We start with the stone, not the sketchbook. Before we talk about design, we take your diamond out of its old setting, look at it properly under magnification, and tell you honestly what we're working with. Only then do we start drawing.

That order matters more than it might seem. A design built before anyone has checked the stone's actual condition is a design built on guesswork, and guesswork is the last thing you want with something this personal.

Why we check the stone before anything else

A diamond that has been worn for decades, sometimes generations, carries its history in small physical ways: a girdle that's been knocked, claws that have worn thin, occasionally a fracture that never caused a problem in its original setting but would under a different one. We examine every inherited stone under a loupe before we discuss design, looking at the girdle, checking for chips or surface-reaching fractures, and noting whether the stone has been sitting loose in its mount.

This isn't about finding fault with your diamond. Almost every stone we see is perfectly fine to reset. It's about knowing, before we sketch anything, which setting styles will protect it properly and which might put unnecessary pressure on a weak point. A stone with a delicate girdle points us toward a setting that encloses the edge rather than leaves it exposed. A stone in excellent condition gives us more freedom. Either way, we'd rather find this out on day one than midway through a build.

Seeing your stone out of its old mount

We always show clients their diamond once it's been removed from the original setting, cleaned and measured. For a lot of people this is the first time they've seen the stone entirely on its own, without the ring it's always lived in, and it tends to be a genuinely moving moment rather than a technical formality. We take our time with this step. If you want the stone graded before we go any further, we can arrange that too — we don't grade in house, but send stones to an external UK laboratory, and the turnaround is generally around two days.

If your diamond is an old mine cut or old European cut, or set in a pavé or illusion mount, we factor in the extra care those pieces need. Older cuts tend to have thinner girdles and different proportions to a modern stone of the same carat weight, so we measure yours directly rather than working from the weight on old paperwork, if there is any paperwork at all. Plenty of the family stones we see arrive with no certificate whatsoever, and that's not a barrier to us starting work.

Designing around what the stone actually is

Once we know the stone's condition and true proportions, we design the setting to suit it, not the other way round. That might mean a mount built specifically around an antique cut's particular depth and spread, or a bezel that gives full protection to a girdle with some wear. We're honest with you about the trade-offs: a fully protective setting looks different to an open claw setting, and there's no single "correct" choice, only the one that suits your stone and the look you're after.

Our reference site Commissioned has a full guide to reusing an inherited diamond, covering the general mechanics of resetting, typical UK costs and timescales, and when a stone needs extra care. It's worth a read if you want the broader picture before we talk specifics.

What happens to the old setting

Once your diamond is safely out, we hand the old mount back to you if you'd like it, with shipping to be covered by you, unless you'd rather we did something else with it. Some clients want it kept as a keepsake in its own right. Others ask us to melt the metal down and fold it into the new piece, which we can usually accommodate depending on how much metal there is to work with and what condition it's in.

Talking it through

An inherited stone usually means more than its market value, and we don't treat the conversation around it as routine. If you're thinking about bringing us a family diamond, we'd be glad to start with a bespoke consultation, where we can look at the stone together and talk through what a new setting could look like.