EIGHT YEARS later we had a kid working for us who did the cleaning. One day he decided to sweep out under the safe (which was in the back room). At the very back of the safe, he saw something sparkle and fished it out. There it was!
Wow, she must have been so excited when you told her you found it. I
bet she never thought she would see it again!
Lee Cornelius
Vegas Jewelers
A jeweler my Mom used to go to likes to tell this story. My Mom lost
her diamond and went to him for a replacement. He brings out his
1-carat diamonds for her to choose from. She said her diamond was
much nicer than any of those but chose one from the selection. A
year or so goes by and as my Mom got out of her car in her driveway,
she sees a sparkle in the blacktop - it was her lost diamond -
undamaged! She takes it sheepishly to her jeweler to have it
remounted, and hereâs the part the jeweler tells with glee, it was
actually a bit smaller and not as brilliant as the replacement. Iâm
sure quite a few of you have had customers like that.
Marta
Hi all,
Many years ago I had a customer who had stunning a 5 carat diamond
in her engagement ring The claws were worn and I warned her that the
ring was in need of retipping. No problem, she said, she would bring
the ring in after her vacation.I warned her that wearing a ring at
the beach was dangerous at the best of times and more so with her
badly worn ring.
Needless to say, the rock parted company with the ring on the beach
and high drama ensued. Needle in the haystack? Thatâs easy. Diamond
in the beach?
Thatâs a whole new ballgame.
After an afternoon of searching a rather dejected diamond-less lady
took her children back to their caravan at the campsite. As her son
stepped into the caravan he felt some beach tar under his sandal and
on pulling it off the diamond was stuck in it. Serious luck or what?.
For me too, since I got to make the whole ring over, never mind the
retipping.
Cheers, Hans Meevis.
One of my moms tennis friends had lost her large diamond out of the
setting and actually went back a day later and found the loose
diamond on the tennis court glistening in the sun.
I always can tell when I am tired or severly distracted. I spend
about 5 minutes frantically searching the bench for my chuck key
only to finally realize that it is sitting in my foredome handpiece
waiting patiently for me to find it. This makes me particularily
nuts because I always keep my chuck key in my lap pad. Brain lapse.
What I really hate are those trolls who take things after you have
put them âin a safe placeâ and hold on to them until they know you
are ready to tear you hair out, or buy a replacement. (some of the
nastier trolls wait a year or two until they put the item back)
Lesson on that: Always store things in the same placeâŚdonât get
cute and look for a safe place to hold something until you come back
from wherever it is you need to go, always put things away. I am
still learning.
Mary frances
I wish I had nice cuddly trolls or gnomes -
me too! I have a very playful gnome that I think took my foot pedal
for my Foredom! Yes, my foot pedal went missing, had to buy a new
one. How does that happen?
Many years ago, a large repair shop in Georgia began hiring
apprentices to serve at little or no pay. They took on all the
"nasty" little jobs including cleanup, and diamond retrieval. They
were asked to use the diamond magnet to find a diamond whenever one
popped or dropped. The diamond magnet happened to be a 75 pound
anvil. A practical jewelry joke.
Steve Burns
National Account Manager
Hoover & Strong, Inc.
1-800-733-2642
404-636-7344 fax
Hi All,
I renamed the thread of diamond setting prices in this case, because the reply was about finding a lost diamond with a headlamp when the power went out. We have flashlights scattered all over the place for that very reason, and the power doesn't need to be out, and the lights
Besides working in Zurich, On. land of the faulty hydro towers,
where electricity goes out with the slightest puff of air.
I also work in the Detroit area in larger shop with lots of
jewellers. Iâm a diamond setter usually and by choice. I was given a
large to make a pendant and set. As usual another job came up, so I
handed off the diamond to another jeweller. Later in the day I wanted
to see his progress. He had made a nice double under bezel platinum 4
claw head. I wanted to check it for fit. âWhereâs the diamondâ?
âItâs right !!!â Oh, no". He was
bald and the top of his head turned red.
âOK. calm down.â
âDid it fall into your pan?â
âNo, it was right here in the middle of my bench.â
âDo a patterned search (a complete search).â
No.1 search the pan.
No.2 search the bench top.
No.3 sweep the floor in a 10 ft. circle.
âAny luck?â
âNothingâ
âShucks!â
âOK, do a total search.â
No.1 take everything off the bench, and examine it top to bottom, &
inside out.
No.2 sweep the whole shop, and sieve everything that comes off the
floor.
No.3 look on top of shelves and light fixtures.
We are talking a 2.50 carat Diamond.
âAny luck.â
âNothing.â
âShucks, shucks.â
âOK, walk me through the job.â
This is showing exactly what you did to do the job in every detail.
