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I'm in Misery and Want Company

ShinyPink

ShinyPink

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Dec 16, 2017
Messages
2,058
I was outside taking pictures of some stones I'm going to put on LT. I dropped my opal and it broke! :cry2: I've always been worried this would happen, so I try to be careful but ack! this hurt. I'm so upset with myself!:wall: I guess I could make a Pacman pendant....

Please relive your grief and share how you've ruined your stones or jewelry.

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Oh nooooo!! I'm so sorry! What a pill. Although I did giggle at your pacman comment, I'm glad you still kept your sense of humour :bigsmile:

I'd be super upset too!
 
Oh No! So sorry. ;(
It looks like a beautiful opal!

I do macrophotography of my FCDs on top of my grand piano, which is my only large clean horizontal surface of the perfect height.
Once I dropped my tiny 0.10 ct Fancy Red Diamond and it took forever to find it on my Persian under the piano.
The rug has colorful patterns that are very tiny, intricate, and detailed - the perfect camouflage for a tiny dot of color.

Fortunately there was no damage to the diamond, just to my heart muscle and lifespan. :(sad

Did your opal fall on a hard surface like concrete or tile?
If so, maybe in the future you could place a large rug, of a light solid color, under where you are photographing your gems.
 
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It fell on the cement. Is that hard? :lol-2:

I also dropped two itty bitty 1.3mm rubies this week on the floor and shockingly couldn't find them. Not a good week for me and gems.
 
PinkAndBlueBling said:
It fell on the cement. Is that hard? :lol-2:

I also dropped two itty bitty 1.3mm rubies this week on the floor and shockingly couldn't find them. Not a good week for me and gems.
Click to expand...

I finally found my lost diamond by waiting till night time, turning off all the lights.
Then in the dark room I held a bright flashlight half an inch above the rug and slowly rotating it so the beam swept over the area of the rug where it fell.

It worked like a charm.
I spotted the sparkle of the diamond on the first rotation. :dance:
 
I have two opals that now live in the partial gap between my old floorboards and the wall. It took effort for them to bounce just so. Both of them. They were really nice examples of Ethiopians.
They live there forever now.
I look at the gap they fell into sometimes.
 
ItsMainelyYou said:
I have two opals that now live in the partial gap between my old floorboards and the wall. It took effort for them to bounce just so. Both of them. They were really nice examples of Ethiopians.
They live there forever now.
I look at the gap they fell into sometimes.
Click to expand...

If they got down there, they can get out.
I'd try to suck it out with one of those hand held vacuums with a plastic nozzle.

If they fell too deep for this to work I'd next duct tape plastic tubing to the vacuum's opening and gently, slowly move the tube in the gap where you think they are resting.
I would not insert the tube so far that it touches the bottom of the gap since that might slide the gems to a place where they can fall out of reach.
I'd learn how deep to insert the tube so it touches bottom then lift it half an inch.
Then slowly carefully slide it along the gap.

Better yet I'd first use a dental mirror and flashlight to establish exactly where they are located in that gap. Then mark the location with a pencil or sharpie.

Good luck.

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My mother “does” diamonds. She has destroyed three to date. The first one my mother actually put in the rubbish! The second one was ”just” a chip so that was bezel set into a pendant and the third one I have. 32C09BF1-E013-4DBA-8126-BDAEE18A8E6D.jpeg
 
I hid my first stud pair of earrings well - too well. I had them in an inexpensive watch case. A year later I went on an intense Marie Kondo kick and threw out everything that didn’t bring me joy. The watch case didn’t bring me joy and so threw it out. The next day early morning I realized what I did but garbage pickup happened to come by at 7:30am ( which rarely happens. Just the laws of the universe I suppose) and off my stud earrings went to no mans land. That was several years ago and I finally got new stud earrings last year. I’m definitely more conscious of where I place them this time around!
 
The diamond in the middle of my diamonds by the yard necklace that sees the most wear from my key pendant is MIA. Just a little bezel circle where it used to be - noticed last night.
 
Thank you for the well wishes and help @kenny and @lambskin, that's very kind.
It gets better...here's the kicker
I tried to do both of those and some other MacGyver shenanigans, except it turns out the edge of the floor opens onto/into the foundation wall of granite stones. They fell in between the gaps down in this wall in the basement! Because, of course.
They are going to spend the next hundred years in their new dark little home.
They done runned off.
DH did repair the gap after the incident(as DH has taken to calling it), so at least it won't happen again.:lol:
 
My daughter broke my original engagement ring. She was around 3 & twirling it on her finger when it flung off & landed on the slate kitchen floor. It's quads of invisible set diamonds & one diamond cracked the one next to it. I noticed when i saw one of the stones looked greasy & ran my finger over it & it felt rough. Insurance wrote it off as not practical for daily wear & said it wasn't cost effective to repair. They let me keep it for sentimentality but I never wear it. One hard knock & the cracked stone will be out, the other 3 following shortly after. It's the bottom left stone in the centre quad. The top edge has a sliver missing where it touches the stone above, which makes it look milky.

