Ruined Wedding Rings

Twoey

Hi all, looking for some advice please.
We recently send our wedding rings back to the original maker, after I had to have mine cut off after an accident.
The plan was for the jeweller to fix the break in mine and re engrave both our rings, as the engraving had worn off after wearing them for 20+ years. The jeweller assured us that they were able to re engrave the rings to their original state, using the original mould, which they still had.
After sending our rings, we were told that the original engraver had passed away, but they had another employee that was able to do it. We were then told that he wasn't confident about engraving the rings, but had a friend that could do it. That 'friend' then had covid, but he had yet another friend that could do it.
We constantly asked for information about the location of our rings, who had them, what was happening with them and what was the cost, all of which weren't ever answered.
It took months to finally get our rings back, when it finally became apparent that they were now around a third lighter than they were, having gold content removed, and did not bear the original engraved script as promised, but a generic machine etched script.
We were only given a price after the work was done, which was outrageous. We told them we couldn't pay it. We agreed a lesser price, and the rings were returned. 
When we saw that the rings were not done with the original mould as promised, and that they had lost gold content, we complained straight away and have, as yet paid the invoice for them.
They have ruined our rings, and they owe us gold content from them.
Is there any way we can claim compensation for our rings, and the months of distress we have had since trying to sort this out. Can anybody help please?

powerful_Rogue

Firstly you'll need to get a report carried out confirming the difference in the gold content.

Vectis

Are you saying you weighed them before sending them off? If not, how can you say or prove that they're a different weight now?

Twoey

Thanks for your replies. Unfortunately, we didn't think to weigh them before sending them. We didn't think we'd need to for a simple re engraving, We were never told gold would be removed from them, or that they would be out sourced to god knows where. But after 20 years of them being on our fingers, they now weigh around a third less than they did.
They haven't been re engraved to their original state, which was the sole reason we returned them to where they were originally made. Is there anything we can do ?

powerful_Rogue

What have they said about the engraving and the weight difference?

Twoey

They are saying that a layer was removed from the top of the rings in the process, and have have yet to answer why our rings were sent elsewhere to be machine etched in a generic script, rather than re moulded in the original script as promised. Our rings were thick and heavy, with deeply engraved script which was totally unique. They have come back much thinner, much lighter, with a surface etched script which is generic and can be found everywhere. They have also had some sort of scrawl put on the inside, possibly a signature from whoever did the machine etching.
We never asked for this, and wouldn't have agreed to any of it if we'd been made aware. We were led to believe they would be recast from their original mould, and that our script would be redone to the original standards.
We also kept asking for a price, but we were never given one, and they don't have a complaints procedure for us to follow.
We have suffered months of stress and anguish over our ruined rings. They are much thinner and lighter, and have lost their uniqueness. I feel they have cheated us, and not delivered what they assured us they would.

Alderbank

Since they have not delivered what was agreed in the contract for supply of a service, you are entitled to require them to try again. 
They have confirmed they still have the moulds so there is no reason why they cannot recast the rings, adding more metal as required to replace that lost over 20+ years of wear and tear plus being sawn. The newly cast rings will have new assay marks to confirm the quality of the gold and will be identical in appearance and weight.

It might be that in spite of assuring you they could reproduce the original engraving, the fact might be that their company no longer has the necessary competence to do so.
Was the invoice for two separate services, ie.
Re-cast rings in original moulds £xxx, engrave re-cast rings with [text] in [font] £xx?
If so, and they cannot do the engraving as agreed, they must refund you the charge for engraving and you would have to find another jeweller to do it.

strawb_shortcake

When I enquired about having my wedding ring fixed (cut off as I got fat) the jewellers made it clear that you would lose gold in fixing it, so this was probably inevitable albeit not made clear to you. We decided against having my ring repaired for a number of factors. 
As an aside, my aim is to have a forge experience and make our our own, I have an image in mind of being able to use the gold from our original wedding bands as some form of decoration onto the new rings, but will need to work with a good jeweller to see if this is even possible 

JGB1955

annabanana82 said:

As an aside, my aim is to have a forge experience and make our our own, I have an image in mind of being able to use the gold from our original wedding bands as some form of decoration onto the new rings, but will need to work with a good jeweller to see if this is even possible 

My mother had two rings made out of the 'remains' of 3 very-worn family wedding rings.  I'm now the owner of one of them - it has 3 generations of rings in it and is decorated with an ivy-leaf design.  It's priceless to me - it's my physical link back to 1881, when my great grandmother was married.  A good jeweller should be able to supply this (and provide it with an up-to-date hallmark).

DullGreyGuy

So they were originally cast rather than engraved?
The weight loss is between them being brand new and being returned?

I think a lot may come back to the original discussion of you commissioning the changes to be made. Was there a discussion of recasting them and the consequence of therefore having a new assay stamp for this year? Did you say you wanted them engraved rather than recast and so preserving the original date stamp? Would you have been happy with the change in date stamp, I know my gran refused to get her ring repaired because it would have had the wrong date. Did you have a discussion of buying more gold to increase their weights? 

Twoey

We asked if my ring could be mended and fit to a bigger size, and if the outter edge of our rings could be re engraved as it had worn down over the years. They assured us that it could be done, as they had the original mould, leading us to believe that it would be re cast, or at least re engraved to the original design.
Gold was added to my ring to fill the gap and to be made bigger, yet it still came back lighter than when we sent them.
We have no proof, except our word and that of our daughter who knew how weighty our rings were, that they have lost gold content, but they definitely have.
They are much lighter and thinner, and now the etched generic script is very thinly etched on, whereas before it was a different script altogether, and was deeply engraved into a thick and chunky ring.