ACK! Stone missing after rhodium plating!

[treysar]

A stone fell out of my wedding band! ARGH!
My husband picked up the ring today from the jeweler and when I put it on, i didn't notice. But just now i took a peek down at my hand and there was a HOLE! A tiny stone fell out!

What do I do? Do i have to pay? I'm a little po'ed to begin with at my jeweler because they CHARGED me to dip my ring, WTF?

What now?

 

[marcy]

I would call the jeweler the first thing in the morning and tell him a stone is missing and see what they say. I would hope they would immediately offer to replace it and fix it for you.

 

[iheartscience]

That''s a bummer! I would imagine you''d have to pay to get the diamond replaced. I think it''s relatively inexpensive, though-under $50 if I recall other posts here.

As far as paying for rhodium dipping, I thought that was pretty standard. Unless you got some sort of "Lifetime Maintenance" warranty or something?

 

[denverappraiser]

Call them in the morning. It’s probably in the bottom of the ultrasonic cleaner that they use as the last step of the process. Inspecting prior to returning to the customer SHOULD be the second to last last step followed by resetting the stone that fell out but some shops get pretty rushed and they make mistakes. Politely complain and they should take care of you pronto. This isn’t an excuse for doing sloppy work but it’s not anything you should lose sleep over either.

Rhodium costs $6,040/oz right now, 5 times as much as platinum. That solution that they dip it into is very costly stuff and it’s not at all unreasonable for them to charge for this service.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver

 

[WorkingHardforSmallRewards]

wow...I had no idea rhodium was that expensive...how much does it take to plate a normal ring?

and on topic, do you think they might clean out the US in the mornings? could be somebody comes in and takes care of that everymorning? maybe you should call and leave a message on the answering machine? might not be worth it, but I probably would just to be cautious?

 

[denverappraiser]

The rhodium consumption on each piece is nominal, it’s a matter of tooling cost. Here’s an offer for the solution at only $1100 a pint. Contaminate the solution and it’s trash. Spill it and it’s gone. Actually, it’s worse than trash, it’s toxic waste. This stuff is poisonous as hell. For a careful jeweler a bottle of it lasts a long time but it’s just not a ‘quick favor’ type of thing to offer. Around here shops are charging about $30 to do it and no one is getting rich at it even though it only takes a few minutes to do.

http://www.ottofrei.com/store/product.php?productid=7368&cat=0&page=1

Most shops that I know clean the US every morning as part of the setup ritual and sometimes even more often than that. They always check to see what’s in the bottom and it’s actually pretty common to find something. Nothing goes down the drain or into the trash without being filtered and searched first.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver