Gold and Platinum Fine Jewelry

Beautiful stones deserve gorgeous, high quality mountings you’ll be proud to wear whether for every day or for special “want-to-show-it-off” occasions. A well made mounting in 14, 18 or 24 karat gold or platinum becomes not only a cherished treasure now but an heirloom that children, grandchildren or other loved ones will enjoy for generations to come.

Currently we show just a few styles in our store for mountings, but indeed we do many fine every day mountings, and extraordinary custom made pieces. A look in our Custom_Gallery will show many of the designs that we have made over the years.

For our every day mountings, we invite you to visit some of our colleague’s websites to look at their extensive catalogs of available mountings. There are several good suppliers of quality mountings - www.stuller.com, www.leoingwer.com, www.levycorp.com - are some of our favorites. When you have found a mounting you like, please call us at 1 800 524-7904 or e mail us at service@winkjones.com and we will be happy to provide a quote for the mounting. (List prices at those sites will be higher than what we charge.)

Our custom made jewelry requires another process. You will need to email us with a detailed description of what you would like, or better yet, send us a picture that you have drawn. If you have some idea of what you would like, but do not have a final design in mind, you can call and talk with us and we will get you on the line with one of our designers to talk about design possibilities. Upon receipt of a nonrefundable deposit, that designer will create two to three designs for you based upon your conversations. The deposit is 100% applicable to the charge for the piece when you have it made by us. If you choose to have another jeweler make the piece for you locally, your deposit covers the cost of the designer’s time and talent for the design.

Keep these in mind when looking at jewelry on the internet:

Channels need to be straight and even. Notice the absolute straight channel in this picture. When you see a wavy channel you are looking at less expensive craftsmanship.

Quality of polish and lack of pitting. The finish and polish on this piece are phenomenal. On a man’s cast ring of this size one would expect to see at least one pit, but there are none here.

<------This is the mark of a great craftsman.

Here is an example of what you do NOT want to see. -------->

This picture (to the right) is of a ring sent to us by a client asking if she was right to be disappointed in her custom made platinum ring.

Stones set straight and level. It is much easier to set a round stone than a square stone. A misalignment of only two or three degrees can make a ring look not just right. Sometimes you just have to put the stone down and come back to try setting it again as it just will not align perfectly when you put the final tighten on the prongs. With a round stone, a burr is used that cuts all four prongs simultaneously, but with a square stone each prong has to be cut separately, making it very easy to not get it right. Of course, sometimes things get completely absurd and one wonders what the benchman could possibly have been thinking.

Prongs of proper size and cut properly to hold the stone.

You do not want huge “globby” prongs that cover half the stone, nor prongs that have huge gaping wounds cut in them to hold the stone. The seat should be cut to just allow the diamond to sit in it and be held firmly.

Look for hollow shanks and thin shanks. You want to buy jewelry that is well made and heavy enough to last for many years. Lightweight jewelry is less expensive, but heavier better made jewelry is always a better value as it will last for many years.

These are some of the things that you will want to be aware of. If you will look critically at the jewelry that you see on the internet you will begin to become aware of the products that you see.