Rings - Shiny and Bright. What is the story behind yours?

[Familia]

44 minutes ago, Spy Car said:

And there it was. My ring. A simple band, but one that was perfect. What made it special? It was made of 24k gold. The color and the weight were like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was "pure" and simple and beautiful. I could not imagine a better choice from the beauty to the symbolism.

As I inquired about the ring, I remembered that 24k gold is "soft." The jeweler explained this was true, but he mentioned that the ring had been through a special process of hardening called "annealing" that made the ring as hard as possible. He also said that to keep it looking good I'd have to treat it with some care. That made sense to be on a metaphorical level as well.

I love this ring. I remove it when doing rough work. I'm not one who is superstitious about such things. And it still looks beautiful.

Love 24K gold & your story.   Interesting that he mentioned annealing to strengthen.  It is usually used with gold alloys to shape, and not so often used with 24K.  

[Spy Car]

22 minutes ago, Familia said:

Love 24K gold & your story.   Interesting that he mentioned annealing to strengthen.  It is usually used with gold alloys to shape, and not so often used with 24K.  

I must admit that I'm quite ignorant about metallurgy. Both the jeweler and manufacturer of the ring mentioned these rings are annealed to make the 24k ring stronger. It is still not as hard as an 18k ring. But the color is quite beautiful. It has held up well over 20 years.

Bill

[dirty ethel rackham]

My engagement ring is a simple solitaire in a Tiffany setting on a slim, knife edge band.  He also got a wedding band to go with it, but it had a notch so that it would nestle nicely with the engagement ring.  I wanted to have a band that I could wear alone, since the diamond sat up so high that I knew that there were times I wouldn't be able to wear it.  We purchased a knife edged band to go with it but could be worn alone.  So, the band that was supposed to go with it went in my jewelry box.  After I had children, I added that band so that I wore the three together, sort of symbolizing us as a family, not just a couple.  

One day, I was doing dishes and had taken my rings off and put them in a dish on the counter that I used for this purpose.  When I went to put the rings back on, I dropped the notched band and it bounced up and then went into this gap between the baseboard and the bottom of the base cabinet.  We tried for hours to get it out, even using the vacuum with some pantyhose on it.  The one way to get at it would have been to take out the cabinets.  So, I figured it was lost forever, at least to us, since we were not going to redo that kitchen any time soon.  I did put a note in that space that, if anyone ever took this apart, if they found that ring to call me and I put my number.  We eventually moved to our current house.  A few years later, I did drive by the old house and noticed that they did renovations, so I knocked on the door.  They didn't ever find my ring when they redid the kitchen.  It was a simple band so it wasn't worth a ton.  Maybe a critter who liked shiny things took it.  

After my youngest child was born, my rings just didn't fit so I resized them.  Then, I started to have some health problems and gained some weight, but I haven't gotten around to resizing them.  I had though about doing so, but I have arthritis in my hands and have those nodules that enlarge your knuckles so I passed.  I now wear them on a chain around my neck.  But that is only when I am "dressed for the day", not dressed for working out or anything.  

One day, back when I could wear my rings, I forgot I had them on when I went to the gym.  So, I put them in a zippered pocket of my gym back and went on with my workout.  When I got home, only one of my rings was in there (and there was an earring missing.) There was a hole in that section of my gym bag. I cried and was so upset.  I went back to the gym an retraced my steps.  The ring and earring could not be found.  I was heartbroken.  As I was walking back to the car, I noticed a glint of the sun that looked only slightly different than the glints off the exposed aggregate from the aging asphalt of the parking lot.  There was my ring.  My earring was next to it, but it was mangled since a car had driven over it.  Dh attributed it to St. Anthony (who always seems to listen to him, but not me.)   

[Robin M]

 Our story is that we got engaged 1997 after 5 years of dating.   Our 5^th year dating anniversary coincided with dh’s business quarterly taxes, so we decided to celebrate the day after. We went to our favorite restaurant and the subject of gifts came up. DH says “Do you want a ring” as a gift. I looked at him and said “Is that a proposal?” He gets a thoughtful look on his face and says “yeah, I guess it is. Will you marry me?” I said yes, but he maybe he didn’t believe he actually asked the question or didn’t hear my answer, because he asked again.

We called his mom and she told us she had a diamond in her safe deposit box and if we liked it, we could have it to set in a ring.  Thursday, a couple days before we planned to go up, she had a heart attack. She insisted it was minor and would see us that weekend. Friday, she had a stroke and was paralyzed on the right side. We raced up and spent the day with her, then went back to her house for night. In the middle of the night, she had a second stroke which completely paralyzed her. We had no idea if she was brain alert until dh’s  brother told her to blink and she did.

Evidently, she’d previously discussed the diamond with dh’s brother. While all this is going on, brother goes to the bank to retrieve the diamond. What we didn't know was that she had a wedding set from her first marriage to JJG, a fighter pilot during WWII. They were soul mates and only married 3 years before he died of cancer. She later married dh’s dad, had three sons and named my husband after JJG. Brother comes back from the bank and calls us into her hospital room. Two boxes are on the bed. One was the loose diamond, the other was a wedding set. The set had a wedding band and an engagement ring with a .25ct center diamond with 3 channel set diamonds on each side.

They tell me to choose. I picked up the ring, slid it onto my finger and it fit perfectly!!!! (a few weeks before when we had visited Ginny, she had brought out a bunch of rings for me to look at. It turned out we had the same size finger. I think at the time, she was thinking of giving me her wedding set)  I took the ring off and asked her if it is okay with her, I would be honored to have her ring. She blinked twice for yes. I handed the ring to dh. He gets down on one knee and proposes to me at his mother’s bedside. He slipped the ring on my finger saying “will you marry me?” Of course I said yes.   Everyone was crying. It was a very emotional moment.

After G passed away, we had her cremated and buried her with her true love, JJG.

When we celebrated our 20^th anniversary this past year, DH gave me a platinum spark plug on which he cleverly concealed a platinum wedding band.  

I love my rings!