Shopping for an engagment ring. My girlfriend doesn't care about brand names. A conflict free diamond is a must and all Tiffany stones are conflict free. Tiffany has some amazing rings, but are the any better than say buying online at bluenile, etc.? Thoughts? Thanks cmiller
What I actually did was go with my fiance to Tiffany. She found the setting she liked, and the exact type of ring. We had the listing and pictures. We took it to a private jeweler who made the exact same setting with a much larger, and better stone. Out of clarity, color, and carats that diamonds are judged on, only one of those categories was the stone we bought slightly below the Tiffany's stone. It was also cheaper than the original smaller stone by a couple of thousand dollars. It's definitely worth investigating the more mom and pop style jewelers and comparing. You don't have to go with them if you don't want, and you may want to visit a few of them to try to see which you like better. There is no doubt that Tiffany jewelry is high quality stuff, but you can find things for cheaper that are probably just as good, or better at least in most categories for a lot cheaper.
diamonds from stores are generally rip offs. for example, buying a brand new diamond at one jeweler and trying to sell it immediately will net you perhaps 35% of the price you paid. maybe buy a used stone and just have a jeweler reset it?
brand name rings actually maintain their value better imo. Harry Winston or Van Cleef & Arpels can be resold for their original price or more. To answer the OP, if ur fiancee doesnt care about the brand then why go brand name? Do exactly what was stated before. Get the setting from Tiffany's and take it to a private jeweler. Or if ur really lucky n she doesnt care about the quality of the ring, then just get the cheapest ring that isnt ugly.
lulz, already planning for divorce? Hopefully the ring doesn't need to be resold. Diamonds are commodities -- differentiated along the C's as mentioned earlier. As long as the specs are the same, then it matters not where the diamond comes from. There's more differentiation on the setting, but most can be easily copied from other places. Blue Nile has competitive prices on diamonds, and you can spec out exactly what you'd like. You could get the setting elsewhere to mimic another design. My advice -- go with a "timeless" shape -- round or princess cut. And it's not all about size -- in fact, "cut" is the dimension that I tell people to optimize around (especially with a round diamond) b/c the cut gives it the fire (colors) and sparkle that provides the ooh ah that makes a diamond really stand out. Color and clarity are less important as long as you avoid the extreme bad end. Maximize cut and secondly carat.
Ditto. Bought my fiance's ring at Blue Nile, even if you don't plan to buy from them, their site is really good at educating you. playing with their sliders will give you a feel on how the price slopes by the different dimensions. Once you have ball park of the the cut, size and clarity you want in your budget, go to physical jewelers and see how those dimensions play out. For example if you decide ideal cut is good enough, go to a dealer and see what a very good cut looks like to see the difference you're paying for. Do the same for clarity (i.e. VS1 vs VVSS2) and etc. Once you truly know the diamond want to get, either buy it on Blue Nile or actually take the Blue Nile offer to the Jewlers and ask if they'd match it.
Blue Diamond, and you should not buy the diamond unless it includes a GIA certificate. Other diamond labs are less reputable. I just got engaged last night
Very good advice. Having said that, I bought my S.O.'s wedding band at Tiffany's. This was over 30 years ago. It's a simple gold band with very high quality, wonderfully cut small diamonds going half way around it. I didn't really intend to buy there at the time. We just walked in to browse, yet when we saw this ring and asked to take a closer look, she slipped it on and it fit perfectly. It still does. I didn't get an engagement ring there, however. That would be far more expensive. Tiffany's is a great place to look and get ideas. I use a small jewery shop on Kerbey Lane in Austin for all the jewelry I buy now, and have for a long time. It's nice to walk in and they smile, and greet you by name, even if it's been over a year. We've had several inherited stones reset there into different lovely things.
I've never seen an appraisal of anything by tiffany that the owner was disappointed by the appraisal value. From an investment standpoint, Tiffany is bulletproof.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sHftEoBPWrc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Can't go wrong.
They have great customer service, it does make your woman feel pretty cool amongst her friends and just make sure the cut clarity and color are good. Size matters but the overall sparkle is something that will trump large rings without the high c's.
