Setting customer stones

Jewelry Discussion
41

Let me add a new twist to this thread.

A guy that trained me a long time ago has given up jewelry and
watches for air conditioners. I spoke to him last night. This is the
story as I remember it from last night…

This guy did a repair for a retail client a couple/few years ago. It
was a platinum ring in need of a new head. The retailer said that the
client wouldn’t pay for a new head. “Just retip it” he was told. The
retailer was told that there was no guarantee. The repair was
completed. A few weeks later, the stone had fallen out and this time
instead of tips,he was asked to apply full prongs. Since the ring
that he was working on had mellee he was using a low grade platinum
solder. Again, the prongs failed, but this time the stone was
alledgedly lost on the bottom of a swimming pool, never to be seen
again. The retailers insurance footed the bill for a new stone. The
retailer himself is getting up in years and has since checked into a
nursing home. The insurance company wants to collect the $14,000 from
my friend that reluctantly did the work on the ring.

My friend has a couple of lawyers working on his problem and he is
trying to incorporate the help of the solder manufacturer.

I suspect that most of the retailers and wholesalers on this list use
the insurance company. Anyone else heard of a case like this?

42

Hi Richard;

Here where I live trade charge is $5.00 and I thought that was
bad.

I’m doing trade work, and if I have to prong set a single small
stone, I’ll charge $10, but for more than one, I go by the hour
($50/hr.). Even bright cutting sometimes comes out to between $5-$7 a
stone at that rate, especially if I have to lay it out and drill
holes. But I’m not offering that rate unless I have enough stones to
set to offset the fact that I set pretty quickly. For 2.9 Euros
(what’s that, around $5 US?), I couldn’t run my business, not on
stone setting, anyway. Just the take in and turn-around formalities
cost me $7.50 in labor and overhead time. Log it, invoice it, pack
it, etc.

If a private customer comes to me to have a stone set that they
bought online (or wherever), if it’s small, and I think I’ll make
them happy, I have nothing to lose by setting it for $20, but when it
gets to be a carat or larger, I’ll charge $75. It only takes about
10-15 minutes to set a round, but a princess can take up to 45
minutes if it looks risky due to inclusions. John Donivan was right,
it’s pointless to talk about “insurance”. I’ll charge a trade account
$20 to set a carat round, but that’s because I figure I’m going to be
doing the best setting work, absolutely level and tight, no light
under the prongs or where prong meets girdle, polish the head
wherever metal is visible, etc. But John mentioned that it’s hard to
chip a diamond if you know what you’re doing. He’s mostly right in my
book, but I take exception when it comes to old mine, some European
and transitional cuts. They can have girdles you can shave with, and
it’s easy to forget that. Furthermore, a lot of them are already
ragged with chipping on the girdle. If they chip, it’s going to
likely go down all the way to the culet. $250 or so to re-cut, plus
the difference in value between what you’ve got left and what a
replacement stone costs.

Whether I set at my risk or the customer’s (or trade account’s) is
all dependant on the nature and condition of the stone and the type
of setting. Don’t do it this way unless you are very familiar with
the risks. Better to play if safe, it’s cheaper to lose the job than
to buy an expensive stone.

David L. Huffman

43 
Now for the WWYD (what would you do?). Now if you called
dealers all over the country over the course of 4 weeks and found
your customer his ideal diamond, would you fax all the information
to another jeweler? We where told by our customer if we did not fax
the info to the other jeweler, the deal was over. I told my boss
if we did this the deal was over anyway. My stand was that we not
fax the info to the other jeweler and if our customer had that
little respect for us we did not need his business. My thought was
we would still walk away with our dignity. But I guess that dignity
does not pay the bills.

No way would I have faxed my info to another jeweler. I would have
told “my customer” to go elsewhere, get prices and report back and
see if I could beat the other guys price. I would make sure that the
stone the other guy was quoting had was G.I.A. cert., not E.G.L. Some
diamonds are rare enough that contacting many dealers will result in
all of them ending up with only one stone from one diamond dealer. I
have quoted a price knowing my competition was quoting on the same
exact stone. 11.09 CT fancy yellow radiant cut…

Richard Hart

44 
I'm sure you meant fluorescence.

Actually, phosphorescence makes sense. True D colour is by definition
is type 2b diamond and phosphorescence is natural for them.

Leonid Surpin

45 
Maybe some of you experienced diamond guys can shed some more light
on the relative consequences of screwing up when you don't own the
stone.

There’s another post in this today about someone being sued… I
remember a guy from long ago who DID make assurances, smashed a big
diamond, and had to take out a mortgage on his house to pay something
like $50,000 for a mistake. That’s money being paid for nothing in
return but a debt - didn’t even get to drive a new car for it. I’ll
say it again, even though it may sound simple minded: Just don’t make
mistakes. Sometimes poo-poo happens and it’s your night in the
barrel, but other than that the best thing you can do is to take
great care in your work, and most importantly to know your
limitations - If one doesn’t have the VAST experience it takes to set
a $90,000 emerald safely and properly, give it to someone who does -
don’t be a fool, it could cost you large. There’s a reason why many
jewelers drink…

46

Daniel,

I’m sure you meant fluorescence.

You are correct. You know what I meant. I always seem to get to my
e-mails last at night.

No the funny thing about this whole deal was the first diamonds
found were in the $75k range and then he wanted something closer to
$100k. Then he got fixated on a certain grade that he wanted. I have
a feeling that there is a string of jewelers that he has done this
to. He is a sort of new customer to us and we had only done one job.
It was a custom Bentley ring that he supplied the 2ct diamond for.

The other jeweler said that he can get it from Israel. If that is
the case how do you find someone over there to buy from??

Rodney

47 
There is no reason in the world why a gemstone, and especially a
diamond should not survive a setting process. The largest forces
acting on gemstone are forces generated while gemstone is cut. If
it survives cutting, it can be set without been broken or chipped.
The only issue is time. Some gemstones simply takes longer that the
others, and accidents occur when setter either does not understand
the particular problem inherent to the gemstone, or does not care
to take precautions to avoid damaging the gemstone.

Cutting will not cause a diamond to cleave, but I have seen a
customers ring with a diamond that was hit just right, it was still
set, but the top had come off at an angle slanting downward across
the diameter. Princess cut diamonds and marquise cut are easily
subject to breakage if great care is not take. Great care in setting
is not enough when the pressure needed to move the metal is greater
than the pressure needed to break that particular diamond. Not all
diamonds are created equal, and bezel set is much more risky than
prong set. I would rather set a marquise or princess amethyst, topaz,
garnet, sapphire, or ruby than a diamond. I have an allergic reaction
the well known crunch those of us have experienced that make our
stomach turn. Symptom is immediate headache and stomachache.

Richard Hart

48

Bruce,

Can you give more info on how the prongs failed in both instances?
Did the tips break off, or the whole prong, or the entire head? And
what kind of head, one with a peg? If you had said the mounting was
white gold, I would have said the head was damaged by chlorine,
since the customer wore it swimming. Is it possible the original
head was white gold? I have had prongs on platinum v-heads get pushed
sideways out of alignment by rough wear. Platinum prongs seems
softer than white gold prongs on those kind of heads.

But nobody can really give a good opinion of liability without
knowing exactly what failed.

49

Rodney,

The other jeweler said that he can get it from Israel. If that is
the case how do you find someone over there to buy from??

They call me up all the time begging for business, but if you can’t
sit around and wait for that, try looking in the JCK Yellow Pages or
some similar listing. Most of them have offices in New York as well
as Israel.

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140

50

Leonid,

Actually, phosphorescence makes sense. True D colour is by
definition is type 2b diamond and phosphorescence is natural for
them.