EXACTLY.
I took the Diamond out of the paper. Etc.Etc.Etc.
âI finished the head and move the third arm over there.â
This was a old third arm and wedge neatly in the hole that only this
third arm had. YES! The Diamond.
We carefully extracted the semi set Diamond that could not be shaken
out. I handed the Diamond back to the jeweller and he did a nice
bail. I engrave the bale, set the diamond.
Just another day in the shop.
Jim
Jim Zimmerman
Alpine Custom Jewellers & Repair
Many years ago I was at the sapphire and ruby mines in North Carolina
there was a wooden sluice about 100 yds long and about 50 or 60
people were happily screening gravel as water ran down the sluice âI
found a diamond and itâs cut and facettedâ said one woman "I lost one
out of my ring " said another well up the sluice -Lucky since the
sluice was full of sand and screened gravel
Tom
Hans Meevisâ tale of the woman who lost-and found-her diamond on the
beach reminds me of something that happened to me. Some years ago,
my daughter left her dog with us when she went on vacation. One day,
I took the beast (a big, goofy yellow lab) down to a piece of local
beach where everyone runs their dogs. He took his swim, ran around
with a few other dogs, then came galloping along the beach ----and
stopped, He took a few tentative steps, and then lifted his front
paw and limped, three-legged- back to me. His distressed expression
told the whole story. He had a big glob of beach tar really embedded
in his paw. I couldnât budge the thing without causing him distress,
so I drove him over to the local vet, who managed to get it off. The
doctor was just about to toss the glob, when he said, âHeyâŚlook at
this. Itâs a pearl!â Stuck in the tar was an 8mm pearl. I took home
the dog and the tar ball, and when I dug out the treasure, it wasnât
just a pearl; it was attached to a little diamond and a pretty bail.
It took a lot of time and effort to get it cleaned up without
ruining it, but my efforts paid off. The diamond turned out to be a
lively 15-pointer. With the addition of a chain, it was a handsome
ornament. I often wondered how it got washed up in a ball of beach
tar,and whether some passenger on a cruise ship was wondering what
happened to her pendant
Dee
It wasnât a diamond, but still a great storyâŚ
I was in high school in the 70âs and my parents returned from a
vacation to England. They brought me a pair of earrings that I
lovedâŚas much for the sentiment as the earrings themselves. They
were simple⌠a sterling bezel on a post with 8 x 10 mm. tigereye
oval cab set in them. I wore them everywhere, including Lighthouse
Beach on Lake Michigan where I spent my days socializing with my
friends that summer. It was a huge public beach, a hot summer, and
always extremely crowded.
One day, a friend noticed that I was only wearing one earring, and I
realized that the one must have come off there. My group of about 10
friends spent at least an hour sifting through the sand around us to
no avail. I assumed that it had probably come off while I was
swimming. Had it been in the sand, we surely would have found it. We
had been very thorough.
I was devastated. Though the earrings were not exactly âmeâ, the gift
had meant a lot to me and I felt terrible that I had been so
careless. My friends felt my sorrow.
I shopped at all the stores in town to see if, by chance, I might be
able to replace it, but no one had anything like it. I went to Daveâs
Rock Shop (anybody remember his store in Evanston, Ill.? Is it still
there? ) to see if I could find a replacement stone so that I could
make a new one, but he didnât have one.
At least a week went by, and I tried to figure out how to replace
this special earring. I was at home, and heard a knock at the door. A
friend of mine stood there. He was from a completely different group
of friends than the one I was at the beach with, but a good friend,
none-the less.
âI heard that you lost an earring a the beach the other day,â he
said before I could even invite him in.
I started to lament the story to him. His parents were good friends
of my parents, we had a special friendship, and I knew that he would
be sympathetic. He then extended one hand toward me, with his fist
closed. He turned his hand over, opened his palm, and said, âIs this
it, by any chance?â
In his hand was my earring. I think I cried.
He had been to the beach that day, sitting with his group of friends
on the sand. This is a huge public beach, very well used in the
summer, very crowded. Generally, you arrive and find an unoccupied
slot to place your towelâŚthere is usually no real choice as to
where a person can sit. You take what you get.
This was a week after I lost it. He and his friends just happened to
sit exactly where my friends and I had been sitting. None of his
friends had been there the day that I lost it.
He put his hand in the sand and found my earring. Just like that. But
he had no idea it was mine until one of his friends said that he had
heard from another friend that I had lost an earring at that beach
the week prior. Perhaps it was mine. Now what were the
chances�
I still am incredulous that it came back to me. And I still have
them both!
Karen
Karen Olsen Ramsey
Anybody remember a movie called âThe Borrowersâ, or Have it in their
media collection?
