Advice For Buying Fine Jewelry

A bench jeweler is responsible for repairs on customer jewelry. They have gemological training but are a bit out of date on pricing, etc.

First of all, consider the term "chips". Folks often speak of little diamonds as being chips when in fact most are cut diamonds. Modern production methods almost require fairly consistent diamond shapes for quick stone setting and chips are not the ticket for that!

Bench jewelers routinely set very small stones from perhaps 1/2 point upward. A diamond of 1/2 point is 0.005 carats. In comparison, a pair of earrings with a total weight of 80 points would need 40 points per earring. If using 1/2 pointers, that would be 80 diamonds per earring! Yes, even the 1/2 point stones are cut, not chips. More than likely, earrings View the rest of this article