I had a very interesting conversation with one of my clients. I was
reproducing a moonstones and sterling ring for her, and she said,
that she was told that you had to put something between the moonstone
and bezel to keep moonstone from yellowing. I’ve never heard of
anything like that, and told her it was not necessary to do anything
with moonstones, but set them well in their bezels. I’m guessing
whoever told her put glue, foil or other stuff in the settings before
putting the moonstones in.
It was really tough to talk her out of this misconception and she
believed it after 30 odd years.
Have any of you ever come across this? Doing something to keep
moonstones from yellowing? As far as I can see and observe,
moonstones don’t yellow, unless you have yellow moonstones to begin
with.
Joy- Often silver tarnishes yellow before it goes darker with age.
I’m guessing her ring tarnished and the color showed through the
transparent stone. To combat this you’d have to seal the silver or
rhodium plate it under the stone, or put a foil beneath the stone.
Foiling the backs of stones has been done for eons. Just read
Cellini’s bio.
I think you are right in your suggestion that her experience must be
with a glue set stone. As moonstones are feldspars from rock that is
up to 400 million years old they arent going to change much on
someone’s finger.
I am wondering about changes. Moonstones are natural, and as
mentioned later in this conversation, it would not change.
But…what about man made moonstones aka opalite? Now
that creature may go through changes. I think we all sufferer from “I
know that I know that I know” to some extent. It is hard to grow in
knowledge, replacing long time beliefs. I am blessed with a student
mentality. I love to learn. blessings pat