Dan
LOST DIAMONDSâŚno such thingâŚthey are just trying to get back
to nature.
I made a platinum ring with a cat logo on the top for John Popper
of Blues Traveler Many years ago, it had sapphire sunglasses and
diamonds on the side. He went out hunting on his property in Bucks
co. PaâŚfell down in the snow with gun in hand. latter that day he
noticed that the top of his ring was missing. He called to let me
know that he wanted a new ring. I told him just for kicks, in the
spring when the snow melts go to the place where he fell in the snow,
sure enough there it was face up and sparkling. I figure the
temperature change from warm house to cold outdoors and the shock of
the fall popped the piece off.
I had a customer in my studio a few years ago to make a wedding
ring. he showed me his school ring from 1969. funny story he said,
âI lost it when I was a kid. then a few years latter I got a call
from a fisherman. He had caught a fish in a local pond, cleaned the
fish and found the ring in its stomach!â the fisherman tracked down
my customer because his name was inside the ring and the highschool
was local. sounds about right to meâŚall my shad spoons lures are
gold or silver and full of that bling bling that fish and mermaids
love so well.
A craft person that I know, (I will not use Her name) bought a
used Volvo from someone in New England. She was having some trouble
with the gearbox so she had it checked by her local mechanic. A few
days latter the mechanic handed her the 3 caret almost flawless 3
stone ring that he found in the gearbox down under the gearshift. it
was worth twice as much as the carâŚ
OK last oneâŚover the years I have set alot of stones for
local stores and customers. I have found lost stones in the cuffs of
my pants, down my pants, in my shoes,and years latter in strange
places but this one tops them all. I was flush setting some 1mm
diamonds one day, snapping them into the nice tight settings that I
had prepared. one of them popped up off of the bench when I went to
set it. I stopped, looked left, looked right, then blinked, when I
did, I got a painful discomfort under my eyelid. the small diamond
had hit my moist eyeball, stuck to it, when I blinked it ended up
under my eyelid. OUCH! a strange scratching feeling followed. I
turned to the jeweler next to me told her what had happened. lifted
my eyelid up, looked down at the floor and around it came. âOH MY
GOD! YOU GOT A DIAMOND IN YOU EYE!â she shouted. she got it out with
alittle piece of tissue
wayne werner
Anybody remember a movie called "The Borrowers", or Have it in their media collection?
Although I never saw the movie, I was a huge fan of the books when I
was 10 or 11. I used to make my cousins play make-believe where we
would all be âborrowers.â Never got a chance to âborrowâ a diamond,
though.
I think they live in the walls of my house, too⌠They currently
have my scissors. 
Suzanne
Hi, Karen,
Great story!
The lighthouse and the beach are still there, and so is Daveâs Down
to Earth Rock Shop. I go there for emergency purchases of stones,
pearls and metal, and I send my students there to buy their first
stones.
âNoel
I went to Dave's Rock Shop (anybody remember his store in Evanston, Ill.? Is it still there? ) to see if I could find a replacement stone so that I could make a new one, but he didn't have one.
Yep, itâs still there! And practically the only rock shop left in the
Chicago area. All the new metalsmithing students go there.
Elaine
Elaine Luther
Metalsmith, Certified PMC Instructor
http://www.CreativeTextureTools.com â˘
Hard to Find Tools for Metal Clay
Anybody remember a movie called "The Borrowers", or Have it in their media collection?
We bought the book for our kids when the 5th hairbrush disappeared
from their room, along with assorted pencils, articles of
clothing,etc. The kids grew up and moved out, but the Borrowers
stayed. They love my bench and gobble up stones and occasional tools
with appalling regularity .Sometimes they return them to outlandish
places. When I saw this post I went to the bookcase to take a look at
the book againâŚand damn if the âBorrowersâ hadnât taken it too!
Dee
Hello Orchidians,
Iâll throw in a small experience with a CZ. These were earring
jackets made of 3 small CZs dangling on chains that could be slipped
over a hoop earring. One CZ was princess cut and held in a wrap-tite
type setting. One minute it was here, the next minute the setting
was empty. Oh well, losing a CZ is not a big deal, but matching it to
the remaining stone⌠darnit⌠maybe itâs easier to replace both to
have a matched set.
Yesterday, I decided to toss a wreath of dried flowers and took it
down from the wall. It sort of shattered when it dropped on the
dresser, so I brushed the debris into my hand to throw away. I felt
something hard and looked closer. Sparkle! It was the missing CZ. How
it got into a wreath of flowers on the wall is a mystery.
Now to find the empty setting I was going to replace!!! I know itâs
around my bench because I was measuring itâŚ
Judy in Kansas, wondering if a bench pixie drop-kicked that CZ!