Dreamer_D
Super_Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2007
- Messages
- 28,605
This year marked a very important professional accomplishment for me: I was promoted to full professor at my university. It took me 13 years to achieve this goal, on top of 9 years of graduate and post-doctoral education. So I decided to buy myself a beautiful ring to mark the occasion, as a reminder and a reward for all my hard work.
My first attempt to create my dream celebration ring ended in tragedy, as just one day after bringing my ring home I discovered that the center gemstone had been damaged. You can read the whole tale of woe here, including my experience making a claim with Jewelers Mutual to replace my damaged gemstone.
Luckily I was insured. And after a six month journey to replace my damaged star sapphire I finally have my beautiful — and perfect — celebration ring on my hand.
Yvonne Raley of Cecile Raley Designs sourced the 4ct, Sri Lankan star sapphire for me. It is a gemmy little gum drop that shifts from a delicate pink in the sun to a deep purple indoors. The star is soft but complete and centered. I’m really enjoying the crystal quality.
Here are some photos when it was loose and a video that Yvonne took that shows the pink color.
Yvonne also made the 18k gold setting for me. We chose some lovely pink and blue sapphires for side stones.
And here are Yvonne’s pictures of the finished ring.
I’ll post my photos and videos in the next post.
My first attempt to create my dream celebration ring ended in tragedy, as just one day after bringing my ring home I discovered that the center gemstone had been damaged. You can read the whole tale of woe here, including my experience making a claim with Jewelers Mutual to replace my damaged gemstone.
Behold my tale of woe (it does have a happy ending though).
As some of you may recall, back in March of this year I purchased a star sapphire from Finewater Gems to set in a ring to celebrate my recent promotion to full professor. You can read the story here: Star Sapphire Ring Project
My sapphire was a lovely oval about 4ct and purplish-pink in color. Gary bought it in Sri Lanka during a buying trip as a favour to one of his buyers.
The star was very bold and showed itself with even the slightest hint of light.
I decided to set the gem locally because I didn’t feel like I had the stamina to go through the long-distance custom process again. It’s just so hard to communicate about design long distance. The local jewellers hand forged their rings in house and they had a sample in hand that I liked so I went for it.
Just four weeks later I had the ring in hand and I took photos to share here on PS.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to enjoy my ring for very long. The very next day I noticed that the sapphire was damaged.
Luckily I was insured. And after a six month journey to replace my damaged star sapphire I finally have my beautiful — and perfect — celebration ring on my hand.
Yvonne Raley of Cecile Raley Designs sourced the 4ct, Sri Lankan star sapphire for me. It is a gemmy little gum drop that shifts from a delicate pink in the sun to a deep purple indoors. The star is soft but complete and centered. I’m really enjoying the crystal quality.
Here are some photos when it was loose and a video that Yvonne took that shows the pink color.
Yvonne also made the 18k gold setting for me. We chose some lovely pink and blue sapphires for side stones.
And here are Yvonne’s pictures of the finished ring.
I’ll post my photos and videos in the next post.
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