Dear Calla, Jeweler in England Ruined My Antique Knot Ring!
Dear Calla,I bought this beautiful antique knot ring online from England. The only problem was that it wasn’t my size. The merchant offered to have a local jeweler size it at my expense and then ship it. I said yes. I’ve just opened my package and I can’t stop crying, it is just ruined.
Why is my beautiful crisp knot now so blobby looking? Can you do anything? Can you tell me what happened so I never go through this again?
~ Melting in Tears
Dear Melting,
It appears that your English jeweler used open flame solder to size your ring which conducts heat up the ring shank. Your soft older gold conducted the heat like a wild-fire and probably popped all or most of the joins on your ring. The joins are the areas where disparate parts of your ring were originally soldered together, carefully and delicately. The heat of the current work undid those old joins.
I think he tried to fix it and the solder and heat caused the gold to meld together and lose its crisp details. I will attempt to remove the melted solder material, but it won’t be as crisp as it was 100 years ago.Here is her ring after the work and it looks much improved. She loves it! Your Personal Jeweler,
Calla
