Whenever I hear that a customer wants a new diamond ring, I always suggest resetting the original diamond from their engagement ring. There is no denying that diamonds seemingly shrink on us and what used to feel big originally is no longer giving the same wow factor. There are endless designs from which to choose that will change the look of your engagement ring without starting over from scratch with a new stone. Upgrading your mounting can give you a much larger ring while saving you lot of money and time!
About two weeks ago, a customer contacted me about exploring her options with upgrading her diamond. She had a classic round brilliant cut diamond on a thin micro pave band. The problem she ran into was selling her original diamond for a decent price. In order to get the carat weight that she desired for the new diamond, she would have paid double if not triple of what she had originally paid for her 1.77 carat diamond. Instead of going through the hassle of trying to sell her original diamond, we decided that a more substantial mounting would give her the larger ring feel for which she was desiring.
Left: The original engagement ring features a six-prong head and a pave shank.
Right: The center diamond was reset into a three stone engagement ring setting with flanking round brilliant cut diamonds.
I suggested a 3 stone engagement ring because they always look big! 3 stone rings are timeless. They also allow you to play around with different diamond shapes and will give you more finger coverage, which makes the ring feel larger. Why choose only one diamond when you can have three? Three stone engagement rings are my favorite styles because in my eyes, more bling is always better.
After exploring a few design ideas, the customer was very specific on wanting a symmetrical reset engagement ring. We decided that three round brilliant cut diamonds were more appealing than using fancy shapes as side stones due to her personal preference. After working together on the design concept, which included selecting the diamond ring setting remounting to incorporating pave diamonds, the final design featured a traditional claw prong cathedral design with a pave diamond accented basket. CAD (computer aided design) was used in order to render the perfect style mounting..
The new remounted diamond ring setting, which features two 0.75 ct round diamonds (1.50cttw) on either side of the center stone, now has double the carat weight and triple the size in terms finger coverage. The accenting side diamonds are non-certified round brilliant cuts that were sourced to match in color to the center stone. The final carat total weight was 3.40cttw.
If you are interested in resetting a diamond in a new mounting, please contact me or any of our jewelry experts for assistance.