Lost Dimonds from Rings -- Implications - Recomendations?

[perry]

OK, This is my 3rd and final question for the day.

So I''m expecting to need to buy an engangement ring this year or early next year (against all tradition I am not buying it untill she says "YES". I am highly optimistic and we are talking about it, and working through some issues).

2 weeks ago I spent a week on an industry wide Qaulity Audit Team fof a company who serves the specific industry I work in. This team consisted of 4 other members who I estimate were all 50+ in age (I''m somewhat younger). The audit team was directly supported by an adminstrative assistant of similar 50+ age from the company being audited. All 5 of these people had been married for decades.

During the week I mentioned that I was looking at buying my first engagement ring and did any of them have any comments or suggestions. In the ensuing discussion, over a couple of days, it came out that 4 of the 5 couples represented had lost their first diamond. 3 of them fell out of the ring, and one ring was lost. No one had theft problems. 3 of the 4 couples replaced the original daimond or ring with a smaller diamond indiacting that it was not the size of the stone that counted.

In addition, my mother lost her diamond from her ring years ago (about 5 years after having it remounted into a new setting because the original ring had wore out).

One of the concepts is that "Diamonds are Forever"; yet, it seems that long term (many decades of wear) of an engagement ring seems to be problamatic; and this informal survey downright depressing.

It would like to purchase a really nice ring and diamond, with many meanings attached. However, this information gives me pause on what it is I should purcahse. Both of us have agreed that marriage is expected to be for life; and both of us like 3 stone rings.

Any comments? Have settings gotten better, are there things that can be done now to help retain the original key stone over the decades, am I better off just buying a smaller stones from the start and expecting to have to replace them someday, and any other wisdome would be appreciated.


Perry

 

[Regular Guy]

Let me be off point, but relevant. My wife lost her diamond from her ring in June, so I've just gone through this process. We got her diamond replaced with one slightly smaller. at .9 carats vs. what may have been originally 1.04 carats, but the original was known to have a thick girdle (from an appraisal done much later) and was probably not very well cut. Certainly, in contrast, my wife finds her new diamond sparkles in ways she did not find her original to reflect light....and this despite the fact that I had been aware of the desirability of ideal cut stones, prior to my first purchase. At that time, however, I didn't have a methodology for identifying them, apart from the choice I did not opt for then, of buying a branded and pretty expensive Lazare diamond.

Also, I have had a root canal. Since then, I've been taking better care of my teeth, and I haven't had a need for a root canal since. Also, I had let my insurance policy lapse with our original diamond. I almost certainly will not do that again. Regarding maintenance...though we have no easy plan in place, since we did buy my wife's diamond from a vendor far away, I anticipate we'll have it checked for goodness of holding sometime soon, perhaps annually, where we had really never done this before.

Keep your engagement ring insured. Sleep well at night. All will be well.

Best wishes!