Well besides the fact that the original poster has admitted to his
misstatement, I’m sorry but phosphorescence, when dealing with
selling a diamond, does NOT enter into the picture. First of all, no
gem lab issues comments about phosphorescence in their report, only
fluorescence. Secondly I have NEVER come across anyone who felt this
might impact anything on any diamond sale in any way whatsoever and
I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. Sometimes a little too much
leads to misFluorescence is the only thing
that comes into play when dealing with selling diamonds.

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140

51 
Cutting will not cause a diamond to cleave, but I have seen a
customers ring with a diamond that was hit just right, it was
still set, but the top had come off at an angle slanting downward
across the diameter.

The situation you are describing could happen. But if stone would be
examined before setting the flaw is easily seen and I would reject
such a stone. Any gemstone must be examined before setting. Also, the
damage causing diamond to behave that way was introduced during
cutting. Sometime they fell apart on the lap, sometimes setter is
left holding the bag. That is why examination is critical.

Great care in setting is not enough when the pressure needed to
move the metal is greater than the pressure needed to break that
particular diamond.

You hit the nail on the head. The key to safe setting is to never
exceed the safety threshold. We are jewelers, we are not plumbers.
The work is accomplished through the application of the intellect,
not
muscle.

Leonid Surpin.

52

Hi to all on this thread.

We are doing more and more custom work as far as creating an
entirely new piece from customers’ old jewelry. So far nothing bad
has happened- but as time and jobs accumulate- chances are something
will happen. We do have a hold harmless agreement which the customer
has to sign before we start the actual work (after the design has
been agreed on). But as some of you have noticed there is a negative
reaction on the customers’ part. Suddenly that nice trusting
relationship you’ve built is just about gone. You can see in the
customer’s mind that you’re in there at your bench carelessly
hammering away at their beloved stone! We’ll replace the stone if
it’s easily replaceable and within our reach to do so. Basically the
agreement states that we take great care in setting their stone, but
in the event that the unexpected happens- the gem breaks or chips
that we cannot be held financially responsible. We will return their
deposit in full. So far- we’ve only been using this w/opals. What I’m
wondering is:

How do you reassure your customer?
How do you handle the situation if the customer’s stone breaks?

More and more people want to recycle their stones rather than buy
new- and we encourage this- but the stone breakage thing does keep me
up some nights!

Thanks to all-Rona

53

Dear Mr Walker

in you most recent post about setting customers stones you made the
comment that 'I am of the opinion that if i chipped grandmoms
diamond the chances are that the emotional consequences whould not
be as great as chipping a new stone, where the cost is still on the
customers credit card"

I’m not disagreeing, however, I would like to make a statement that
my Uncle Russ made to me back when I first started doing jewelery
work at the age of 18. He was a jeweler and watchmaker for many
years but also a real human, full of inperfections and insecurities.
He said " Wayne, diamonds, gold, gemstones and jewelry are absolutly
worthless…until they are given from one person to another,
then they are priceless" communicate, be honest, but most
importantly, cover your ass and don’t be a hero. take your time
setting stones, relax, you have all day to do it right and no time
to screw it up.

I use to have accounts with stores to do high end repair and
setting, not so much these days. In the metals community where I
live it is customary to set stones for stores, generally the price
is low but the store retains the responsibility for the stone, the
jeweler works for them either by subcontracting or by payroll, the
store knows that no jeweler want to break a stone but if it should
happen the agreement stands that the jeweler is not responsible. I
do not know if that is true throughout the whole industry but that
is my experiance.

On the other hand if I set a stone for a retail customer then I am
responsible for the stone unless a disscusion has taken place
freeing me of the responsiblity. Customers do not want to hear that
you are nervous and “hope” you won’t chip a stone. come on, you are
the so called expert that they have chose to come see.

