Engagement rings

Well i finally decided it is time for me to pop the question. We are taking a week vacation in a month and i thought it would be the perfect time.

After shopping around for rings, i was told that buying a diamond ring in the middle east (Lebanon, home country) would be much cheaper. My aunt knows the biggest manufacturing company and got me a an awesome deal. I got a 10 000$ 0.7 carat ring for 3 000$ no taxes. I got it appraised back here in Canada at three different locations and the worth was really 10 000$. They were all surprised by the quality of the cut/color etc.

I thought i would share this with anyone that has family outside USA/Canada. I can't believe i just saved 7000$.

I proposed last December, bought a ~9kish ring (1.4ct Radiant cut) for her. She had said I didn't need to spend that much when we looked together (we looked at .7 and .8ish range) but honestly I wanted to get her something more. She couldn't be happier with the ring and despite her claims that other women's opinions don't matter I can see her light up when they compliment it.

Myst_sl said:

I got a 10 000$ 0.7 carat ring for 3 000$ no taxes.

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No offense, but that sounds like a really bad deal, unless the diamond was absolutely flawless, or the band was super expensive with a ton of diamonds in it. I was able to get a diamond that is roughly twice that size (1.35 carot) that was flawless to the naked eye (VS1 clarity, F color) for about 4 grand here locally in the midwest US. And that was a hell of a deal, from a jeweler that was retiring and clearing out his inventory. I couldn't find similar ones for less than 6K at other local places.(and it ended up appraising for 11K in a solitaire setting).

But like I said, if it is a legitimate D color and IF or F clarity, I could see that price for a .7 carot diamond.

Does anybody here have any information on the appraisal process? I inherited my mother's engagement ring when she passed and though it'll be quite awhile before I propose I need to insure it. My stepfather had it insured for $50,000 (though he says it's worth\he paid 70K). He says it's an absolutely flawless 1.4k diamond that he had to import from Israel, and it's mounted with two large sapphires on a platinum band. Not sure why it's so expensive considering carat size even if it's flawless, nor why it necessitated an import, but when I asked he said the diamond is utterly perfect and hell I don't know squat about diamonds really.. He's a surgeon with mega A type personality and everything has to be "perfect" but still seems like a lot..

In any case, I know nothing about the appraisal process and don't feel comfortable walking into "random jewellery store" and plopping down a 70K ring and asking how much it's worth.. What is stopping the appraiser from swapping out the diamond for some cheaper one?

Find out what the highest-end jewelery store is in your town and go there. Somewhere that deals in Rolex watches and up, and 100K+ jewelry. Don't take that into a mall jewelry store, they won't have a clue what to do with it, stay away from chains. If you're in Dallas, find out where Cowboys and Mavericks players buy their expensive jewelry and go there.

I had my wife's rings appraised in front of me. I didn't leave them at the jeweler and wait for them to call me to come pick them up. Might be different at different places though.

That's another reason to use a private(non-chain) jeweler for appraisals. They generally have someone on-site that can do it, the ring never has to leave your sight. A lot of mall chain stores don't have anyone with that expertise in-house all the time and might offer to send them off somewhere. Don't use Zales/Helzberg or other mass chain stores.

Thanks for the info, I had thought you had to leave the ring there as I figured they would need to remove the diamond from the setting in order to appraise it. There's a super high end jeweler store in Highland Park (rich Dallas area) so I guess I'll try there.

When I bought my girl's ring it was from a chain and they used a 3rd party appraiser to do all the work

Big Phoenix_sl said:

Lawl, diamond appraisal.

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I do agree with this basic sentiment. I'm in the insurance business and I've also purchased diamond jewelery for my wife, so I see both sides of it. Appraisals are pretty stupid overall, nobody ever, EVER pays anywhere near appraisal price for a piece of jewelry. Even at an over-inflated mall jewelry store, you aren't going to pay anywhere near appraised value. Since this is the case, I often wonder how the hell jewelry appraisers even come up with the values. Shouldn't an appraisal be a rough estimate of what you should expect to have to pay for the item? In insurance, we deal with all sorts of appraisals from homes, to cars, to jewelry, and jewelry is the only one where an appraisal is nowhere ever in the ballpark of what you would pay for the item. I'd estimate that most jewelry appraisals are roughly 100% inflated, if not more. I know my wifes engagement ring appraised for like 11K, but I payed just under 5 for the whole thing. It's pretty ridiculous how useless jewelry appraisals are. You won't usually see a home appraise for 400K and sell for a million, but that's basically how out of whack jewelry appraisals are.

