A friend of mine recently reached out to me about a raw sapphire necklace that had lain broken in her jewelry box “…for a year or five” as she put it. Her husband had purchased it years ago at a shop up north. The crimp edges were sharp and she said the clasp scratched her neck and she asked if I could fix it for her. She loved it and wanted to be able to wear it again.
I don’t normally take in repairs made by other artists, mainly because there is no way sometimes to know what had been done, but his necklace was pretty straightforward.
When I took the rest of the necklace apart, I saw why it had broken. A few of the sapphires were forced onto the necklace wire and had cut into it, thereby weakening the piece. Rather than fore them onto the new silver 49 stand wires, I decided to put gold beads on either side of the center gemstone. The original piece had just the crimp, with no cover and additionally they were fold over crimps. I put new gold tube crimps and gold crimp covers on, as well as gold wire guards and a new gold lobster claw clasp.
I sent her this picture and she was thrilled!
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