Buying wedding+engagement rings - what options are there?

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duckDecoy

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#296271 3-Jun-2022 16:37

We need to get an engagement ring and a wedding ring. We'd like diamond and white gold/platinum colour for the metal. A friend of mine who used to work retail in a jeweler said buying new is a waste of money because its cheaper to pick up 2nd hand rings on trademe or at auctions. Someone else said get the diamonds yourself and have a ring made, apparently that's cheaper too.

Has anyone got advice around good ways to get rings (for a woman) that will help us keep our budget down? If the advice is to go new we'll just have to suck it up, but there's a few house items on our want list and we'd have to compromise on getting them if we splash out on the rings.

We saw some we liked at auction but it was too small, are rings easily resized?

Overseas options?

Lab made diamonds? (I looked at a few and saw little price difference, but it was a really fancy shop).

Any info you think is helpful will be welcomed.

PeterReader

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#2922314 3-Jun-2022 16:37

Hmmmm. Here we go.

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jonathan18

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#2922321 3-Jun-2022 16:56

I don’t have much interest/knowledge of this stuff myself, but do pick up bits from my wife who does…

Personally, I think buying s/h is a good way to go; kinda nice to know the item has a history. Some retailers sell a decent amount of s/h / antique jewellery, eg Walker and Hall.

Yep, rings can be relatively easily re-sized, or even re-made.

In relation to getting rings made: one thing to note is there can be a huge difference in prices charged by manufacturing jewellers to have stuff made - my wife’s currently having two rings made for the same price as another company was going to charge for one! If you’ve got rings or other gold jewellery you don’t wear one option is to supply them as source material; in my wife’s case, she has a ring that’s getting too thin from wear so they’ll use the gold and diamond from that in the new ones.

Just remember that some diamonds may have questionable provenance, eg so-called blood diamonds. I understand the diamonds sold by main retailers/manufacturers in NZ have acceptable origins, but trying to get a bargain from questionable sources/overseas may not (or at least not the evidence that they’re not dodgy).

itxtme

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#2922323 3-Jun-2022 16:58

Diamonds come down to the four C's. You should school yourself up on them. The reality is the price of a diamond is defined by these. You can get larger diamonds by being willing to accept lower grade in some of the C's. Sparkle wise the cuts is most important, so if that important aim for Hearts or Ideal.

Once you understand the grading, then when you walk into the Jewellers you can see through the bullpoo. When I was looking I had read up on the four C's, and then went to look at MHJ and the sales pitch was nauseating. This was because they did the old look with the jewellers loupe, then get the colleague to come over and both exlaim how amazing it looks, and that they havent seen one this good for x months, and then out came the certificate that shows its grading and it was a below average diamond.

I went with an independent jeweller, and it was a ready made ring. They negotiated heavily so, take what you want from that. In regards to buying second hand, if the ring is graded and what you are buying is certified then yeah thats a great way to reduce the cost. In terms of making bigger they will have ways to do it that may or may not be acceptable, alternatively you could have a new set made, or even go for a different layout if you have just bought a large solitaire diamond.

My personal thoughts are diamonds are overrated- and that was what I bought. I think you could buy much better on something not as expensive, but really you need your significant other to be on board with this, you want to get something they want, not what you want.

Decal

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#2922329 3-Jun-2022 17:04

We went with a moissanite stone ring from Polished Diamonds. Looks like a diamond at a 1/10th of the price and custom made to how we wanted it

timmmay

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#2922338 3-Jun-2022 17:13

A friend got a good deal in Dubai. I bought engagement ring locally from a main st store. Would've been cheaper to go an independent custom made place such as where we got our wedding rings - Wellington Jewelry Brian Barrett.

neb

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#2922496 4-Jun-2022 05:35

duckDecoy:
A friend of mine who used to work retail in a jeweler said buying new is a waste of money because its cheaper to pick up 2nd hand rings on trademe or at auctions.

Opinions vary on this one. If you're buying second-hand on TM then it'll be from either someone who has died or whose marriage has failed, neither of which I'd be keen on using to mark a new marriage.

neb

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#2922497 4-Jun-2022 05:38

itxtme:
Diamonds come down to the four C's.

It's four letters, but they're R, O, R, and T, no Cs. Get absolutely anything but a diamond ring, and read up on the de Beers cartel (I'd recommend Stefan Kanfer's "The Last Empire") if you want to understand why.

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neb

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#2922498 4-Jun-2022 05:40

timmmay:
A friend

thinks he

got a good deal in Dubai.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Handle9

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#2922499 4-Jun-2022 06:02

Jewellery in Dubai is very well priced and very competitive. It’s certainly more transparent than buying in New Zealand.

mulac

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#2922504 4-Jun-2022 08:15

As others have said, if you're buying diamonds then be sure you clue yourself up on the four C's enough to know what you're buying.

Buying diamonds overseas can save you a lot of money, depending on what price point you're going in at. I got my wife's from James Allen in the US, which was a lot cheaper than anything I could find in the UK where I was living at the time (and I imagine cheaper again than anything in New Zealand). James Allen can also set your chosen diamond into a ring if you prefer, too. They have a good selection.

Geektastic

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#2922701 4-Jun-2022 14:45

Don’t get caught by your fiancé trying to do it on the cheap would be my suggestion!!