So, case in point, 2 days ago a lady comes to me with a beautiful
diamond. she is the mother of a good friend of mine. The stone has
been in the family for 3 generations, and IT IS BEAUTIFUL. worth way
more than my car. She had it at the ‘mall’ store and had it cleaned.
thay pointed out that the prongs were worn, and one was half
missing. she did not leave it there because she did not TRUST them.
So it ends up on my lap. i probably could have retipped it, but I
explained to here that I wanted to give her a good price, however I
was not comfortable with messing with a retip that had so many
unknown factors. the ring had alot of work done to it over the
years, some of the solder was questionable. So i “talk her into” an
approch that I feel comfortable with. break the ring down and use the
old shank, with a new platinum head. I stand by my work and if it
were my own mothers ring that is what I would do. she agreed, I am
responsible for the stone. I told her that I still may break out in
Hives but hey…it’s in my job description. Now…here is the
clincher, I am charging her a boat load of money, close to $400 for 2
hours worth of work…and she is my buddys mom!!! do i feel
guilty…no. As my father sayes, “son, you are not making $200 an
hour on that job, it took you 15 years of stonesetting to grow the
balls to do it in two hours!!!”

One more thought, I have customers bring me stuff that the get
online, on the cruise, at the auction, etc. I always charge them
more to set that stuff. If my customer lets me find them a stone
from a cutter that I know, I make a small commission and I charge
them alot less. My cutter and I have a wonderful relationship, he is
with me through thick and thin, over the years we have both made a
small fortune on large diamonds. Three years ago I set a one caret
stone in a thick white gold bezel. the girdle had sone bearding that
I did not notice and I CRACKED IT. I could have hid it, it was not
noticable to the naked eye. I sent it back to him, he said “dont
worry about it” he sent me a better stone for the same price, the
customer was thrilled that I chipped the stone. And we live happily
ever after…now I consider myself the stongest man in the
world because I can chop the hardest material known to
man…i’m just sorry to say that my friend Richard calls me
"Chipps, the diamond setter".

Happy holidays everyone…I’m off to set that 2 caret stone from
great grandma…a few hives on my arm might do me some good.

wayne werner

54 
Secondly I have NEVER come across anyone who felt this might impact
anything on any diamond sale in any way whatsoever and I've been
doing this for over 30 years. Sometimes a little too much
leads to misFluorescence is the only
thing that comes into play when dealing with selling diamonds.

Phosphorescence is a rare but important property of diamonds. Each
and every D colour should be tested for it. I would go even further
and say if D colour diamond does not exhibit phosphoresce, I would
have re-graded to make sure it is D colour. By the same token, if
diamond in question possess fluorescence, I would again question the
colour grade. I am not saying that D cannot fluoresce, I am saying
that it is a yellow flag and colour needs to be confirmed. You
should remember “milky Ds”. Colour was technically D but fluorescence
was so strong that in the sunlight transparency was affected. If
original post was about such stone, no wonder that the deal fell
through.

Leonid Surpin.

55 
But if stone would be examined before setting the flaw is easily
seen and I would reject such a stone.

Well that’s nice. I guess you don’t work on any stones that belong to
customers. While the diamonds I sell are all VS or better clarities,
the stuff that most people own comes nowhere near those kinds of
clarity grades. And if you offer yourself as a custom jeweler then
you are going to regularly be setting diamonds that customers bring
you and a LOT of them are going to have flaws, many of them large
ones. Some of the diamonds will look like broken windshields. Some of
them have breaks so big on the side that if you recut them you’d end
up with a stone less than half the size of the original. And most of
them have been passed down for generations so simply rejecting them
doesn’t fly. But then, in my book, it’s the challenging jobs that
make you a good jeweler. Almost anyone can set a perfect stone
safely. Only a really good setter can set a piece of junk safely.

