How To Find a Great Jewelry Repair Shop

What Should I look For?

Look for a great jewelry repair shop. Let me explain… a great jewelry repair shop has certain rules that they abide by. Rules that you will never find in an average or bad jewelry repair shop. These great Jewelry Repair Shop rules should be your guiding light to finding a trustworthy jewelry repair that is professional prompt, and priced properly. When you find what you’re looking for, tell them that you chose them because of the advice of experts at www.DiamondExperts.biz, where, “Fine Jewelry is Our Only Business.”

A Great Jewelry Repair Shop Rule #1

They repair the precious jewelry of their clients on site, in many cases in plain view of their clients, if time permits. Never take your fine jewelry to a store that sends out its customer’s jewelry to outside, third party jewelry repair shops. Let’s think about this scenario for a moment.

Would you take your car to a repair shop, only to find out that they are not actually performing the work? Instead, they are taking your car to another shop to be worked on? Why not just take it to the second shop in the first place right? Right!

When jewelry is farmed out, the primary concern is the communications lost in the process. Every week we hear horror stories from individuals who got their repaired jewelry back and it wasn’t what they talked about are expected. The setting was wrong. The diamond was chipped or something else made their repair experience a horrible one.

In a great jewelry repair shop, ALL repairs are done in house! Period and end of story! They don't farm out your jewelry repair to a hired hand or send it off site to some store or shop you have no knowledge of. A great jewelry repair shop has experienced, trained, educated and certified jewelry repair jewelers. That brings me to my next rule.

A Great Jewelry Repair Shop Rule #2

Anyone involved in repairing fine jewelry must b trained and certified to do so. It is incomprehensible to me to have anyone working on fine jewelry that is not qualified and certified to do so. But would you believe numerous jewelry stores allow uncertified and untrained people to perform repairs for them?

If you can’t confirm that a jewelry store has qualified jewelry repair personnel, just walk away and avoid the ensuing aggravation and frustrations. What type of certifications and training should you look for?

• Certified Diamond Cutter
• Certified Jewelry Repair and Design Technician
• Master Goldsmith
• Certified Goldsmiths
• ASJ Cert. Bench Jeweler
• ASJ Cert. Jeweler Technician
• GIA Certified Diamond Expert
• GIA Graduate Gemologist

In a great jewelry repair shop, the prominently display their certifications. In ho-hum to bad jewelry repair shop, there are little to no certifications or degrees to display.

A Great Jewelry Repair Shop Rule #3

Professional jewelry repair personnel never make false promises; they state the facts and the truth! And the truth is; no jeweler can guarantee that a diamond or gemstone once taken out of their store will not scratch, fracture, chip, or break. I’ve been in the business for a while and often hear people complain about their damaged stones because they were convinced by ill-informed or shady jewelry sales rep that the diamonds purchased from their store never chip, break or scratch.

Please get this fact straight; no gemstone, including the prized diamond, can be guaranteed to be break, chip, scratch or fracture free. Jewelry pros never stretch these facts; because they know it shows a lack of integrity. If you have concerns about monetary loss due to damaged, lost or stolen fine jewelry, talk to your insurance agent about obtaining the proper coverage.

A Great Jewelry Repair Shop Rule #4

They provide their guarantee in writing and it is clear-cut. Nothing is worse than a jeweler being unclear about what they do and don’t cover. Remember this, when it comes to guarantees, don’t assume anything! Get it in writing. There are some things a professional jeweler will never agree to guarantee. Here’s my list of things a great jewelry shop would never guarantee.

• Prong-set stones that have thin prongs, missing prongs or one shorter prong on one side of the stone than the other
• Loss of any prong set stone that has three or less prongs
• Stones that are set crooked
• Gold or Rhodium plated jewelry
• Channel setting where there is no support underneath the channels to hold them together or the channel is not straight across the stone, very thin or torn,
• Jewelry that includes glued items
• Jewelry that includes any type of enameling
• Lead solders that do not have a professionally prepared special “patch” support
• If a round stone over a 1/2 carat is lost and it was not set in a six prong gold setting or a four prong Platinum setting, we will not cover it.
• We will not guarantee a piece of jewelry in which the bezel is too thin, torn, or all of the stone is not held in by the bezel.
• We will not guarantee a bead setting in which some beads are missing, badly worn or a stone is sticking up beyond the surface of the metal.

When it comes to guaranteeing the loss of gemstones, a great jewelry store will only guarantee your stone from loss for one year if it has these many prongs: [Oval Cut, 6-prongs], [Pear-shaped Cut, 5-prongs], [Trillion Cut, must have “V” prongs], [Emerald Cut, 4-prongs], [Heart Cut, 5-prongs], and the [Marquise Cut, 6 prongs].

Why would a jeweler set these types of parameters when it comes to guaranteeing fine jewelry? Because they are proven through years of experience and research. It just doesn’t compute to me that certain jewelers do something like place a client’s precious gem in 2-Prong setting and expect nothing bad to happen; that’s something a certified jeweler would never do!

A Great Jewelry Repair Shop Rule #5

A great jewelry repair shop has been in the business long enough to be seasoned at performing repairs and when it comes to pricing, they never just quote prices off the top of their heads. They have a price book that covers virtually every jewelry repair scenario.

Their quote is more than reasonable based their investment of time and the fact that they don’t use 2^nd rate parts or inferior materials to complete the job correctly. When a jeweler randomly guesses at repair prices, that means he or she is not a professional. It takes a little more time to thoroughly examine fine jewelry and price the repair in writing, but it’s worth it because it helps you avoid jewelry repair fiascos!

There you have it, those are my four rules for finding a great jewelry repair store. If they have helped you, please let me know!