Colored rhodium is garbo, that plating will wear off faster than you’d think. Regular ass white rhodium is already the most expensive precious metal, 1 gram suspended in plating solution is nearly $500 COST. I’ve literally never heard of a store having anything other than white on hand.
ALLLLL of their products are only represented with 3d renderings. This is a HUGE red flag. If someone isn’t even bothering to have physical models of their products made, they have no way of guaranteeing the quality of those products. It looks snaggy as fuck, and it probably is because they never actually made one to try on!
Jesus christ imagine wearing that thing. The tongues on those snakes would be fucked IMMEDIATELY. The spikes on top of those prongs would get absolutely ruined in between ripping apart every piece of fabric you moved it near. If you ever need ONE prong retipped you’ll either have to lose the spikes on all of them, or just deal with them mismatching. That WHOLE ASS HEAD is so atypical and seated strangely that even IF you managed to wear it for years, long enough to necessitate the kind of general maintenance all jewelry eventually needs, you’ll end up getting shrugged at and told “yeah I don’t know how anyone could work on this”. Even IF you got someone to work on it, that finish is gonna need touched up, which is AGAIN, something no one outside of the manufacturer will do for a reasonable price. There’s not even a good way to strip off the existing rhodium, so you’d end up with black shit stuck in all the crevasses.
I think they’re very striking, but I swear to god y’all, my store will get at least one flyer every week from some new manufacturer with a line EXACTLY like this. Buncha whacky way-off-the-beaten-path design choices, there’s no actual pictures of anything, and the markup is frankly embarrassing. Regular ass jewelry stores like mine could have this shit custom made as a complete 1-off for LESS than what they’re selling it for, don’t buy jewelry online folks 💖
Hey, I have a jewelry question totally unrelated to the post I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind. I wanna do a custom articulated ring for my fiance (I know, please hold your applause for my incredible taste). Is this a design I should work out with a jeweler, or do I need a machinist first, and then a jeweler to pretty up whatever they come up with?
Coming from a jeweler’s perspective I’d say always start with the jeweler, but I may be a bit biased hahaha
Even if they can’t come up with the design you’re looking for, hopefully they can at least explain the limitations for such a design. From there you could have anyone with an eye for mechanical stuff take a crack at it. If you could get a 3d model of all the parts, modern casters will just print it in lost wax and cast the parts for you. Ideally the jeweler sets that up for you.
The biggest expense should be the casting. Gold is the highest it’s ever been right now, I’d recommend 10k yellow or 14k white for the strength. The actual assembly will probably be a little pricey, but a good jeweler will work out a cost by pricing individual welds and whatnot. “Assemble this custom one off ring” sounds like it should be a hugely expensive thing, but if it’s just 5 welds and a couple hinges, realistically that would only be a couple hundred as a repair job.
Holy balls, I didn’t even zoom in to look at the prongs on that serpent ring. That’s the kind of design made by someone who only ever designs shit and never has to work on the physical product. It looks cool but no one will ever bother to attempt to recreate that if they need to do maintenance. Plus I could easily see the little circles just, bending off and OOP, there goes the stone. There’s a reason prongs are designed the way they are.
Fucking design nerds 🙄 and I say that as someone with more design experience than practical experience - but at least I fucking listen to actual bench jewelers when I do my CAD work.
So, my husband is a jeweler. We recently started our own business (mostly repairs right now).
These things are largely poorly designed and way overpriced for what they are. Plus, there’s a lot of bullshit like “14k black gold”, which isn’t a thing. It’s possibly 14k white or yellow gold with black rhodium plating, which will wear off in about 2 years and need replating. And there’s one with a 1.5ish carat diamond and a few melee marquis, with no other detailing or anything particularly interesting other than the “14k black gold” bullshit, and they’re trying to sell it for over $10,000 usd. Fucking LOL. This site is trash.
whenever someone brings something to our store with worn off black rodium, we’ll do the regular clean/check/polish and then just use an industrial black marker to fill it in. we don’t charge for it, and it’ll actually last a long time if it doesn’t see heavy wear!
the alternative is spending at least $400 for something you’ll use like 4 times a year. PLUS you’ll have to charge for it, and no one wants to pay for a full rhodium just to replace what is most likely a single tiny accent of their jewelry hahahah
keep at it with the repair work, that’s the lifeblood of a good jewelry store. people like the store they bought their trendy new ring at, but they LOVE the store that made their old ring new again.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Art Masters Jewelry is amazing. Just look at this masterpiece:
More of them here: https://artmastersjewelry.com/product-category/engagement-rings/
It is pretty, but:
Colored rhodium is garbo, that plating will wear off faster than you’d think. Regular ass white rhodium is already the most expensive precious metal, 1 gram suspended in plating solution is nearly $500 COST. I’ve literally never heard of a store having anything other than white on hand.
