worth of stone, and make a decent profit while not fucking over the customer and still looking flashy as fuck. Still, I prefer just using plain metal.

...

saxon goldwork, with garnet. this was the handle for a seax - a war knife, sort of like a small machete in size.

the collars and end of the hilt made of gold, with hundreds of tiny 1-2mm square garnet stones, each one hand-cut on a water or hand powered stone, to perfectly fit together to make these twistinginter-twining serpents. Every cell in the gold was made with a layer of foil witha sort of waffle pattern, less than 1/4 of a millimetre wide, to make tiny facets to reflect the light back up through the garnet.

this was made 1,200 years ago, in Saxon England. yet the garnets came from India or Sri lanka.

Its mind-blowing the detail of work they made then, to create this sort of stuff.

someday, I want to do one like this, only silver with jet.

Takes some real skill to grind back and polish enamel, even with todays tools. Enamel is hard as hell afterall. Bet you love old school enameled armor. I always thought it cool that it had an actual practical application in it's hardness.


Plique a jour enameling man.... that stuff is just insane. Made a few things with it, results can be breathtaking.

industry anons what do yall think about moissinite? you think the average person could tell the difference? i think the "colored sparkle" or flame(?) gives it away as "not a diamond" but i agree with yall diamonds are over rated, lots of other bad ass stones tho

Man, that is truly something. I thought for a second you said you made it haha. that would be a hell of a lapidary project. I don't know, ancient cultures have made some increadible stuff. I'm constantly amazed at their skill levels, and really think they often surpass us and we give them too little credit.

All this talk about 'rare' stones and no one realises you can make most of these stones in a lab...
Hell, people make large quantities of defect free monocrystalline sapphires for windows of certain lab devices... and it's dirt cheap.
Diamonds are frequently used to coat hardened tools.
Even opals, which need special conditions to form naturally, can be easily produced in commercially available devices...
Don't want pristine, defect free crystals to give it a natural look? No problem, you can add your own physical defects on the nucleation seed and contaminants in the feed stock and make more natural appearing 'precious' stone'

If you want something of real value, pick a rare metal... At least transmutation requires a nuclear reaction of some sort, so rare metals are actually rare and difficult to artificially produce...

From what I understand, most market moisinite isn't real. Super rare and most markets only sell lab created, not natural. The few real ones I've seen tend to look brighter, wheras diamonds look a bit more like dirty ice to me. Does that make sense? But to answer your quesition, no, I don't think most people could tell. I barely can myself.

To an extent I agree. Stones can and have been made in labs for years. You can get fake diamonds that are chemically the same but pure, and 5 times harder. But it's like art. People want a real picasso as opposed to a reproduction, because they can then say "it's a real picasso." In a way it has nothing to do with the item, just if it's "real."

>Super rare and most markets only sell lab created, not natural.
oh shit didnt know that, interesting.
>The few real ones I've seen tend to look brighter, wheras diamonds look a bit more like dirty ice to me. Does that make sense?
ya makes sense, ive seen a few in person on other peoples jewelry but i dont know if it was naturally formed or not

Only a little has been found naturally. Comes from meteors and way underground. Check out it's wiki page, super interesting. Tanzanite, blue amber, and conch pearls are also have some pretty cool history and stories to them if you're interesting. Check em out. Tanzanite was only known to one mine in africa that was sealed off by the government. Can't get it mined anymore, the supply is the supply.

Your fiance/mistress (or whoever is receiving the stone) doesn't have to know it isn't real ;)