Insurance

The first item of business for new diamond rings is insurance. Talk to your insurance agent and see what documents are necessary to obtain insurance on your diamond ring. Typically it is done thru an existing home owners or renters policy, but there are also exclusive policies for jewelry.

Be sure that they will replace any loss with a like kind, which is to say if you have a round diamond with an ideal hearts and arrows cut and a GIA report, be sure that your agent has documentation of this and confirm that they will indeed replace it with a comparable stone in case of a loss.

It is important to supply as much information as possible to your agent in the appraisal and other documents such as a laboratory report.

Be aware that there are varying levels of coverage, some policies may not cover a lost diamond from a ring.

Be sure that you have coverage for all perils, including loss of just the center diamond, damaging the center diamond and of course any lost ring or stolen ring scenario.

Ask to see this language in the policy.

The Dangers of Chlorine

Gold and diamond rings should not be worn in any environment that contains chlorine especially swimming pools, hot tubs, etc.

It is probably a good idea to even take gold & diamond rings off when doing the dishes as even tap water contains chlorine.

While pure gold is a very inert metal and not affected by chlorine, the problem comes in the gold alloys like 14K and even 18K that are commonly used in rings.

The problem with chlorine is the reaction with the alloy metals used in the various gold alloys, especially white gold.

The chlorine chemically breaks down the alloy metals and leads to corrosion and brittleness in these metals, this in turn leads to the breakdown of prongs, crowns and other structures that hold diamonds and can result in catastrophic failure.

Platinum rings are not susceptible to these reactions with chlorine.

However, it is better to be safe than sorry because even in some platinum rings jewelers will use a gold solder to hold crowns, etc.

Our advice is to not wear any diamond rings in any of these environments.

Periodic Inspections

Different rings will have varying levels of concern, so be sure to ask your jeweler how often they recommend that you bring in your ring for inspection.

Typically jewelers will recommend a twice per year checkup schedule as a minimum. During these inspections they will check to make sure that the normal "wear and tear" on the ring is not weakening any important structures such as crowns, prongs, channels, etc. After inspecting the ring, jewelers may recommend any necessary prong tightening, straightening, re-tipping, re-crowning, reinforcing, etc.

It is very important to have your ring checked frequently as it is quite common for diamonds to be lost from rings that are not maintained regularly.

Cleaning

A diamond ring will need to be cleaned frequently to look its best.

Diamonds have an affinity for oils and the use of any product that contains oils such as shampoos and soaps and hand lotions will soon leave a superficial layer or film on the bottom of the diamond that is likely to be resistant to cleaning at home depending on the ring design.

You will likely not be able to see this tiny layer of oil on the bottom of the diamond as it is just a film, but this film dramatically affects the diamonds ability to reflect and refract light.

Remember that a diamond is essentially a collection of tiny mirrors (facets) aligned to reflect light back to you the lucky holder, and everybody has seen the difference between a freshly cleaned mirror and one with dust on it.

People are amazed at what a difference this makes in the beauty and sparkle of a diamond.

There are many jewelry cleaners designed for at home use, ranging from ‘jar and brush’ cleaners to small sonic cleaners to even small steam cleaners.

Jewelers with full service shops like us will have industrial strength heated ultrasonic cleaners as well as steam cleaners that will professionally clean a jewelry item better than any home cleaning system.

We welcome anyone to stop in as jewelry cleaning is free.

Polishing

Polishing is the process of removing some, most or all of the small scratches and restoring a smooth shiny surface to a ring. This is obtained by using a high speed polishing wheel with various polishing compounds. In some situations it may be necessary to use some preparatory abrasives such as emery paper or even a file.

Some people when seeing a how a polishing restores the ‘like new’ shine and beauty to a ring will want to do it frequently, this is usually a bad idea depending on the design of the ring as the polishing process removes the outer layer of metal to obtain this like new finish. So, in essence whenever you polish a ring, you are removing a little metal each time.

Normally we will recommend a “rouge” polishing, rouge is the least aggressive of the polishing compounds and will return the metal surface to a like new shine.

While a rouge polish will not remove deep scratches, it is usually advisable to ignore the deep scratches as removing these means removing metal to the depth of the deep scratch which will drastically shorten the lifetime of a ring.

Ask your jeweler for recommendations for your specific ring.

Not So Common Sense Advice

Pardon the humor, but we see many customers that bring in rings that are all beat up with bent or broken shanks or even lost diamonds, wondering what happened.

Usually they will remember that they did some unusual specific action such as raking leaves or carrying bricks or pounding on the plastic chair back in front of them at a college basketball game.

All of these types of actions will damage a ring, sometimes very fast.

But they never had these possibilities explained to them.

It is a good idea to remove diamond rings when doing any type of strenuous physical activity such as yard work, snow shoveling or weight lifting , bicycle riding etc. as these actions can quickly bend, fatigue or even break a ring.

With all of this said and with the proper insurance and regular checkups and cleanings for the ring, you should find it easier to wear and enjoy the ring.

After all, isn't that what its all about?