Engagement Rings (merged)

princess1974

hello

me and the other half went to dubai for a 3 day getaway having got a good deal on internet...
The lovely one proposed whilst in dubai and got the ring there its a 18ct white gold ring with 3 petite pois size diamonds on it!!!! wahay..
It only cost a third of the price you would pay for it here and its beautiful..
You can barter down anything there and get allsorts..
Just an idea....
Oh and the shoppings fab too!!!

pappadruid

Hi,

Dunno if anyone has mentioned this one yet, but the Jewellery Channel (Sky Channel 640) seem to do some great rings. I have bought a few items from there and have been really pleased with them, although I have not been brave enough to spend a lot on a ring. I was tempted the other night tho with a 18K White Gold Solitaire 0.50ct Diamond GIA Cert, colour D Si1 which went for £989!!!

Worth a look!!

purebrilliant

Hi all I have been a valuer for 30 years and get some real stonkers in to value. Some certs don't match the stones 'some' great deals have been laser drilled and infilled with glass and many have colour enhancement HTHP treatments which can only be detected by high powered microscopes and spectoscopes. Always buy from a trusted source. It is fun getting a great deal and I encourage you to do research before you buy. Shopping chanels do not seem to be governed by trade descriptions and if its cheap its cheap for a reason. I don't value stones from shopping chanels now because they are mostly stack up at the price paid for them and for insurance purposes the replacement criteria would be the chanel/source where the goods were bought. (I discuss this with the client to save them the expense of the valuation ) Sorry to be Mrs Moan !

Elitist

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I was talking with my boyfriend last night about engagement rings and I said that it was supposed to be 3 months salary (I was tired and confused, and now that I see people mention 1 or 2 months that does ring a bell), and he wasn't even that bothered! :jSo maybe if I can keep him convinved that it is 3 months instead of 1 then i'm in luck, haha. Although this doesn't solve the never ending debate between us, I've said that I'd like to pick my own ring and he's said that he'd prefer to pick it for me because then I wouldn't know when or where it was going to happen and that's how he thinks it should be.

Oh well, who knows what'll happen, as long as we're happy then it's all good

SmogMonster_3

I was lucky in that my partner knew the ring that she wanted and had pointed it out for me in a jewler. I paid the £200 deposit and it wasn't till that point that I had done any sort of research.

Anyway long storey short but it turned out that the ring in the reputable high street jewler that was £2,400.00 (after I had haggled £400 off the price) was available in component parts from online dealers at around £800.

Further research and reccomendations lead me to blue nile and quality diamonds. I opted for quality diamonds purely because they had the shape and size of stone that I wanted available. They even set the stone in the platinum band (similar to the one that I had seen) for about £150 over the cost of the diamond.

I ended up buying the ring for less than the one that I had originally seen with a quality of diamond that I simply could not have afforded in a high street jewler. Luckily I managed to get my earlier deposit back, fiance loved ring and had it appraised (for insurance purposes) at £8,000.00:T .

One thing that I was told was to never, ever buy a diamond in a so called diamond district especially New York. Also, I was told that the world wide diamond prices are generally the same (no real territorial fluctuations) so a diamond in England should cost the same as one in Turkey, Dubai, Antwerp or elsewhere - like for like.

Little_Chicken

I've read this thread a few times now, and have never commented but - that old phrase 'you get what you pay for' springs to mind.

Do people really believe that something they paid £800 for is actually worth £8000:rotfl:

At the end of the day if you're going to wear the ring for a long time surely the design matters more than some dodgy valuation. Some of the images posted on here have been mass-produced ugly rings, and look cheap regardless of the price.

I think there's a big difference between buying something online or from Cartier etc. I'm not saying that expensive is best, but you are paying for craftmanship, whereas many cheaper versions are produced in chinese factories - regardless of whether they claim to be handmade!

I'm not sure I really believe you can get a bargain diamond either - unless it's stolen or a blood diamond.:eek::eek::eek:

[Deleted User]

sumo.1 wrote: »

Hi

I went to a highstreet jewellery store at lunchtime to see how much they charge for an appriasal... £100 :S also the service takes 3wks because they need to send the ring away!

