12 Pieces of Jewelry With Unforgettable Backstories, From a Twisted Silver Paperclip to a $2M Ruby Ring

• I took my grandma’s locket to a jeweler to have it melted down into a pendant for my mom. A couple of days later, the jeweler called: “I can’t do it. Come by the shop!” I’d already started imagining the worst.
  When I got there, he brought out the locket and said, “This is something you shouldn’t melt down!” He’d spotted a nearly worn-away inscription under the tarnish: “To my little girl, for luck.”
  When I told my mom, she remembered Grandpa always used to say those words to her. We decided to just restore the locket and used an old ring for the new pendant instead.

• I have a gold pendant that I've been wearing for about 6 years now, and every time I see it, I remember the woman at the jewelry store.
  I stopped in while I was near my son’s school and asked whether they had a small pearl for my piece of jewelry. The saleswoman looked at the pendant and suggested I visit another department, where the jeweler was. I thanked her, said I would stop by their other location, and headed for the exit.
  But the woman called after me, said I seemed kind-hearted, and took out a tiny pearl. She asked to see the pendant again and set it in place. It fit perfectly. I asked how much I owed her, and she replied, “It’s free!” I thanked her for a long time, and I still remember that encounter.

Sometimes inherited jewelry pieces leave even professional jewelers puzzled.

I recently inherited this ring. I don’t have any details on it, but did take it in today to get cleaned. The jeweler said it was vintage and high quality but that’s about it. They have an appraiser coming in next week so I may go back if it seems worth it. I tried to look up the hard to read name on it and that was a blind lead. It’s getting cleaned now so maybe that will help.

• When I worked in outdoor advertising, a jewelry workshop hired us to make a sign. While we were working, I got to talking with the jeweler, and he shared a story with me.
  One day, he noticed a young woman wearing ruby earrings at a market and recognized them as his own work from the 1990s. He approached her and asked where she had gotten the jewelry. She explained that the earrings had belonged to her mother and had originally been commissioned for her wedding.
  They exchanged contact information, and about a year later, her mother called the jeweler herself. After that, she came to him with commissions 2 more times.

• Grandpa had this ring made for grandma in the 1960s. The stone is about 3 carats. Nice refraction and a yellowish color to the stone.
  We took it to a jeweler who said they believed the stone looked like moissanite, but was surprised to hear the ring was from the 60s due to limited/no availability of large moissanite stones at that time.
  Mom said she remembered Grandpa saying the band was titanium. Later, we found out that my grandfather had worked at a plant where strontium and titanium compounds were among the byproducts.

• A guy ordered a silver pendant from me, shaped like an ordinary office paper clip. I offered to make it straight and neat, but he pulled a bent paper clip from his pocket and said, “No, it has to look exactly like this one.”
  It turned out that when he first met his girlfriend, she helped him fix a broken backpack clasp with that very paper clip. He kept it and now wanted to give her a piece of jewelry for their anniversary. I made a silver copy, preserving every bend.
  A week later, the guy called: “My girlfriend loves it! But now she wants 2 more paper clips just like it for earrings.” I asked, “Bent ones too?” And he replied, “Of course! She says she already has plenty of straight paper clips at the office.”

• This ring belonged to my father. His father was a jeweler who specialized in diamonds and pearls but made other jewelry as well. He made this for my dad when he was 16, which was 84 years ago.
  The head has been rebuilt twice. Once by my dad when I found it in his jewelry box and fell in love and once by me because it’s never off my finger. I have a lot of rings, but for some reason, this is the one people notice most often. It’s still my absolute favorite.

• I have a ring that once belonged to my great-great-grandmother. It was then passed down to my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and now to me. The center stone has been replaced several times from an undetermined gemstone, aquamarine, blue topaz, to now a diamond. (I wouldn’t have changed it if it was the original stone!)
  We have all of the stones in replica settings for the women who have worn this before me. The ring is 14k yellow and white gold with two rose cut diamonds from the turn of the century on either side. I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to be able to care for this ring and pass it down again someday.

• I had a ring that I loved very much. A young man bought it, but after some time, he brought it back, criticizing practically everything about it and asking for his money back. I agreed to the return, and 2 days later another customer called and asked whether I had a certain type of ring.
  As he described it, I realized: it was the very same ring that had just been returned! He came by and bought the piece. Some time later, he sent me a photo of his proposal by the crater of a volcano.
  Later, a young woman contacted me and asked me to make wedding bands. I completed the order, visited her profile, and recognized the very same woman from the photo. This time, she decided to give a gift herself.

A client brought me an antique brooch with a 10.2-carat ruby and asked me to turn it into a platinum signet ring. First, I made a test version in silver and got the client’s approval on the size and engraving. Then I spent 4 months working on a piece worth about $2 million. To be fair, almost all of that is the ruby itself.
The client was very happy with his new ring, and I was very sad to give the piece up, and even sadder about how much I’d underestimated how long this ring would take me to make when I gave him the quote.

• One client asked me to make a silver pendant based on her 6-year-old son’s drawing. On the paper was something round with uneven little lines around the edges. I looked at it and said, “What a cute little flower!”
  The woman agreed and asked me to keep everything exactly as drawn, including the crooked petals. I made the piece, called her to come pick it up, and she arrived with her son.
  The boy saw the pendant and exclaimed happily, “Mom, look, it’s my spider!” The client and I exchanged glances, and then he asked why his mom was going to wear the spider around her neck when it was supposed to crawl. We decided not to change anything.

• A man came to my shop, carrying a worn briefcase, and asked me to make a bracelet for his wife for their 25th wedding anniversary. He didn’t say much at first, then took some jade fragments from his briefcase and explained that they had lost their house 5 years earlier.
  In their bedroom, they had kept a small souvenir box they bought on their first trip together. It had sat beside their bed for 20 years, but after their home was gone, only the stones from the box remained.
  Since then, he and his wife had stopped celebrating their anniversary, but now he wanted a bracelet made from the fragments: “I don’t want diamonds or gold. I want our home to be with her.”
  I spent 3 weeks working on the order. I used silver, created a simple setting, and found a place for every stone. When the man saw the finished bracelet, he was silent for a long time before saying, “Now our home will always be with her.” It’s for orders like this that I chose this profession.