Replacing my damaged star sapphire with Jewelers Mutual

[Dreamer_D]

Behold my tale of woe (it does have a happy ending though).

As some of you may recall, back in March of this year I purchased a star sapphire from Finewater Gems to set in a ring to celebrate my recent promotion to full professor. You can read the story here: Star Sapphire Ring Project

My sapphire was a lovely oval about 4ct and purplish-pink in color. Gary bought it in Sri Lanka during a buying trip as a favour to one of his buyers.






The star was very bold and showed itself with even the slightest hint of light.



I decided to set the gem locally because I didn’t feel like I had the stamina to go through the long-distance custom process again. It’s just so hard to communicate about design long distance. The local jewellers hand forged their rings in house and they had a sample in hand that I liked so I went for it.

Just four weeks later I had the ring in hand and I took photos to share here on PS.



Unfortunately, I didn’t get to enjoy my ring for very long. The very next day I noticed that the sapphire was damaged.

 

[mustangchi]

Oh no so sorry this happened to you, how did they damage it?

 

[Dreamer_D]

When I was out for lunch with my friend a couple days after getting my ring, I noticed a strange reflection in the light and a dark mark that I hadn’t remembered seeing when it was loose. I louped the stone when I got home and my stomach dropped. This is what I saw.



A smash and a crack, where an internal natural broke the surface. And worse, though you can’t see it easily in the photos, in person and with the sunlight shining down on the stone from above you could see that the stone had a large internal cleavage where the red outline is below.



I can look at these photos now, but when it first happened it was so heartbreaking I deleted them from my phone! I only have copies because of what I did next: I email Gary to ask his opinion. What was I seeing? Could it be fixed?

He confirmed that the stone was damaged, maybe during setting but who really knows for sure, and that it could possibly be polished out but the gem would lose weight. And no he didn’t offer that service.

His advice, and maybe advice many of you would offer too, was not to loupe your gems and just live with it if you can. And make an insurance claim if you can’t.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I sat with these options for nearly three weeks.

For the first week I just put the ring in a drawer, I couldn’t even look at it I was so upset about the situation!

Then I tried just living with it. But I just couldn’t. The setting felt tainted by the possibility that its maker had damaged my gem and kept the information from me, and I couldn’t just reset the stone because the damage was so apparent in bright sunlight — the exact lighting conditions where a star sapphire is meant to be appreciated. So I gradually came around to the conclusion that I needed to make an insurance claim.

I sure didn’t want to! I had never made a claim before and I didn’t know exactly what to expect! But I knew it would be a long and probably stressful process. Was it worth it?

 

[Dreamer_D]

One morning I woke up with a sense of clarity and without allowing myself any time for anticipatory stress and anxiety, I logged into my Jewelers Mutual account online and clicked the link to make a claim.

For that first step I just had to submit a brief paragraph describing the issue… loss or damage etc.

A day later I received an email requesting a formal written statement regarding my claim. In particular they wanted to know the nature of the damage and the exact date and time I noticed the damage. I wrote about a page of text describing when I noticed the damage, including a copy of the email I sent to Gary which documented the date I noticed the damage and a link to my thread in pricescope which documented that I had not known about the damage the previous day. I also sent my macro photos showing the damage.

About a week later I was contacted by my claims adjuster who let me know that my claim had been approved and that I could go ahead and replace or repair my damaged star sapphire. If I chose repair and it resulted in a decrease in the value of the gem, then my insurance would reimburse me for the difference. If I chose replace, then I had up to the limit of my insured value to purchase a gem of like kind and quality.

In total it took about two weeks from the time I submitted my claim until I got approval.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I decided I did not want to attempt a repolish. With the internal cleavage I thought the gem would lose too much weight for my preference. And there was a sizeable natural below the surface reaching crack that would be hard to work around.

So I decided I was going to look for a replacement. JM asked for the name of a local jeweler I would work with, so I went around town and chose one who seemed reputable and who seemed to think they could help me out.

If I used this local jeweler to find my replacement gem then the jeweler would be able to bill JM directly for the gem and any setting fees, which would make my life easier. They could also call gems in for viewing for me.

But we all know how hard it is for a Brick and Mortar store to satisfy a PSer lol Maybe if I had bought a diamond this would have been a more promising prospect. I could order an MRB by the numbers, easy peasy.

However, I did also have the option of buying a replacement gem myself and then submitting receipts to JM to get reimbursed. But obviously that carries its own risks and annoyances and costs, especially as a Canadian who is primarily familiar with US vendors.

I also knew it was going to be a Royal PITA to find a replacement star sapphire. I didn’t see any on offer from any of the vendors I knew. And from reading on here I knew these were very rare gemstones, especially higher quality specimens.

However, I remembered that JM had a policy that allowed you to purchase something different than what you had originally, if you wanted to.




I just didn’t have the stomach for a long drawn out hunt at that point, so I contacted Gary to see what he might have available in my budget…. Or what I thought at that time was my budget anyway (yes, this is foreshadowing!)

I narrowed it down to this amazing spinel. It was under the limit of my policy ($7k Canadian, or about $4800 USD), so it should work right?



Wrong. When I submitted the invoice to JM for pre-approval of my purchase (I had previously established that this was the way to go), they informed me that isn’t how it works. I cannot automatically spend the entirety of my policy limit on whatever I like. I need to first establish what a like kind replacement would cost — even if there wasn’t such a specimen to be found, I needed an estimate. And even then, if I chose to get a different type of gemstone then my policy would not cover the cost of setting the gem. I suppose because it was my choice to get a gem of a different shape. If I found a star sapphire and it was a different shape my policy would cover the setting costs.

The setting issue mattered in this case because my original setting was a thick, hand forged bezel that cost me more than my original star sapphire. And it would not work with a gem of a different shape. And I didn’t want to spend out of pocket for a new setting (ha! So naive I was. More foreshadowing).

So I was back at square 1 in my search. Gary was incredibly gracious about me wasting his time on the spinel. I highly recommend Finewater Gems.

 

[monarch64]

So sorry this happened. I’m unclear on the final outcome, though.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I haven’t finished writing the story! To be continued.

 

[Dreamer_D]

So now I knew I needed to try to find a replacement star sapphire if I wanted to have the setting costs covered, so I asked the local jeweler to start looking. At the same time, I started calling up vendors who were recommended in PS.

I contacted Star Ruby about a gem on their site that seemed promising and they sent the video I requested immediately. Unfortunately the gem was totally opaque and when I emailed back asking if they could recommend any other stones, I never got a reply

I reached out to multicolor as well and asked about a stone they had listed, but again it was completely opaque in the videos that they sent me. I’m this case, David Weinberg replied to my query about other options they might have an informed me that supply was very very limited these days because of changes that here happening in the trade — many suppliers in India are shifting to selling direct to the public and also buyers in Asia are increasing demand. He said a gem like I was looking for would be big money these days.

Brad at the gem trader was also very nice but didn’t have any inventory.

I toyed with ordering something from the Natural Sapphire company but the prices were so high and I wasn’t impressed with the stock… plus I’d read so many mixed things here about them.

At this point I felt a little at a loss. About six weeks had gone by since my search had begun and I had nothing to show for it. I gave my local jeweler about a month more to come up with something — I felt I owed them a chance because they had spent some time helping me finalize approval for my claim with JM. But in the end they told me their suppliers could not locate a single star sapphire that met my requirements in all of Canada or the US. And they weren’t having much luck internationally either.

I was feeling pretty depressed by the whole situation at this point.

And then I remembered that I had seen some star sapphires in Cecile Raley Designs Etsy store in the past. And I had made a small purchase from Yvonne in the past that I was happy about. So I sent her a message through her Etsy. And that is when things started to look up.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Yvonne replied very quickly and asked my budget and desired specs. She had some concerns about finding what I wanted in my budget, and told me about the same market dynamics that David had mentioned earlier. I know we have been talking about price increases a lot on PS in the last few years, but Yvonne mentioned that they seem to be affecting star sapphires even more than some other gems. Already rare, it seems now that most are being sold into other channels and are not reaching the US and Canadian market anymore, unless you are a consumer who is comfortable buying on IG direct from source, which was not an option for me with this purchase. This helps explain why my local jeweler couldn’t locate any through her mass-market connections.

However, Yvonne thought she might be able to locate some old stock through one of her connections. An hour later she messaged to let me know that she might have something for me. The next day she sent me this image that her supplier had of a gem from his inventory. Pinkish purple, 4ct. Could be promising?



We agreed that it was worth it for Yvonne to call it in so she could examine it and take some more photos and video for me.

And a couple days later she sent me these photos and a video.













