How often should I take my ring to a jeweler for a prong check?

Every six months. Not once a year, not "when you remember." For a ring you wear daily, I want it on my bench every six months. The check takes ten minutes, and most independent jewelers I know won't charge you for it when you're an existing customer, but almost nobody comes in on that schedule.

The reason isn't that prongs fail on a schedule. It's that they fail silently. A prong can lift a fraction of a millimeter, just enough to let the stone move, and you won't feel it. You'll feel it later, when the diamond is gone and you're on your hands and knees in a parking lot. I keep a log of what I find each time, because a prong that looked fine in October can be flattened by March, and the client swears they didn't do anything different.

What I actually check

• Prong tips under magnification, looking for thin spots and flat wear from desk work.
• The gaps between prong and stone. A little daylight means the prong has lifted.
• The shank at the bottom of the ring. Rings wear unevenly, and a thin shank stresses the whole head.
• Any pavé or side stones, pressing each one with a probe to feel for movement.
• The stone itself, rocking it gently with my thumb. If it moves, it's loose. No drama, just a fix.

For most rings, I recommend every six months. A ring you wear to work and the gym and while washing dishes can loosen a prong faster than that. A ring you wear twice a month can wait a year. If the ring has pavé around the band, I'd go every four months. Those little stones work loose faster than a center stone, and when one falls out you usually don't notice until you count them.

Last spring a client named Daniel came in with his grandmother's three-stone ring. He'd been wearing it daily for eight years and hadn't had it looked at once. One of the side diamonds had vanished during a workout. He'd spent two days shaking out his gym bag and blaming his car floor mats. The center was still secure, but the head was so worn that the remaining stone was one wrong snag away from joining it. The repair cost him more than a decade of free prong checks would have, and we had to source a replacement old mine cut to match.

If you're near a good independent shop, walk in and ask for a prong check. Most will do it while you wait. If they charge, it's usually twenty to forty dollars, and that's fair for their time. If they tell you the ring needs a full re-tipping or a new head, get a second opinion. Not because they're wrong. Because that's a bigger job, and you should know what it costs before you agree.

And don't skip it because the ring feels fine. That's the whole point. Loose prongs don't hurt.