Why would a jeweler keep the old mounting after remounting a ring?

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Mrs. Gottrocks Over The Counter Advice in its 7th Year! OVER THE COUNTER ADVICE™ FROM MRS. GOTTROCKS

HELP! THE JEWELER KEPT MY OLD MOUNTING!

You took your ring in to have the stones remounted, and you got a beautiful new setting for your stones...but what became of your old one? Did you get ripped off? Maybe we can help with some information on standard jewelers practices.

Unless you discuss it up front, your old mountings usually become part of a scrap pile belonging to the jewelry technician who actually did the remount work. These "bench jewelers" need small pieces of gold to repair and size rings, and old mountings provide a good source of these. Periodically, if the price of gold warrants it, the unusable scraps are salvaged and sent off to be refined to provide either new casting stock, supplies, or cash.

Thinking that you might keep that scrap gold mounting for yourself? You are certainly entitled to. But remember, when the bench jeweler keeps your scrap gold, he isn't ripping you off. Most jewelers fairly price their work and their inventory based in part on how much scrap they will collect. If you want the mounting back, you need to make that clear up front, before the work is priced out so they can take this into account.

Also, it often takes at least a year's worth of scrap collecting for your jeweler to get enough to make refining worth the trouble, and sometimes the price of gold fluctuates and they have to sit on the scrap for a long time in order to get fair value for it. The refiner also takes a percentage of the gold as a fee, and most refiners won't take gold from you unless you are associated with a reputable jewelry business and have the proper business paper work.

So you can ask to keep that scrap gold, but often it just isn't as practical as you'd think. It's like the guy who asks for a huge trade in on his raggedy old car and feels great when he gets it, but doesn't realize in the mind of the salesman, the price of every new car on the lot just went up by the same amount. You may end up with the gold, but you may never have a way to use it, and the jeweler will be forced to charge you more because if he can't collect old mountings, he'll have to buy new ones to scavenge for repairs.

We hope this information has been of assistance to you. Please feel free to email us with your questions or suggestions for future topics.