.38cttw Diamond Shield Ring with Three Bezel-Set Sapphires in 10k Two-Tone Gold

An elongated octagonal plaque of white gold, edged in milgrain, runs the length of the finger on this ring. Down its centre sit three round sapphires in a column, a deep blue, each in its own yellow gold bezel so that the blue is ringed in warm metal against the white ground. The rest of the plaque is filled with bead-set round diamonds, .38 carat total weight across the piece, and two more diamonds are bezel-set into each shoulder of the yellow gold shank. 5.50 grams of 10k two-tone gold.

This is the plaque ring in the Art Deco manner: not a stone with a mounting around it, but a single long panel worn across the finger, with the stones arranged inside it like a design on a card. The column of three sapphires makes your eye travel the whole length of the panel rather than stop at a centre, the milgrain keeps the edges crisp, and the yellow bezels are the clever part — a rim of warm gold around each blue stone is what lets the blue read from across a table instead of disappearing into the white. It has the look of something found in a grandmother’s box, which means it does not look like anything in a mall case, which means nobody at the table will be wearing its twin. Why settle for a catalog ring everyone owns?