I was a little underwhelmed. These were not glamour shots that’s for sure! There seemed to be a visible dark inclusion and areas of visible silk. But Yvonne and I discussed these concerns and she gave what I thought at the time was a very honest description of the gem. These flaws were not particularly visible in real life, star sapphires must have silk to create the star and this gem did not have overly much, the star was centered and complete. The color was very pleasing. And most important of all, this was it! Yvonne told me there were no other better options in my budget through all her connections, and sometimes we need to factor that type of thing into the equation when evaluating a gem. And I knew this was true. I wasn’t having any luck finding anything through other avenues.

Most importantly, the video was really pretty.

I was still anxious about pulling the trigger. Cross border shipping was a hassle and costly if I wanted to make a return. But I silenced my inner perfectionist by reminding myself that I was not in fact searching for the most perfect star sapphire in the world. I was searching for something similar to my damaged stone. And my damaged stone was not perfect! It was more translucent than transparent and it greyed out a little in the sun. And star sapphires are weird little beasties and there are always compromises. So I bit the bullet, submitted the invoice to JM for approval, which they granted within 24 hours, and then made the purchase on my credit card.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I shouldn’t have worried. It was love at first sight when I opened the package.

This little gem is rounded and lovely and glows beautifully in the light. It shifts from a soft pink to a deep purple depending on the light source. It is transparent through much of its body— so much that you can see the natural on the bottom of the gem reflecting through its body, which causes this almost electric pink color when the sun hits it. There is a cloud of silk in one quadrant that floats within the transparent body like a cloud, but you can only really see it in magnified photos. The dome is high and round like a little jelly bean, which I love. The star is centered and complete and strong, though not as strong as my damaged star.

It is also nearly impossible to photograph there is a weird optical illusion where viewing the gem through the camera lens makes one of the legs appear broken, whereas though two eyes the legs are straight and complete.

Regardless, I love her. I had Yvonne send her to AGL. Here is the report— note the comment about the pink - purple color shift! Which is pretty cool.



Photos galore in the next post

 

[Dreamer_D]

Here you can see how one of the legs looks broken in pictures… in person the star looks complete. It’s really weird.

 

[Dreamer_D]

The neon pink in the right of this picture is what I was taking about earlier, how the natural in the bottom of the stone reflects though the translucent body creating this cool glow.

 

[Dreamer_D]

This one is most accurate to how the gem looks in person but the star is more evident in person.

 

[Dreamer_D]

And a video I took.

At this point I had to send JM the damaged sapphire as salvage, and as soon as I sent them the paid invoice from Yvonne along with the shipping tracking number for the damaged sapphire, they issued me a check to cover my costs, including all my shipping fees.

(To be continued)

 

[Lisa Loves Shiny]

The new star sapphire is so lively! I can't wait to see it set in the bezel- it is going to be even more beautiful. Thank you for sharing your journey.

 

[Avondale]

Reading through this story was a treat and the new gem was the cherry on top! It's sad that your original star sapphire was damaged, but if I'm fully honest, I like the new one even better. A lot better, actually! That bright pop of pink you see in sunlight only adds to the magic. Have you checked it with a UV torch to see if it fluoresces? I have a strong suspicion it might, given there's a colour shift.

 

[Catmom]

I'm so sorry about your original stone. I have felt that total stomach dip when you realize there's something wrong after setting. Your new star sapphire looks like a wonderful replacement and I can't wait to see it set!

 

[elizat]

I'm so sorry about your original stone. I have felt that total stomach dip when you realize there's something wrong after setting. Your new star sapphire looks like a wonderful replacement and I can't wait to see it set!

I agree! That's such a shame about the damage, but the replacement is very pretty. I really like the setting you picked too. The yellow gold is very rich looking. You'll have to do an entire redo of the setting as well?

 

[Dreamer_D]

Thanks for all the commiseration and compliments about the new sapphire. I agree that it is gorgeous and I feel very lucky that Yvonne was able to find it for me. There were many moments of despair along the way!

And the stone is set already and in the mail! I will get it on Monday. I went a completely different direction from the original and it is beyond gorgeous. I’ll share all the details as soon as I get a chance.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Reading through this story was a treat and the new gem was the cherry on top! It's sad that your original star sapphire was damaged, but if I'm fully honest, I like the new one even better. A lot better, actually! That bright pop of pink you see in sunlight only adds to the magic. Have you checked it with a UV torch to see if it fluoresces? I have a strong suspicion it might, given there's a colour shift.