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Aww I am so sorry @PinkAndBlueBling. Gentle (((hugs))).
I wonder if a talented artisan could polish it and make it into a beautiful albeit smaller opal?
@jordyonbass is that possible to do?
 
missy said:
Aww I am so sorry @PinkAndBlueBling. Gentle (((hugs))).
I wonder if a talented artisan could polish it and make it into a beautiful albeit smaller opal?
@jordyonbass is that possible to do?
Click to expand...

It's possible, but if it's been dropped and broken on concrete it may have gotten microscopic crazing and have further issues into the future - much like a lot of gems that crack from a solid impact with something hard.
 
I have this pair of earrings that has 3 tiny diamonds in a gold ring - the diamonds were sentimental to me so when I scrapped their original setting and harvested the centre stone I used the 3 small diamonds to make earrings.

I dropped one earring the other day and now one of the stones has a massive crack in it and the other is chipped almost in half :(
 
An Apatite broke when it was being set. It was an expensive stone, however, I really liked the colour.

DK :(2
 
When I was new at making jewelry, I cracked more than a few stones.
It's always heart stopping.

I ruined a perfectly gorgeous Mexican fire opal by putting too much pressure on a prong while setting it. The girdle chipped and the interior is now fractured. Live and learn!
 
jordyonbass said:
It's possible, but if it's been dropped and broken on concrete it may have gotten microscopic crazing and have further issues into the future - much like a lot of gems that crack from a solid impact with something hard.
Click to expand...

Aww that’s too bad.

@PinkAndBlueBling I am so sorry. Perhaps you can replace it with another lovely Opal? I find when I lose or break something it helps the sting of loss if I can find an equally lovely with which to to replace it.
 
I cracked my opal engagement ring after 20 years of pampering and daily wear when I hit a file cabinet corner at work. I figured it had served its time!

I have a ring with 6 tiny cabochon sapphires and noticed one was missing. A day later, my husband noticed "something" in the kitchen sink and there it was!
 
Well, I put the opal on the table and it was chucked across the floor by my evil/sweet cat who loves to knock everything on the floor in what I believe to be a constant attempt to kill the dogs. I'm so over it.

I bought the opal from @jordyonbass Sorry, dude. I'm a horrible gem mom.
 
Aww I’m so sorry. I cracked an opal in my late grandmother’s hideous opal crown ring years ago. It was so sad...
If you were going to list it then perhaps it wasn’t the stone for you anyway. But still stinks.
 
i bought an aquamarine a while back and somehow cracked it internally. it had a really pretty cut, now the bottom third is cloudy from the fissure. ugh!
 
ItsMainelyYou said:
Thank you for the well wishes and help @kenny and @lambskin, that's very kind.
It gets better...here's the kicker
I tried to do both of those and some other MacGyver shenanigans, except it turns out the edge of the floor opens onto/into the foundation wall of granite stones. They fell in between the gaps down in this wall in the basement! Because, of course.
They are going to spend the next hundred years in their new dark little home.
They done runned off.
DH did repair the gap after the incident(as DH has taken to calling it), so at least it won't happen again.:lol:
Click to expand...

I am so sorry this happened and it must have been so frustrating. That being said, now that some time has passed, is it ok if I lol about it with you? The way you describe how it happened is just hilarious
 
I have a blue topaz pendant that is set in a fairly sturdy gold setting. I would clean it in my bathroom sink (with the stopper in, of course). Once I dropped it on the ceramic tile floor. It wasn't until later that I noticed the stone was cracked. It had been given to me as a gift and I felt sick thinking about what happened. This was many years ago but I don't think I ever wore that pendant again.
 
I had a yellow gold anniversary band that I used as a wedding bad. The diamonds were so gorgeous. I wanted to change everything to white gold. I took
it to my local jeweler to remake it in white gold. This is pre PS. I didn’t have a loupe then. One day I noticed that the diamonds were getting gray. They had set them touching each other..pretty much jammed in. They all chipped and cracked. I was heartbroken.
 
Omg I'm so so so sorry!!!! That is very upsetting!!!!!

I lost one diamond hoop earring in the ocean after a day at the beach. They were hefty earrings with a lot of gold and decent melee so now I've got this lone earring that just makes me sad.
 
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