I bought my ring for around 3.5k and I twas appraised around 6k. Yeah it was pretty stupid. I knew it was pretty dumb once I saw the diamond itself was appraised like $500 more than I actually paid for it. I did get a pretty decent deal on the actual setting but even still I didn't get that good a deal. If I didn't get the setting in sale the ring itself would have been about 5k so the appraisal would still have been 1k over. I get it that the appraisal is mostly used for insurance purposes so it makes sense they shoot high instead of trying to match price.

-edit-

Also since I kind of went silent after saying I was looking. My GF and I only went to one place so I could get an idea what she wanted. I told her the budget I wanted to stay inside. Naturally she saw just a setting (w/o the diamond) she fell in love with that was right at 3.1k. The max budget I set was about 3.5k. So I knew the diamond would be at least another 1k if I put the smallest I could put in the ring. So I kept searching the internet and I finally found a deal on a very similar ring (halo setting, white gold, low profile) on sale from about 2.8k down to 1.9k. I then spent another 1.3k on a 0.75 princess cut diamond for the middle. So I got her pretty much exactly what she wanted for a price I could live with.

I went and did look at moissanite gems. For starters I thought it was an actual harvested stone. I didn't know it was completely made in a lab. That was my bad and just not doing my due diligence in my research. Then I saw it in the light. Holy fuck was that thing annoying. Looked like I was staring at a god damn disco ball. Immediately shelved the idea of buying that "stone" because I couldn't live with dealing with that shit every day of my life.

I didn't really spend all that much. To me there wasn't really a point. We were both poor, but I wanted to do it - I didn't cheap out exactly but it was nothing special. I couldn't see spending 5k+ on a ring. The rest of the money I could've spent went into saving for the wedding, and it's going to be a pretty nice event. Plus side is we are paying it all off in cash and by ourselves, feels good man.

before someone shits in here, things are better

joeboo_sl said:

No offense, but that sounds like a really bad deal, unless the diamond was absolutely flawless, or the band was super expensive with a ton of diamonds in it. I was able to get a diamond that is roughly twice that size (1.35 carot) that was flawless to the naked eye (VS1 clarity, F color) for about 4 grand here locally in the midwest US. And that was a hell of a deal, from a jeweler that was retiring and clearing out his inventory. I couldn't find similar ones for less than 6K at other local places.(and it ended up appraising for 11K in a solitaire setting).

But like I said, if it is a legitimate D color and IF or F clarity, I could see that price for a .7 carot diamond.

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This is the ring.

joeboo_sl said:

I do agree with this basic sentiment. I'm in the insurance business and I've also purchased diamond jewelery for my wife, so I see both sides of it. Appraisals are pretty stupid overall, nobody ever, EVER pays anywhere near appraisal price for a piece of jewelry. Even at an over-inflated mall jewelry store, you aren't going to pay anywhere near appraised value. Since this is the case, I often wonder how the hell jewelry appraisers even come up with the values. Shouldn't an appraisal be a rough estimate of what you should expect to have to pay for the item? In insurance, we deal with all sorts of appraisals from homes, to cars, to jewelry, and jewelry is the only one where an appraisal is nowhere ever in the ballpark of what you would pay for the item. I'd estimate that most jewelry appraisals are roughly 100% inflated, if not more. I know my wifes engagement ring appraised for like 11K, but I payed just under 5 for the whole thing. It's pretty ridiculous how useless jewelry appraisals are. You won't usually see a home appraise for 400K and sell for a million, but that's basically how out of whack jewelry appraisals are.

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yeah the only reason I got my wife's rings appraised was for insurance purposes... and they appraised for almost 3 times what I paid from the same person who sold them to me.

edit: Myst your wife has sharp talons

edit: Myst your wife has sharp talons

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That's the clerk at the jewelry store, i haven't proposed yet. I was creeped out by them tbh.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

How in the blue fuck do you people spend thousands of dollars on something so completely and utterly useless?

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Come on man, women have some use.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

How in the blue fuck do you people spend thousands of dollars on something so completely and utterly useless?

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Probably the one and only time we'll ever agree on anything. But they marry women with fragile egos that need their self-esteem reinforced by their peers fawning over expensive baubles /shrug