I agree, this gem is even prettier than my original Because there wasn’t actually any choice in my selection — this was literally the only option I was able to locate after contacting about 8 different vendors over a 2-3 month period— I’m just lucky it turned out that way. The transparency of the gem and that interesting pink flow really give it some life. And the star is quite different. My original had a very strong star but because the gem was more included, the star was more in the surface. In my new one the star permeates deep into the sapphire. The almost round shape and the nice round high dome are also a plus; my previous had quite a flat top. It’s very beautiful.

I can only imagine what the truly top quality gems look like mine still has a quadrant that is more included, so it’s not completely transparent as the top top gems can be (well, never completely transparent because the silk is what makes the star, but top top gems are still more transparent than mine). Those top gems must be mesmerizing.

Some day I would love to own a 20+ carat high quality star sapphire. You can just get lost in them. I doubt I ever will but one can dream!

 

[Starstruck8]

And the star is quite different. My original had a very strong star but because the gem was more included, the star was more in the surface. In my new one the star permeates deep into the sapphire.

Yes! That's what I call the 'silver curtain'. There has to be just the right amount of silk - too much, the star is on the surface, too little, the star is weak.

Have you checked it with a UV torch to see if it fluoresces? I have a strong suspicion it might, given there's a colour shift.

I'd almost bet my life on it.

Because there wasn’t actually any choice in my selection — this was literally the only option I was able to locate after contacting about 8 different vendors over a 2-3 month period

This is interesting. It matches my experience. They seem to have become very scarce, even compared with just 5 years ago. Not sure why. The stories you were told - sold privately, going to Asian customers - seem sorta plausible. India and China are getting richer. But are these Asian customers really willing to pay so more for star stones than Westerners that it doesn't pay Western dealers to stock them? I don't know.

Another story I've come across is that star stones can be heated to dissolve the silk and make them facetable. Against that, good quality star stones aren't exactly inexpensive...

Some day I would love to own a 20+ carat high quality star sapphire.

So would I! I would love a top quality star stone of any reasonable size. But I don't think it's going to happen. I have a fair collection (which I have shown before). But only one that I would approaches good quality and none that are top quality.

Your stone is fascinating and magical. Enjoy it! I'm waiting with bated breath to see the setting.

5-Nov-23

 

[Dreamer_D]

@Starstruck8 I have seen you write about the silver curtain effect and I thought that’s what might be going on here, thanks for confirming!

And I think I will have to get a UV torch now! It sounds like a fun tool to have anyway.

Re: Pricing. I suspect the main factor we haven’t touched on yet is demand. Star stones are not very popular. It’s funny because in many cases rarity increases demand, especially by the types of collectors we see in PS. But I guess there’s a point where rarity gets so extreme that it’s a turn off for buyers. I recall some PSers in Asia have spent years hunting for a nice specimen, even with the greater access to markets that they enjoy for my part, I think in future I would follow advice I saw in the star sapphire thread and stick to the vintage and antique market… though even there I did not see many pinks and mostly grey blues.

Which gem in your collection do you consider to be your best quality?

 

[Starstruck8]

I think in future I would follow advice I saw in the star sapphire thread and stick to the vintage and antique market… though even there I did not see many pinks and mostly grey blues.

Yes, that's pretty much my experience - lots of 'denim' blues, not much else.

I suspect the main factor we haven’t touched on yet is demand. Star stones are not very popular. It’s funny because in many cases rarity increases demand, especially by the types of collectors we see in PS. But I guess there’s a point where rarity gets so extreme that it’s a turn off for buyers.

Good point. It's vicious circle. Customers don't ask for them, so dealers don't stock them, so potential customers don't get to see them etc.

Which gem in your collection do you consider to be your best quality?

This purple one:

Great colour and translucency. But weak star. Not strong enough to show the 'silver curtain'. Like yours, it has the magic. But it does not quite count as 'good', IMO.

It does fluoresce, as I'm sure yours will:

 

[Dreamer_D]

Nov 4, 2023

Back to the story!

We were just talking about how star sapphires have increased in price lately. My search is a perfect example, because it turned out that I was dramatically underinsured to replace and set my damaged sapphire, even though only a few months had passed since my original purchase.

After purchasing my new sapphire I had only about $1300 USD remaining in my policy to cover the setting. If I was just swapping one calibrated gem for another in a prong setting this would not be a problem.

However, my original setting was a very heavy, hand forged, 18k gold piece that cost far more than what I had remaining. On top of that, because it was a bezel, the whole head would need to be remade to accommodate the new gem, which was a totally different shape than the original. And on top of that, the gold allloy was an unusual greenish shade that would have been difficult to match. And I did not want a frankenring!

