How often should I have a jeweler inspect the prongs?

Lauren came in on a Thursday morning last March, holding her engagement ring a little too carefully. The center diamond, a 0.90 carat round, was still in the setting, but one prong had worn down to a thin sliver and the stone was ever so slightly wobbly when I touched it with a probe. She'd been wearing it daily for four years and had never had it checked.

Six months. That's the baseline I tell every client. Twelve months is the absolute longest I'd go before getting prongs under a microscope, and only if the ring isn't worn every day at a job that involves lots of hand use.

The inspection takes about ten minutes. I'm looking for any prong that's lifted or bent, tips worn flat from friction against car keys, desks, gym equipment, whatever. I check the stone for movement with a gentle press and I scan for hairline stress fractures in the metal around the seat. Then I let the client look through my Optivisor too, because seeing a worn prong at 10x makes the risk real.

Rings worn 24/7-in the shower, to bed, at the gym-need a check closer to every four months. A platinum ring with heavy prongs might stretch the interval to eight or nine, but I still like six. I'd rather have a client in my door three times for nothing than once for a missing stone.

Can you do it yourself? Yes and no. If you tap the ring gently near your ear and hear a faint rattle, that's a loose stone-call me. But a prong can be dangerously thin without the stone moving at all, and you won't see that without magnification and a trained eye. Most local jewelers will check prongs while you wait, and plenty do it for free. I don't charge for it. It's not a revenue line; it's the cost of keeping someone's heirloom intact.

Set a recurring calendar reminder. Lauren's ring cost her a new prong tip and forty dollars. The replacement diamond would have been about $3,200. That's the math.