best place to buy an engagement ring

stephenwood

hi everyone,

i am looking to buy an engagement ring for my better half, it would be 18 carat white gold with a .70 carat emerald diamond. now i have been to various shops in liverpool and manchester and looked on line at some jewellers in london and the prices are hugely different. the ones in the shops i have been to seem to vary from £3800-£5000 and the ones online for the london jewellers seem to be slightly under £3000. the rings are all fairly much the same spec if not better at the london jewellers. the websites ive seen the rings on are

diamondmanufacturers. co. uk
diamondsfactory. co. uk
77diamonds. com
bluenile. com
samarajames .com

my question is, why are the london jewellers above so much cheaper? am i missing something about the quality of the diamond etc and its not actually all its cracked up to be? any advice on where to go would be great

HPoirot

We got mine from Fraser Hart and are quite happy with the quality of the diamond and the service guarantee.

Ezmondino

Not Warren James. Very dissatisfied with the rings we got from there.

bellaboo86

Long story but when I no longer needed my engagement ring and wanted to sell it I had a really interesting conversation with a woman. My ring was bought from a high street jewellery chain and cost over 2k. It was white gold with a diamond (can't remember carrot). Anyway this Lady told me that if for the same price the ex could have got a platinum ring with a bigger diamond for the same price from the independent store (which has a really good reputation). So I would say check out independent stores to compare prices.

Faith177

I would highly recommend the jewellery quarter in Birmingham for an engagement ring mine came from there and it was a fraction of the cost here in Essex

BargainJunky

Faith177 wrote: »

I would highly recommend the jewellery quarter in Birmingham for an engagement ring mine came from there and it was a fraction of the cost here in Essex

I also suggest the jewellery quarter in Birmingham. There are loads of small shops, many make the items they are selling and lots of them would make something to your specification. I cant recommend a specific shop as the one we used only supplies to the trade (hubby's dad knew the owner).

BargainJunky

I've just googled Diamond Heaven in the jewellery quarter Birmingham and the price quoted for your ring is £1542 with a high street price of £2641. May be worth a trip to have a look around.

ihaveshoos

I'm wary of buying diamonds over the internet because you don't know what you are getting; it could have been heat treated or irradiated to change the diamond's natural look an remove inclusions etc.

I'd say at that size and price look to see if the stone is certificated, but don't necessarily assume certificated=better, some stores self certificate and some labs will grade to request. I know that Anchorcert have the facilities to check whether diamonds have been modified through treatments or filling but I'm not sure which other labs do.

Are the stones that you have been looking at online comparable on clarity and colour lines? The pictures online will obviously have been touched up and emerald and baguette cuts can be a little less forgiving of lower clarity grades (because some of the facets are longer they can make inclusions very obvious)

My best advice; buy the stone that you think looks the best on, sometimes a diamond can sound great on paper but lack much real character (I always think of it like blind dating, great on paper, in person...not so much!)

Hope that helps

Oop, also check that you are getting diamonds that are bought in line with the Kimberley process, I wouldn't expect you to see many that aren't in the UK especially on the high street or in the jewellery quarter, but again online is tricky.

NVRAM

Faith177 wrote: »

I would highly recommend the jewellery quarter in Birmingham for an engagement ring mine came from there and it was a fraction of the cost here in Essex

+1

Thats what we did
Nice few days away too