Feel-Good Friday: NY Store Replaces Lost Stone, Mounting

When a possible flaw in the soldering lead to both falling out of an engagement ring, Kingston Fine Jewelry was quick to fix its mistake.

Brecken Branstrator brecken.branstrator@nationaljeweler.com

The diamond in this engagement ring was a sentimental one to its owner, making it a tough loss when it fell out, but Kingston Fine Jewelry was quick to offer to replace it after realizing it had made a mistake.

Kingston, N.Y.--It might be a sad story at first, but it’s got a pretty nice ending to it.

When the diamond and mounting in Ulster Park, New York resident Kristin Judd’s engagement ring from fiancé Justin Horowitz fell out, she didn’t think there was much she could do.

The 0.64-carat VS1 brilliant-cut diamond in the ring came from Judd’s stepmother’s ring. For her father, it was “his fifth marriage, his one true love and the one that lasted, so I thought it carried good luck for mine and Justin’s second marriages,” Judd told National Jeweler.

Judd and Horowitz had the diamond placed in a white gold setting at Kingston Fine Jewelry in nearby Kingston, New York in late February, just after they had gotten engaged.

The ring after the diamond and mounting had fallen out when its owner, Kristin Judd, was gardeningThough Judd doesn’t know exactly how or when the two were lost, she said she suspects it happened was while she was gardening on Monday.

“I noticed it about two hours after I had taken off my gloves and put my tools away,” she said. “I can imagine it falling out of my glove wherever I was when I took them off. We metal-detected the whole front yard, in hopes that the setting would be enough metal to pick up.”

Neither were found.

Judd added that she had even been in touch with her insurance agent about getting the ring, along with another ring she had, insured but just hadn’t gotten back to him about it yet.

“So I truly thought I was out of luck.”

She called Kingston Fine Jewelry to tell them about her loss though, interestingly, said she doesn’t know why because she didn’t expect the store to do anything.

Still, staff member Krista DeAngelis, who had sold them the mounting and appraised the stone for them, answered when she called. DeAngelis immediately apologized for the mounting and diamond falling off the ring, and for what she believed to have caused the loss--a flaw in the solder.

She immediately offered to replace the stone and mounting at no cost.

“I hadn’t cried up to that point, but when she told me that, I did,” Judd said.

When Judd’s ring was lost in the garden, they waved a metal detector across the entire yard to try to find it.

For the store, though, it was just the way that good customer service should be, especially for a mistake that was their own.

“It’s a sentimental stone, and we

Banner will be right here …

can’t replace that but we can fix our mistakes,” DeAngelis said. “The fact that she wasn’t expecting anything is surprising, and I don’t know what that might say about the customer service of other jewelers.”

Judd said when she called, they had a conversation about what could’ve gone wrong. When DeAngelis heard it was just the mounting and the stone that had come off, with nothing else wrong with the ring, she came to the conclusion that it probably was a flaw in the soldering.

They talked through the likely issues with the ring both because the store always wants to be forthcoming, DeAngelis said, and to help Judd understand that in this case, it was nothing she did.

Judd went in to see the store staff Thursday evening, and the new ring is expected to be on her finger by the end of next week.

Brecken Branstratoris the senior editor, gemstones at National Jeweler, covering sourcing, pricing and other developments in the colored stone sector.