Bad Jeweler, Bad!

I have one for you. This one isn’t one I worked for, but this
happend to me as a customer (they didn’t know I was studying
metalsmithing). My fing er was caught in a door and the diamond from
my engagement ring went flyi ng. Luckily I found it. I took it to the
Jeweler where we had purchased o ur matching bands, and said I needed
to have my ring repaired. My band ha d a satin finish (granted it was
worn), but when I picked it up, everythi ng but about 1/4" was
polished brightly. That 1/4" was right below the di amond (my
engagement band and wedding band had been soldered together at the
back). They just couldn’t understand why this bothered me and were
qu ite hostile about it. I explained that I just wanted the ring to
have the same finish all over. I prefered the satin finish, but if it
was going t o be polished brightly it could at least be that way all
around the whole ring. They sullenly took the ring back, and when I
picked it up it had a shoddy satin finish on it and the owner chewed
me out and said they spen t 3 hours putting the satin finish on it
and I should have asked for it i n the first place (after I said I
just wanted the same finish all the way around the band, not a satin
finish under the stone and polished the res t of the way). He said
they get in too many repairs to call if they have questions. I took
it to a different jeweler, who put it into a magnificat ion box where
we saw great globs of solder and 3 cracked prongs (half the prongs
were broken off of a 6 prong head when I initially took it in), t he
prongs being cracked over half the way through. They hadn’t even
check ed it before soldering the tips. I actually didn’t say I want a
new head. I just said I need to have it repaired. The second jeweler
as well as my self were not impressed with the 3 hour satin finish
job. Needless to say I had the second jeweler put a new head on it
and they also re-did the finish. When I picked it up then, it was
beautiful. It just amazes me tha t people are still in business when
they are too busey to make sure they do the job right.

JoLene Treace

JoLene, If I had a jeweler working for me that spent 3 hours putting
a satin finish on a ring, he or she would be fired… # hours?? That
should have been a dead giveaway that they were full of it… I am
glad you got things worked out… Now I know a butcher who calls
himself a jeweler, actually works as a jeweler but I think he carries
a clever in his pocket… This guy when working on platinum uses
white gold sizing stock to size with and of course he uses white gold
solder… He apparently doesn’t think there is anything wrong with
this… If i had a nickel for everytime I had to fix something this
guy got his hands on , I would be rich… I could tell you 1000 more
stories about this butcher but I will refrain… So if you see a guy
with a clever in his pocket, don’t let him do any jewelry work for
you… Marc Williams

These stories are amazing but very true. I had my nice amber chunk
which I wore everyday. I was referred to these "nice ole jewelers"
in downtown that had a buzzer on the door. After my experience I
wondered if that was really to prevent angry clients from returning.
I asked for a new loop that a designed to replace the wire so I
could wear it with any type of chain. I was very excited when I was
told it was ready. Walked in, they handed it to me and the first
thing I noticed was that the entire stone was cloudy and gummy.
This “nice ole guy” told me to put it in the sun and the gummy,
cloudy stuff would go away. Ya right. I took the stone and walked
out and was so shocked I really could not say anything. I finally
went to the family jeweler, which was similar to going to
confession, and asked for help. This lovely man took my amber and
returned it to me in perfect shape. I lost a little part of it
since it was also cracked but it was a small price to pay. It is
now almost 15 years and I was so pleased that my daughter and son in
law bought their wedding rings and a string of pearls from this same
wonderful man. He is a decent man and decent goes a long way. My
mother wanted to adopt him as another son. You can get ahead and
still be decent and fair to the public and it is true, entire
families will use the same person. I forgot, my best friend and her
husband have bought from the same wonderful man for about 15 years.
Kindness pays and if he is reading this, Thanks from all of us in
Louisiana and Arkansas