SPECIAL NOTE: WE CAN REDESIGN OR RESEST YOUR ENGAGEMENT RING USING YOUR GOLD AND DIAMONDS TO CREATE ANYTHING YOU WISH, from pavé to halo to a low bezel setting perfect for your active lifestlye.
Looking to work with an awesome small artisan studio with excellent cred? Call our shop at 888-733-5238 or email info (at) reflectivejewelry.com for a FREE, no-pressure consultation. —Marc Choyt, co-owner
Updated 5/23/2022
We are a small studio of artisan jewelers, established in 1995, and based in Santa Fe NM.
We can repurpose your own gold and reset your diamonds!
Just take a look at this example, in which we reset our client's diamonds in brand new designs:
Suppose you have an old diamond or jewelry that you’re not wearing because its style doesn’t suit you. But, it has deep sentimental value — having once belonged to a beloved member of the family.
We remove gemstones, melt the gold into a new ingot, and create a new ring, pendant or earring before resetting your diamonds.
Whatever you want, we do it all! Whether it’s pavé, channel setting, unique bezel settings, vintage style engagement ring settings...even engagement ring designs for active lifestyles.
One of our jewelers works on a remounted diamond ring project.
Want to know what’s even better?
Using your own gold can save you money $$$! Gold is near record highs, and jewelers typically mark it up on top of that — but using your gold, you’ll pay only for labor.
Plus, we'll purchase your excess gold (earrings, chain, pendants, old class rings) at 93% of spot value, applying it as a credit toward your project.
If you’re not sure what you want to do, we can help you step by step.
For inspiration, check out what we’ve done below!
Resetting Diamond Ring Projects
One of our customers had a ring of her mother's that had sat in the back of her jewelry drawer for many years.
She wanted to honor that memory, but just didn’t like the ring's style:
Her mother’s ring, shown in the center, was in 14K white gold. The necklace with onyx beads was in 18K yellow gold.
She wanted a halo style with sapphire accents. I provided the sapphires, as well as a few extra diamonds. Along the way, we made several versions of CAD/CAM renderings:
One of the advantages of custom CAD/CAM rendered reset diamond projects is that you are in control of the design choices. We don’t move forward with resetting diamonds into a new ring until you approve!
Here’s a top-down view of the final result:
You may be wondering, how much does it cost to reset a diamond ring?
Here’s the kicker:
In this case, diamond resetting cost was offset by the extra 18K yellow gold necklace, which we paid 93% of spot price for.
The cost to reset diamonds in a ring such as this would run about $1600 to $1800 — before the additional cost of gemstones we provided.
In this resetting diamonds project, she saved about $1500 by using her own gold!
[ Want to know how much your reset diamond ring project might cost? Give me a call at 888-733-5238, or email info (at) reflectivejewelry.com. There's no obligation whatsoever! ]
Custom Diamond Resetting Projects
Here’s what really sets us apart:
While the ring above was created using CAD/CAM, many of our reset diamond jobs are actually performed with traditional handworking methods.
Our four jewelers have over NINETY years of design and fabrication experience, which gives us a huge capacity to complete diamond resetting projects.
If we are creating a design entirely from scratch using hand fabrication, we’ll work with a sketch to create the final product.
Resetting Diamond Rings with Ethical Fairtrade Gold
One of the most important concerns these days is ethical sourcing. Many people want the sourcing of their ring to match its noble symbolism.
One of our clients had three diamonds that had been passed down over generations.
And after much consulting, we created this mock-up for her:
Why did she choose us for this project?
One big reason is because we were able to reset her heirloom diamonds in Fairtrade Gold.
We are the only certified Fairtrade Gold jeweler in the entire USA — though there are over 300 in the UK alone!
This short video shows her receiving her ring:
Remounting Diamonds Using Our Designs and Your Gold
This design below also involved resetting diamonds into a new ring using one of our in-house designs. The reset diamond choice was a variation of one of our rings, the Donegal.
A reset engagement ring before and after! We used our client's gold (shown left) and diamond (not shown) to create the ring on the right.
One advantage of using designs from our website is that it helps cut down on your reset diamond ring cost, because we don’t have to do product development.
This next project resetting a diamond into a new ring again involved modifying one of our designs — what we call the open mount style.
This low profile bezel set ring is a great engagement ring for your active lifestyle. We can modify the side borders and design in any way — see more variations here.
And here’s one more example using one of our designs: the Liana style, which is another popular choice. We used our customer's white and yellow gold for this project, plus her diamonds.