ALLLLL of their products are only represented with 3d renderings. This is a HUGE red flag. If someone isn’t even bothering to have physical models of their products made, they have no way of guaranteeing the quality of those products. It looks snaggy as fuck, and it probably is because they never actually made one to try on!
Jesus christ imagine wearing that thing. The tongues on those snakes would be fucked IMMEDIATELY. The spikes on top of those prongs would get absolutely ruined in between ripping apart every piece of fabric you moved it near. If you ever need ONE prong retipped you’ll either have to lose the spikes on all of them, or just deal with them mismatching. That WHOLE ASS HEAD is so atypical and seated strangely that even IF you managed to wear it for years, long enough to necessitate the kind of general maintenance all jewelry eventually needs, you’ll end up getting shrugged at and told “yeah I don’t know how anyone could work on this”. Even IF you got someone to work on it, that finish is gonna need touched up, which is AGAIN, something no one outside of the manufacturer will do for a reasonable price. There’s not even a good way to strip off the existing rhodium, so you’d end up with black shit stuck in all the crevasses.
I think they’re very striking, but I swear to god y’all, my store will get at least one flyer every week from some new manufacturer with a line EXACTLY like this. Buncha whacky way-off-the-beaten-path design choices, there’s no actual pictures of anything, and the markup is frankly embarrassing. Regular ass jewelry stores like mine could have this shit custom made as a complete 1-off for LESS than what they’re selling it for, don’t buy jewelry online folks 💖
Hey, I have a jewelry question totally unrelated to the post I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind. I wanna do a custom articulated ring for my fiance (I know, please hold your applause for my incredible taste). Is this a design I should work out with a jeweler, or do I need a machinist first, and then a jeweler to pretty up whatever they come up with?
Coming from a jeweler’s perspective I’d say always start with the jeweler, but I may be a bit biased hahaha
Even if they can’t come up with the design you’re looking for, hopefully they can at least explain the limitations for such a design. From there you could have anyone with an eye for mechanical stuff take a crack at it. If you could get a 3d model of all the parts, modern casters will just print it in lost wax and cast the parts for you. Ideally the jeweler sets that up for you.
The biggest expense should be the casting. Gold is the highest it’s ever been right now, I’d recommend 10k yellow or 14k white for the strength. The actual assembly will probably be a little pricey, but a good jeweler will work out a cost by pricing individual welds and whatnot. “Assemble this custom one off ring” sounds like it should be a hugely expensive thing, but if it’s just 5 welds and a couple hinges, realistically that would only be a couple hundred as a repair job.
When I finish her ring I’m gonna get one for you too. <3
Holy balls, I didn’t even zoom in to look at the prongs on that serpent ring. That’s the kind of design made by someone who only ever designs shit and never has to work on the physical product. It looks cool but no one will ever bother to attempt to recreate that if they need to do maintenance. Plus I could easily see the little circles just, bending off and OOP, there goes the stone. There’s a reason prongs are designed the way they are.
Fucking design nerds 🙄 and I say that as someone with more design experience than practical experience - but at least I fucking listen to actual bench jewelers when I do my CAD work.
Crevices. A crevasse is a deep fissure such as in a glacier.
Yeah but crev-asses is funnier.
That would be incredibly inconvenient to wear, but I don’t think it looks terrible.
Yeah I mean come on, this is absolutely stunning /s
That ring is going to drug and rob me and be gone when I wake up in the morning
I know thats right.
Well yeah that one’s ugly.
thats gonna hurt Like hell, look at those sharp edges.
Jfc
So, my husband is a jeweler. We recently started our own business (mostly repairs right now). These things are largely poorly designed and way overpriced for what they are. Plus, there’s a lot of bullshit like “14k black gold”, which isn’t a thing. It’s possibly 14k white or yellow gold with black rhodium plating, which will wear off in about 2 years and need replating. And there’s one with a 1.5ish carat diamond and a few melee marquis, with no other detailing or anything particularly interesting other than the “14k black gold” bullshit, and they’re trying to sell it for over $10,000 usd. Fucking LOL. This site is trash.
whenever someone brings something to our store with worn off black rodium, we’ll do the regular clean/check/polish and then just use an industrial black marker to fill it in. we don’t charge for it, and it’ll actually last a long time if it doesn’t see heavy wear!
the alternative is spending at least $400 for something you’ll use like 4 times a year. PLUS you’ll have to charge for it, and no one wants to pay for a full rhodium just to replace what is most likely a single tiny accent of their jewelry hahahah
keep at it with the repair work, that’s the lifeblood of a good jewelry store. people like the store they bought their trendy new ring at, but they LOVE the store that made their old ring new again.
Ouah… 138 pages of rings ? I’ve only checked a few and didn’t find anything I found nice.
Won’t waste more of my life to see if there actually is though.