Pictures Are A Wonderful Thing, or All Is Not Lost, Part Three

Dear San Francisco Jewelry Doctor:

 

I saw your story about recreating lost jewelry, and I am here today to tell you that you are wrong. My late jeweler, who is now designing for the stars in the sky, drew the engagement ring for my now-fiancée, and then created it in three different kinds of gold. When I lost my jeweler, we also lost that ring—forever. My friend also lost a tree pendant that had been created in rose gold. It, too, was unique.

 

So while I’m sure you’re very good at what you do, you cannot recreate jewelry like the pieces I described. Admit it.

 

Signed, 

 

Bereft in North Dakota

 

Dear BIND:

 

First of all, please accept my condolences on the loss of a treasured person in your life. It sounds as though you may have worked with a metalsmith*. That is a great thing. Metalsmiths are wonderful. No doubt about it. We have metalsmiths on our team, and we have enormous respect for their gifts.

 

That said, when it comes to jewelry that is purely metalwork, for example a design in gold or silver, unless you have/had the ability to travel back in time to work with Michelangelo directly**, chances are, your original jeweler based his/her design on a drawing (from something s/he saw or imagined), which can be recreated—once you provide us with either a photograph or a sketch. (We are also jewelers. We draw. We work from drawings. And we have imagination, too.)

 

So don’t despair! Call us at 415/796-3969 (text 415/596-4244), and that ring will soon be back on her finger. And about that tree? We can make that, too. (We love trees. We have seen many a beautiful tree, and drawn or taken pictures of lots of them. Happy to recreate your tree, and did you know we also have some wonderful trees in our collection of finished jewelry?)

 

San Francisco Jewelry Doctor. Making the impossible happen, on a regular basis.

 

*People who create jewelry (and other things) in gold, platinum, silver, bronze, and other metals are called metalsmiths. Again, we hold the ones on our team and the others who practice this art in high esteem. They are amazing.

 

**Even then. They usually worked from drawings. Also: you have mastered time travel? We are all ears! (Well, hands, too—while listening to you is the most important part of the work we do, designing by ear alone is beyond us. We admit it.)

 

©2021 Laynie Tzena. All Rights Reserved. 

Pictures Are A Wonderful Thing, or All Is Not Lost, Part Two

A while back we were talking about the importance of taking pictures of your favorite jewelry. This is helpful for insurance purposes, of course. It can also help when, as sometimes happens—and here we pause to shed a tear*—a favorite piece of jewelry has gone missing.

 

“Help? How? It’s gone forever.”

 

Not necessarily.

 

“You’re going to find it?”

 

Sometimes. That is, sometimes a missing piece of jewelry, while it has personal meaning, was not the only one of its kind that was made. The designer may well have made many of the same necklaces or earrings.

 

“Why would she do that?”

Here we pull back the curtain. Jewelry designers do not, in general, cut gemstones, drill holes in stone or other materials to make beads, or make a setting for a stone only once. (The Jewelry Doctor likes to remind people, ‘Ralph Lauren doesn’t make the fabric. He designs with it.’) They have sources for materials, and they either work with standard settings or make customized settings based on standard ones.

 

You can understand this quickly if you think about what happens in your favorite restaurant. While that dish you love is something you look forward to ordering again and again, it is only available again and again because, well, they make a lot of it. Because other people also love it.** The cooks do not make every item from scratch every time, even in those restaurants with prices in the stratosphere. If they tried to do that, they would go out of business in a New York minute.  

 

So: The person (or team of people) who made your favorite piece of jewelry bought gemstones or beads and maybe settings and made a number of, if not the same, then very similar pieces of jewelry. Maybe there was a trend at the time, and they noticed that design was all the rage and so they made jewelry in that style.

 

Which means your Jewelry Doctor may be able to find that necklace or bracelet or those earrings for you. If she can’t, she may well be able to reconstruct the jewelry for you. And that’s where your photographs of you wearing the jewelry come in.

 

“But I don’t have a photograph!”

 

That’s fine. Make a rough drawing. Not to worry; nobody is expecting it to hang in a museum. Just see if you can draw the basic shape, and give your Jewelry Doctor all the information you can: the stones used, if you remember what they were (most people do—“It was my lapis necklace!”), the approximate length. If the lost jewelry was a pair of beloved earrings, tell the Jewelry Doctor the approximate length of the earring, the components you remember, and whether they were on wires or posts.

 

Now, your Jewelry Doctor would be remiss if she didn’t take this opportunity to suggest how to avoid losing jewelry (aside from putting it next to your plate in the restaurant when you got up to dance; she can’t help you there***). Make sure your necklaces have lobster clasps or other secure clasps.  If you must buy a necklace with a barrel (screw) clasp, get thee to your Jewelry Doctor afterward to replace it; those clasps are a recipe for a lost necklace. Ditto, hook-and-eye and many a toggle fastening. As to earrings, if you like wires ask your Jewelry Doctor for “ear stops,” which slip on the wire to prevent it from slipping off, and there are a number of solutions for keeping post earrings on your ears, too.

 

If the jewelry in question is a ring with a stone that has wandered off, we can replace that for you—and this story from our archives will help you avoid losing stones in the future.

https://myjewelrydoctor.blogspot.com/2014/04/building-your-jewelry-wardrobe-lets.html

 

So call us at 415/796-3969 (text 415/596-4244), and soon it will be “Happy Ever After.”

 

San Francisco Jewelry Doctor. For people who love their jewelry. 

 

*Truly. Your Jewelry Doctor, prior to her entry into the world of design and restoration, once spent in the neighborhood of 45 minutes on her knees outside the Fontainebleau Hotel, looking for a lost earring she can still see in her mind’s eye, and she is about to recreate it.

 

**This does not mean you are not unique. Honey, we thought that was obvious.

 

***”How did you know about the restaurant?”

 

Don’t you remember? I am a doctor. We know everything.

 

©2021 Laynie Tzena. All Rights Reserved. 

Pictures Are A Wonderful Thing, or All Is Not Lost

Few writers love the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” But pictures can be oh, so helpful when it comes to jewelry. I always take pictures of jewelry before I work on it, not only so we have a

“before” and “after” to enjoy, but so my customer has a record of what the jewelry looked like in case it is ever lost. (Helps for insurance purposes, too.)

It's always great if you can have someone take a picture of you wearing some of your “greatest hits”—i.e., your favorite jewelry to wear—as well as a picture of the jewelry by itself. But in a pinch just take a picture of the jewelry on a clean surface (black, gray, or white are usually best). Then, whether we need to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again
http://myjewelrydoctor.blogspot.com/2016/07/humpty-dumpty.html
or recreate Humpty-Dumpty from scratch or fill in missing pieces, we'll know what we're aiming for.

Make sure the jewelry is centered in the picture, with the whole necklace (or earrings, or bracelet) visible. That's important when it comes to reconstructing it.

“But I don't have a picture!”

Not to worry, honey: the Jewelry Doctor understands, and is still happy to help. (She is a doctor!)  But if you have one, that's even better.