2006-03-08 - 2:09 p.m.
Yesterday was my birthday. To celebrate, Nya and I went to get her engagement ring reset. The band is too big for her ring finger, so she�s been wearing it on her index. I know it�s not really, but in the back of my mind, I feel like this implies only a tepid acceptance of my proposal. Like � well okay sort of, but only enough for the index finger.
I wanted to get a whole new band for the diamond, not just resize it. The stone was in a setting that I�ve always thought of as temporary, until we got something that she liked. We could use the old band to set a different gem (perhaps make a ring out of this black pearl she has on a chain). Anyway, we went downtown to the Mallers Building, an office tower that�s filled with jewelers.
We left the ring to be reset with one randomly-picked jeweler and a watch with a broken band with another. I�ve been told that this was actually a mistake; you should never let jewelry be out of your sight and watch while anyone works on it. But when we got the ring back, the jeweler didn�t seem to have secretly switched the diamond for glass or anything. I thought of how silly this fear seems. These guys see a hundred precious stones every day. They�re not going to pocket one on the sly.
After we picked up the new ring (I feel like now that it�s on the right finger, she can�t turn back!), I thought we should get it appraised or something. Just out of curiosity. I mean I know it was my grandma�s engagement stone, but I don�t know much besides that. The first place we went to wanted a lot of money to look at it and I thought I didn�t want to know that bad.
We went down the hall to another place. Nya started elbowing me and making unclear gestures when we came in, but I didn�t really know what she was going on about. It seemed like she was nodding at the man behind the counter. He did look familiar, but I couldn�t place it. I asked how much it was for an appraisal. Really, I just wanted a ring looked at to satisfy my own curiosity. He sized me up and said he�d just take a look right here.
He examined the ring through his jeweler�s loupe. He said it looked like an old stone, probably from the �20s or �30s. Yes, it was my grandmother�s engagement diamond from the 1930s. How did he know? He said they had cut diamonds somewhat differently at the time. Stones back then were given a smaller table (the flat top facet). This sometimes gave them the appearance of being vertically drilled with a hole, although this one obviously didn�t look like that.
This wasn�t an official appraisal, so he wouldn�t put a price on it. But he reminded me that value is what�s it�s worth to a given individual. Oh, he told me how much I probably could get it appraised for. But since this had been my grandma�s diamond, it was probably invaluable to me. He had his own parents� engagement ring. They were departed now and he wouldn�t sell it for anything.
After we thanked him and left, Nya finally said that if he looked familiar, it was because he was in local television commercials. The one that was running now was for brunch at Reza�s Restaurant. The tagline � �Wanna buy a brunch?� � was a riff on �Wanna buy a watch?� from an older commercial that he was also in. It was famously bad in the charming way that local TV commercials can be. The restaurant commercial was a sort of tribute to it.
I found this so exciting, I went back in and shook his hand. He said acting was a sideline (he even had photos on the wall of more famous people he�d worked with, including Richard Pryor) and he�ll soon appear in commercials for a suburban BMW dealership. So keep your eyes peeled if you�re in Chicagoland. Nya rolled her eyes at my getting all hyped, but it really made my birthday :)
� 2006 Geoff Gladstone
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