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140

56 
How do you reassure your customer? How do you handle the situation
if the customer's stone breaks?

Rona, there’s a very eloquent post on this today (yesterday, now) by
Wayne Werner on the subject, BTW. There’s no simple answer to the
above questions, unfortunately. I think it all begins with knowing
your limitations, which a great many folks do not, especially in
today’s world. Just because one went to setter’s school doesn’t mean
they should be setting $10k opals. I think many are under the
impression that if you know how to set a cz in a silver setting that
you know how to set a 25 ct. emerald in 18kt., which is simply not
true. And it all begins with the design of the setting itself, which
is an art in ITself. Reassure the customer? Although only a fool
would work in the high-end jewelry business without security
procedures in place, it is still built on honor and reputation at
bottom. You CAN’T reassure the customer, really, and I am of the
opinion that making customers sign any papers beyond that on a
repair envelope is just asking for trouble - it immediately turns a
cooperative relationship into and adversarial one… A lawyer told a
setter friend that posting a “not responsible for broken stones”
notice prominently is enough. Meaning really that nothing you can
say will convince them of your qualifications, it’s your past work
and associations that will tell everything, and it takes time and
care to build that. “Methinks he doth protest too much”, and all
that. In the world of jewelry, you can only dazzle them with
brilliance, the baffling alternative is just not going to happen -
people in the trade aren’t fools. How do you handle it if the stone
breaks? You mean, “If I break their stone”, I’m sure. Some examples:
I had a customer diamond that was junk, and the very instant the
prong touched it it literally exploded. It was heard across the
room, like there was a coil spring inside it. I did nothing wrong,
it was like touching a loaded mousetrap. It was a $300 stone, we
talked to the customer, they knew it was cheap, and were willing to
just buy another one. We insisted on splitting the cost… Lately
I blew up a $50 amethyst because it was going into the wrong
setting. I said, “I told you so”, I made the setting right and they
bought another stone. Same with an opal that cleaved in half - wrong
setting, I told you so. The common thread here is communication, you
see. Leonid has said we are not plumbers, I would also say that
we’re not machines - look before you leap, foresee the future. If
you are any kind of setter or jeweler it’s not that big of an issue,
anyway. I’ve broken a great many 1-4mm stones of all kinds - every
setter who works has. But unless you are a complete idiot you’re
unlikely to ever break a serious stone. Scratch or chip, yes.
Actually BREAK it, not likely if you take care. So the issue is
almost never one of buying a $25,000 black opal, it’s one of “Who’s
going to pay the $35 to polish out the scratch?”. It begins with the
design of the setting itself. If you try to pound a peridot into some
massive white gold setting you’re just asking for trouble - tell
that to the customer BEFORE you start pounding. Everybody needs to
understand that there is risk - you as the jeweler need to
understand how to take that risk near zero - that’s your job - and
retail customers need to cut you some slack, and that might need
some explaining, too.

57 
And most of them have been passed down for generations so simply
rejecting them doesn't fly. But then, in my book, it's the
challenging jobs that make you a good jeweler. Almost anyone can
set a perfect stone safely. Only a really good setter can set a
piece of junk safely.

Everybody is have to make a judgement on the level of exposure in
business, and I do not mean to give anybody advise on such matters. I
do not feel that is necessary for me to accept this risk. If it makes
me a bad setter, so be it.

Leonid Surpin.

58 
How do you reassure your customer? How do you handle the situation
if the customer's stone breaks?

Basically I cover the risk without fanfare if its a potential loss I
can live with. No point in dancing around about a (relatively) low
value stone and raise eyebrows. If I see something that concerns me
on a higher value item, I’ll point it out to the customer, hand them
a loupe if needed, explain the whys and wherefores and usually they
are OK with them assuming the risk because of a pre-existing
condition. I dunno, maybe its just my hard won grey hair that
reassures people, I haven’t felt the need to get into written
disclaimers, although I wouldn’t rule it out in the future for
certain cases.

If you are retail, even if you get all the disclaimers and such, if
you break the stone you are still faced with damage to your
reputation. At the cocktail party when your name comes up, a
disappointed customer will prolly not mention that you advised her of
the risk, that she assumed it willingly, she will only relate that
you broke her stone. Think that martini clutch will be banging down
your door in the near future?

