Light box reset melting down existing gold

[Septemberwedding]

Can anyone tell me if it makes sense to melt down an existing 18karat yellow gold ring to have it reset with a 1ct light box diamond. The ring has a 0.25ct solitaire but I have always wanted a 1ct. Would a jeweller be able to do this or is it more affordable for them to just remake the setting for a simple solitaire?
I’m Uk based so not sure if they tend to do this so much here.

 

[ringo865]

Might be more cost effective to find a setting you like and have your stone set into it. Most jewelers, at least here in the US, don’t really melt down your old ring and make a new ring of of it. Gold, once melted, has to be refined before using it again. Meaning, they have to add more gold and more alloy and most jewelers simply aren’t refiners. They would buy or make an empty setting and give you credit for the melt value of your ring.

So, save your ring and put something else in it, and get your lightbox diamond set in a new setting that you like for that stone.

 

[Pearl19]

Can anyone tell me if it makes sense to melt down an existing 18karat yellow gold ring to have it reset with a 1ct light box diamond. The ring has a 0.25ct solitaire but I have always wanted a 1ct. Would a jeweller be able to do this or is it more affordable for them to just remake the setting for a simple solitaire?
I’m Uk based so not sure if they tend to do this so much here.

Many jewellers in the UK will melt down or rework a customer's gold pieces. You need to go to an independent workshop or boutique, not a large chain. I suspect this is probably more expensive then choosing a new setting though, because of the stages the gold has to be recycled through. It depends on how sentimentally attached you are to the piece you want to melt down.

 

[Tartansparkles]

I had gold melted down and remade but the jeweller could only work with yellow gold, he said the alloys in white gold made it too brittle to recast (or that the recast gold was too brittle to work with). My ring doesn't have a hallmark though; for hallmarking I would have had to have sent the finished ring to the assay office and that wasn't something that was important to me.

 

[monipod]

I think it depends on your jeweller. Mine is all for recycling gold so I gave him all my unwanted 9K and 18K stuff and ended up with a chunky 20K ring for my oval. He didn't have to use any extra gold. It's a hand forged ring I should add.

For an MRB, you could probably easily find an existing setting for it which may be cheaper than the cost of remaking out of existing gold. I'd get your ring weighed and the gold valued, and get a quote to remake. My feeling is that extra gold will be needed so the exercise won't be cost effective.

Alternatively maybe you could get the head changed out to accommodate the bigger stone?

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

I was under the impression the jewler just gives you a credit for your old gold
My sister in law found someone to melt down her collection of old gold and make it into a bangle
I don't know who did it but the end result wasn't very crash hot- probably not helped by the different alloys in the mix

 

[dk168]

When I bought my 1.19ct EC back in 2004/5, I wanted our platinum wedding bands to be melted down to form part of the setting.

The cost of the new setting was off-set by the wedding bands at the time for certain.

For years I did not change the setting even though I was not keen on it due to the sentimental value attached.

However, I was reliably informed that it was highly unlikely for the bench to have melted down the wedding bands for re-use due to the risk of impurities which could weaken the new setting.

Perhaps time has moved on since then.

DK

 

[Septemberwedding]

Sounds like it would be better to just make an all new ring. I’m not hugely sentimental but I like to recycle existing materials rather than making something completely new.

 

[Dhana]

Typically they melt the gold and depending on purity offer u a value for it and subtract it from the cost of what you are buying but doesn't mean that your gold is being used in the remake.