QuestionHi - I inherited a lovely ring from my grandmother recently. The center stone is a pearl, circled by five small diamonds, and there are two rectangular sapphires on either side of the diamonds. I took it in to get resized, and the jeweler noted that one of the sapphires had a small chip it in (i hadn't noticed until then). They told me that the pearl would have to be taken out of the setting in order to size it down because of the heat used, and that if anything happened to the pearl while they were taking it off it was my responsibility to replace, to which I said fine. It ended up being a big job because the gold was cracking on one side and so the jeweler had to re-sauter the side and touch up the engraving (there is a lot of intricate engraving on the ring). I went to pick it up and it looked wonderful, you couldn't even tell it had been broken...and then I looked at the sapphire directly above where this repair had been made. It looked like one of the tools slipped and practically cut the sapphire in half!! It was so badly damaged, there was a huge chip that left a hole in the stone...I was surprised it was still in the setting. I immediately took it back, but the woman at the store just said she'd "speak to the jeweler" about it. I assume that this is something they would have to replace for me? Shouldn't the jeweler have noticed when the damage was done, or at least found it when inspecting the work afterwards??
AnswerYes, The jeweler should be responisble for the end result of the piece including the sapphire if you did not sign a waiver on the repair slip that the repair was at customer risk to the sapphire as well as the pearl.
In any event the jeweler should be able to replace the sapphire.
Let me know how it turns out.
A.DeMello Gemological Laboratories
Arthur DeMello GG (GIA) J-Bar (JVC) USPAP
http://www.nationalgemologicallaboratory.com
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