So oftentimes you eat it for goodwill. It hurts but has to be done
sometimes. In the event of catastrophic loss…you’ll have to decide
which course is better, eat it or bear the bad vibe.

The best course of course is like John Donivan says…don’t break
it. If you have prepared everything very well, even generally risky
stones will go OK. You just have to know exactly what constitutes
proper prep.

As long as I’m typing away here…on the subject of
‘insurance’…if one charges extra (over and above straight labor)
for insurance, is your accumulated cash set aside to cover losses? Or
have you spent it already because it was commingled with regular
funds? If so, how is that going to help you come up with the payment
for a new stone, assuming its a whopper?

I think the legitimate reason for a customer to pay more is that
they get more…your skill is more likely to result in success.

59

Leonid,

Phosphorescence is a rare but important property of diamonds.

It may be but it is not listed on any diamond grading report I have
ever seen so it really doesn’t come into play when selling or grading
a diamond.

Each and every D colour should be tested for it.

Again, no diamond report produced mentions phosphorescence anywhere
so it’s quite obvious that even if they are testing for it, it just
doesn’t matter.

By the same token, if diamond in question possess fluorescence, I
would again question the colour grade.

You can question it all you like, but the major labs have now all
moved away from saying that any stone has NO fluorescence at all and
are stating that it is negligible instead. This means that all
diamonds graded by any major gem lab in the world, no matter what
color the grade is (including D colors), may exhibit at least a tiny
amount of fluorescence.

If original post was about such stone, no wonder that the deal fell
through.

No, if you read the post carefully, you would know that the customer
had simply requested a stone that had no fluorescence (although with
the new grading standards the best he could get is a negligible), not
that they were showing a stone with a lot of fluorescence.

This is the problem with taking gemological knowledge beyond what is
really necessary to sell a customer or to buy goods effectively from
a supplier. There are certain factors that matter a lot. There are
other factors that don’t matter at all. Let’s face it, most customers
don’t really need to know what makes a certain colored gem a
particular color. A few of the more scientific based ones (and
believe me I deal with them all the time since I’m near MIT) have an
interest and it helps to have a modicum of knowledge for them. And in
today’s marketplace it helps to have a working knowledge of gemstone
treatments, disclosure issues, and sources. It also helps to have the
knowledge yourself for your own edification (as it does to have
knowledge about any topic–and mind you I AM a GG), but when it
comes to the purchase and sale of most of our product, too much of it
just ends up meaning nothing to the consumer. As a matter of fact,
most of the time, when I go into a too scientific rap about whatever
the heck the people are looking at, I can see their eyes glaze over.

What really matters is: Is it a beautiful stone in the eye of the
beholder? Does it set her heart on fire when she looks at it because
she knows what it represents to her? Is the setting something she
likes, will enjoy for a long time and helps to make her feel
beautiful? My true job as a retailer of fine jewelry, as I like to
tell people, is to make people happy. I enjoy doing that. The science
helps me to help them be happy, but it isn’t the be all and end all
of the process, and certainly it isn’t ultimately what the customer
needs to make them feel happy, nor should it play a major role in
that process.

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140

60

I remember we had a job many years ago for a jeweler (we were a
wholesale trade shop) that wanted us to set a $100,000 emerald in a
custom engagement ring that we were to make. They were concerned
about liability. I told them something that a guy who I considered
the dean of the diamond business, in our area, had told me years
before, he said, “Whoever is making the lions share of the profit
should take the lions share of the risk”. We were making a platinum
ring for them but our profit was microscopic compared to theirs.
Ultimately we told them that we would make the ring but the stone
dealer should set the emerald, then they should only buy it if it is
returned undamaged. The dealer agreed, they set it and it was
delivered to the client (who broke it within six months).

Mark