I met a lovely woman at our last show named Sue. She was wearing a beautiful dark blue Victoria Stone BUT this stone was wire wrapped (I just do not want to say ugly); OK, it was a really ugly, tarnished, wire wrapped job. The primitive prong setting covered much of the pattern of this stone. I never cover a gorgeous stone with wire. I seldom say anything bad about a piece of someones’ jewelry, but in this case I had to speak up and be honest.
The ugly pendant.
No longer ugly-notice the back side is now out.
Sue’s husband had purchased the pendant at a garage sale and obviously got a good deal by his reaction when I told them what the stone was and what it was worth. I suggested that they allow me to re-wrap the stone, so that this Victoria Stone could be presented in a manner befitting it. I talked to them about Victoria Stone and its’ rarity.
They came back later and agreed that I should re-wrap this lovely stone. I agreed to do this overnight and you can see the results. I re-wrapped using .930 Argentium and 14/20 rolled gold. I noticed that the poor side of the stone was selected to be the front by the original wire wrapper hiding the side with the most chatoyancy, so I turned the stone over so the back side was now the front side in my finished pendant. I made the pendant so that if it does flip over as it is worn, it still looks good. I and Sue were delighted with the results. If you have an “ugly” wire wrapped pendant, and want results similar to Sue’s, get ahold of me.
This is the rear now with little chatoyancy. Notice it was the front on the original pendant.