Can you remember the name of the appraisers you used in Hatton Gardens?
Did they do the appraisal for you on the spot and could you see you ring at all times? I'm a bit paranoid, that a dodgy appraiser would swap out the diamond for a cheaper one!

Thanks.

Sumo.1

My local jewelery shop does diamond appraisals for £3.50!!

SmogMonster_3

Little_Chicken wrote: »

I've read this thread a few times now, and have never commented but - that old phrase 'you get what you pay for' springs to mind.

Do people really believe that something they paid £800 for is actually worth £8000:rotfl:

At the end of the day if you're going to wear the ring for a long time surely the design matters more than some dodgy valuation. Some of the images posted on here have been mass-produced ugly rings, and look cheap regardless of the price.

I think there's a big difference between buying something online or from Cartier etc. I'm not saying that expensive is best, but you are paying for craftmanship, whereas many cheaper versions are produced in chinese factories - regardless of whether they claim to be handmade!

I'm not sure I really believe you can get a bargain diamond either - unless it's stolen or a blood diamond.:eek::eek::eek:

Hi - Just to clarify, I didn,t say (or at least mean to say) that I paid £800 and it was now worth £8,000.

What I was getting at was the ring in the high street was marked up at £2,800. The diamond on this ring was not certificated and my only point of reference was the representations of the sales assistant. Anyway, I then found a GIA certificated diamond of the same if not better quality on the internet made up as a ring for around £800. I then opted to buy in the region of my original budget and got a loose GIA certificated D IF diamond with a platinum band (made to my specifications) from quality diamonds.

The ring was made up in a workshop in Hatton Gardens and certainly was not a blood diamond. What I was hoping to get across was the ridiculous mark up in high street jewlers. The reason I mentioned the appraisal was that this was carried out by by Anchorcert (a branch of birmingham assay office) and is supposedly a reflection of what that ring would cost to replace if purchased in a highstreet jewler.

I apologise if my post came across wrong and I certainly did not mean to say that the ring was worth in any way what it was appraised at. Just simply that mark up on jewlery is ridiculous. I acknowledge that the people I bought mine from will have made a tidy profit anyhow but it still gave me a warm feeling to know that I was considerably less ripped of than I otherwise could have been.

I agree entirely that the design of ring is the most important thing and you can pay a premium for true craftsmanship. However, I would be wary to suggest that price = quality in all cases. From my experience and research it seems that the majority of rings available generally are simply made up from parts bought out of a trade catalogue (as was mine). I opted to buy the best diamond that I could afford within my budget as the band design was extremely simple and luckily for me Cartier and other high end designs did not appeal.

I also agree with you re bargain diamonds - I was advised that the true cost of like for like diamonds should be of a relatively consistent price worldwide - but that is not to say that highstreet retailers mark ups do not differ considerably.

Little_Chicken

Sorry - i obviously misread your original post;)

And I also don't think that price equals quality - especially not at High Street jewellers where everything is mass produced.

It just amuses me the amount of people on here who believe they've got some kind of bargain from an online store, Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, Hatton Gardens etc. Personally I would rather have something that is of guaranteed quality, supported by a known brand. This is simply because I wouldn't know what I was really buying from these places - and I wouldn't necessarily rely on their documentation either. I just don't believe that top quality, ethical jewellery can be bought on the cheap.

And in a girly way I think getting a 'bargain' engagement ring isn't very romantic. BUT saying that I totally agree that expensive is sooooooo NOT always the best.

Oooh! I'm sounding quite contrary today.:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

homealone_2

ringo_24601 wrote: »

My local jewelery shop does diamond appraisals for £3.50!!

i had my engagement ring valued at hatton garden and they charged £20 but the ring was kept in my sight at all times, i wanted to make sure we had not been done as my hubbie bought my engagement ring there (even though i already had one and was married) it was my dream ring 2.98 carat solitaire sat on a band the exact width of my wedding ring 3mm and it just looked gorgeous. i know how they barter in turkey but was worried i admit about getting what i had paid for as the price started at £16000 and we got it down to £8000. at jewellers it was valued at £22000!!! gob smacked didnt cover how shocked i was. have been to 3 other jewellers to have ring made bigger (medication caused ring size to go fron n to a u) and each time i was asked if i wanted to sell it and was offered £15000 at one and £14 for other two. so i believe i got a bargain! :j