What a profound difference in the before and after photo!
The reset diamond ring cost for this project was $1200. But without her diamonds and gold, the cost of this ring would have been over $5000.
Resetting Diamonds to Combine Two Rings Into One
Some of our most heartfelt redesigns involve resetting diamond ring projects after loss of a beloved spouse.
In the first example, our client (a recent widow) wanted to create a design that conveyed a simultaneous wholeness and loss.
She brought us a tear-shaped diamond from her engagement ring, and we worked on initial renderings:
Here’s the final result, showing the gold we used on the left (after we removed her diamonds) and her completed diamond ring on the right:
Below, a gentleman wanted to take his late wife’s diamond, her gold ring, and his wedding ring and combine them all into a new ring.
We made this piece entirely by hand in our shop.
[ Like what you see? There’s no time like the present! If you’d like to speak with me about combining two rings into one — or any other reset diamond or custom jewelry project — give me a call at 888-733-5238 or email info (at) reflectivejewelry.com ]
Designer Reset Diamond Ring Projects
In this next case we started with a pair of old signet rings, and the customer purchased a lab grown diamond:
Sometimes, the question we get from customers is: “I have a diamond but need a setting.” And other times, it’s the other way around! In either case, we can help you design or redesign a diamond ring.
With this next diamond ring redesign, we brainstormed quite a bit — starting from this image of part of a ring that was sent to us:
She wanted to put her round diamond in a square, set on the diagonal.
The next photo shows the ring we started from on the left, and the final design on the right:
The cost for resetting this diamond ring was $750.
Here’s the key point:
We can work with even crude drawing, images, or concepts. In our 26 years of business, we’ve done it all.
How We Start A Reset Diamond Job Using Your Gold: Two Methods
How are we able to successfully complete remounted diamond projects of such a wide variety?
This brief section will tell you what you want to know!
All these repurposing jewelry projects start with us removing existing stones. And then...FIRE! This short vid shows us actually melting old rings into an ingot:
Clearly, Delta (Master Goldsmith Michelle’s dog) is very impressed with this process!
From there, we can work with a wax model off a computer CAD/CAM system, creating renderings, waxes, and a final product that allows us to reset stones in rings of any sort…as shown below:
When we reet this diamond, we first created wax models of the ring setting and band — shown above on the left. Then we combined the two, and set the stone (right).
Here’s a closer look at the diamond resetting itself:
But here’s what really sets us apart:
Though CAD/CAM can be very useful — as demonstrated above — we are also artisan makers, using old style Southwestern jewelry methods passed down for hundreds of years.
If you want to learn more, check out this video shot inside our studio.
Once we’ve melted down your gold into an ingot, we have to roll it through a mill. Below is a photo that shows some of the process how we create an engagement ring:
This kind of reset diamond ring project involves massive skill — we actually manufacture the wire ourselves (seen in the middle photo above) to shape and form the ring.
Using Old Diamonds in a New Ring: Next Steps
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Our Santa Fe, NM Gallery. 2021, is our 26th year in business. Check out our 165+ 5-Star Google reviews.
It’s easy to get started! Though our studio is in Santa Fe, NM, we work with people from all over the country. If you are looking to reset diamonds in Albuquerque or Santa Fe, the best thing to do is come by our shop (address below.)
If you’re not in the area or and want to start right now, email me with photos of what you have at Marc (at) Reflectivejewelry.com, or call us at 1-888-733-5238. From there, we’ll talk, email, or set up a Zoom call to make sure you get precisely what you want with your diamond resetting.
You can also learn more about our custom jewelry design process and fill out a form here.
We recommend USPS when sending us your material. Our noble postman stops by our store every day, and it's easy for us to sign for packages. Send the material to:
Marc Choyt
Reflective Jewelry
912 Baca Street
Santa Fe, NM 87505
Looking forward to working with you!
Marc Choyt is president of Reflective Jewelry, a designer jewelry company founded in 1995. He pioneered the ethical sourcing movement in North America and is also the only certified Fairtrade Gold jeweler in the United States. Choyt’s company was named Santa Fe New Mexico’s Green Business of the Year in 2019, and he has been honored with several awards for his efforts to support ethical jewelry. His ebook, Ethical Jewelry Exposé: Lies, Damn Lies and Conflict Free Diamonds, is available online. Choyt can be reached on Twitter at @Circlemanifesto or by email at marc(at)reflectivejewelry.com.