I am also totally soured on bezels. I don’t know if I will even have one again. Too much risk to the gem.

Because I bought my new star sapphire from Yvonne, and I have always loved her design aesthetic, I decided that I wanted to have her make my new setting.

First I asked her to provide me with a quote to set my new sapphire into my current setting, reusing the current shank if possible, but using hand fabrication methods. Then I submitted that quote to JM for pre-approval, which they granted. That quoted price then became the budget I had to spend on a new setting of my choice. Of course, it was far more than I had left to spend given my policy limit. So practically speaking my budget was still just $1300 plus whatever blood I could squeeze from the stone of my pocket book!

So i began looking through Yvonne’s catalogue of CAD and cast settings. I was hoping to find something by that would not require much adaptation for my stone. I still didn’t want to go through a truly custom process!!

 

[Dreamer_D]

I considered a few of Yvonne’s more ornate halos designs. I wanted color for this new ring!!






But I ended up nixing a halo because my gem was already quite large and I knew I wanted something comfortable to wear on my right hand. I want to wear it on my right middle finger, which is a very large size, so I had real estate. But I didn’t want the shelf of the halo to catch on things.

But Yvonne also had this pretty ring on her site (it’s still available now) which I just kept coming back to again and again. And I thought it could really work well with my star.



So that was the inspiration for my new ring! I thought it would be very easy to just tweak it and plop my gem into it. But the process was a bit more involved. I paid the CAD fee and a few weeks later I got the first CAD. Which was… a little surprising? I’m not sure where our lines got crossed but they got crossed somewhere! This design is pretty cool though. Just not what I wanted.


When I said I didn’t want a bezel and wanted prongs instead, this took a little back and forth to convince Yvonne this was a good idea. I had seen some images of prong set cabochons and they were very pretty. I provided a couple images to Yvonne to explain what I was after, and she agreed to give it a try.



The next round of CADs was closer but still something was off in the basket. We were clearly still not in the same page about what I was after. This is the aspect of custom design I find hard. Things I might think are obvious in my mind aren’t obvious to another person, and it’s hard to know what assumptions each of you is making.


So this time I took the most recent iteration of the CADs and I used photoshop to alter the ring so it looked like I wanted and added little inspiration images for each key feature I was after.

When she saw this, Yvonne was like, “Oh so you want a halo”. Which is not how I would describe what I was after but again, this is how it’s hard to communicate sometimes about ideas like this for me. I know this isn’t a Yvonne issue because there were similar growing pains in the design process with Caysie. I sent a couple more inspiration images just to make my desires clear.

The next round of CADs looked good! So I approved them!


Up next: picking the side stones!

 

[Dreamer_D]

Yvonne sent me these pictures of my sapphire with some marquise and rounds that she has on hand that she thought might work.






Yvonne preferred the pink marquise over the purple because there was more contrast and I agreed. But I wondered if we could add a third color for the little rounds rather than purple. I suggested blue because I had really liked how the star looked with a blue sapphire I own, when I had it at home with me. Yvonne thought it was worth exploring and sent me some pics. We both thought it looked great. She included a 14k yellow gold ring in the pics so we could see how the yellow gold would look— it was another color in the palette after all. But my ring will be 18k gold.







We both really liked how it looked so I said, Go for it! These are basically all my favourite colors.

 

[Dreamer_D]

On Wednesday Yvonne sent me photos of the finished ring, which I adored. I paid in full, submitted my invoices to JM, who issued me a check for the remaining value of my policy, and then I closed my claim!! At long last.

I noticed the damage at the end of April 2023 and closed my claim at the end of October 2023. Six long months. I’m so glad it’s over and I’m so glad to have such a beautiful ring in the end. Yvonne was a pleasure to work with. We communicated easily and she kept me posted on progress every time I emailed for an update. I will definitely work with her again. JM was easy to deal with and supported my desire to handle this replacement myself. Will be keeping my insurance going forward!

All told this replacement ended up costing me about $1000 CAN out of pocket, $500 of which was my deductible. But all the stress and the added cost feels worth it. I love this new ring so much.

And now what we have all been waiting for. My finished ring. It arrives Monday. I can’t wait to wear it.






FIN

 

[Catmom]

Oh it's so gorgeous! I can't wait to see your pictures and it on your hand.

 

[Timor]

What a journey! It was such a shame about the original stone, and I did love that thick bezel you had. But the new stone and new setting is so pretty I think it might have been for the better after all. (except for all the hassle of course). Eagerly waiting for hand pics!