The Very Highest Quality Diamond Rings...
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Old for New Jewellery | |
Solitaire Diamond Ring with Princess Cut Diamond Shoulders
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Recycling Old for New Jewellery
We are often asked can we make a new piece of jewellery from an old one. The answer is yes, but...
Recycling is Good
We are firm believers in recycling old things, including scrap gold, wedding rings, diamond ring, and other jewellery. Some old jewellery is worth repairing or refurbishing. other items are only fit to be scrapped, and the answer often depends on personal factors such as sentimental value. We dislike waste, and believe everything should be repaired or recycled providing it can be done economically. There are many occasions however where it is uneconomic or undesirable to do so.
Inadvisable
If you read our page about how we create diamond rings, you will see that we never reuse scrap gold, instead providing our caster with newly refined fine gold (.9999 purity). Our casters also insist on using their own alloys, or at least specially ones prepared with proper quality control, and with which they have experience. They quite rightly tell us that to do otherwise would risk and compromise
the quality of the products. We could use cheaper "backstreet" casters, but we have seen more than enough jewellery of poor quality, so we avoid such companies. Actually, we are probably being unfair to the backstreet guys, because some of them might be quite good, and also there are many of the best known and biggest names in jewellery casting who produce variable quality, and sometimes atrocious quality (we once had long running quality problems with Hean Studios).
Best Practice is to Scrap and Remake New
Almost always the best solution is to sell or part-exchange the old items, and use the proceeds to purchase new items. This means we can make excellent quality goods economically.
In the following paragraphs when we refer to recycling, we mean by using the same actual precious metal from the original items as opposed to selling for scrap and then purchasing new.
Why Recycle Old Jewellery Items?
There are two basic reasons people cite when we ask why they wish to recycle their specific jewellery items.
- Cost
Most people seem to think it will save them money. This is almost always wrong, especially if they want a good quality product. Just imagine asking Mercedes if they would make you a new car using your old one as scrap. Even if they could and would do it, it would produce an inferior product and cost more money. Apparently some Japanese and other eastern shipbuilders were making tankers and other ships from recycled scrap steel, and the ships then broke up in bad weather. Hopefully their insurance companies have now exerted some influence, and also hopefully they didn't build too many passenger ships or ferries.
- Great Sentimental Value
The other reason cited is that the old jewellery items posses great sentimental value, having been their mother's wedding rings or similar. Whether there is also an undisclosed element of cost saving, we do not always know. As you will be able to guess from the comments we have already made, it is sometimes possible to recycle in this manner, but there will always be a price to pay, whether it be in lower quality products, or in a far higher processing cost.
Again let's take the Mercedes example. If you had a vintage Jowett Javelin which once belonged to your great grandfather, if you had enough money, you may be able to persuade Mercedes to have your old car melted down, refined into pure new steel, and then process you new car through their production line individually. Our wild guess at the extra cost of this would be £1 million, and even at that, Mercedes might be reluctant to supply you with an inferior product.
The situation would be similar when applied to jewellery. To make something out of your own gold would necessitate a substantial extra refining, alloying, and casting charges, possibly adding hundreds or thousands of pounds extra. This is completely outside our normal way of doing business. Our normal assumption about out customers is that they are normal intelligent, well educated, and interested in getting reasonable or even excellent value for their money.
Two Other Possibilities
- Occasionally, there is something we can do at a reasonable cost, and not too great a quality penalty. For example, if somebody wants a handmade torq bangle, a solid item, where porosity is not too great a problem, then we can, and have on occasion, been able to help.
- The last possibility is an illusion. We have on a significant number of occasions, seen gold items which the owners believed had been made from their own gold, and in every single case, we believe that they had been conned by a dishonest jeweller. There is at least one in Blackpool, who we would love to name here, but won't, who regularly sells items as being made to order from the owner's own gold, and in almost every case, we are quite certain that the original gold items have been scrapped and ordinary new items supplied. Indeed on one occasion, we were consulted by a local man who had purportedly had several items made from old sentimental value items, only to become suspicious because some of the new items were different colours. He had begun to suspect that he had been deceived, and we are certain he was right.
It's important to remember that not all salesmen or jewellers are honest. Many will tell you what they think you want to hear.
Conclusion
We would strongly recommend against getting any jewellery made using recycled actual gold from old items whatever your reason for it.
If you do quite rightly believe in recycling, and wish to sell your scrap or second-hand jewellery, we will be happy to buy or take it in part exchange at fair and competitive prices.
Designer Rings
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32 - 36 Harrowside, Blackpool, Lancashire, FY4 1RJ, England. Telephone (44) - (0) 1253 - 343081 ; Fax 408058; E-mail:
The URL for our main page is: https://24carat.co.uk
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