Best value place to buy an engagement ring

fergus1001

Gentlemen,

I'm about to go off and buy an engagement ring for the other half but I am lost as to where would be the best value place to buy a ring

I'm not talking g about skimping on a ring all I want is that I get the best bang for buck when I am buying something

does anyone have any recommendations?

Bring her abroad.

Seriously, up will save more on the ring than the trip costs and you can get her something custom made.

I brought mine too egypt when I proposed and she got to design her own ring with the jeweller.

Entire trip and the custom ordered and designed ring, cost less than the valuation of the ring on returning to Ireland. That's on a very modest ring as she isn't into flash jewellery.

My sister got a ****ing rock on her finger, she reckons she still saved money getting it abroad.

silver2020

a day trip to the jewellry quarter in Birmingham.

Avoid "high street" shops, they are overpriced. Absolutely avoid H. Samuels - they mostly sell garbage (even their former CEO said so).

Another option is pawnbrokers for a vintage piece

Francescoli

silver2020 wrote: »

a day trip to the jewellry quarter in Birmingham.

Avoid "high street" shops, they are overpriced. Absolutely avoid H. Samuels - they mostly sell garbage (even their former CEO said so).

Another option is pawnbrokers for a vintage piece

This .

I have a friend involved in the trade in Birmingham and the savings to be made by avoiding the high street and going via trade are substantial.

El Gato De Negocios

May not be a runner due to C19 but we went to Antwerp, got a sapphire and diamond vintage style ring for €2000 which was later valued at €5000 over here.

oholly121

Try this place in Dublin

https://www.voltairediamonds.ie/engagement-rings-ads/?gclid=CjwKCAjw74b7BRA_EiwAF8yHFCqvI3IdNFIoNAcp89FggfwU6FJRfpbCPBR9e_Sk3N8efblwm9a95hoCFw8QAvD_BwE

I got mine here very nice staff if the ring dosent fit it’s free to reshape would highly recommend

Gregor Samsa

We got a custom ring made by a jeweller in Antwerp. It was a copy of a much more expensive ring my wife really liked. This was a decade ago, but the original ring was four times more expensive than ours, and the valuation price for insurance was twice what we paid. We were cheeky enough to go in to a high-end high-street jeweller here, try on the ring, take decent photos of it, and then send them off to the guy in Belgium. Everything was done by email/courier, got to pick the diamond from high res photos, and got regular photo updates during it being made. When we got it, my wife wasn't happy with one aspect of the band, and we were able to send it back (no cost to us), and he fixed it and sent it back. Got an letter earlier this year from him on the 10th anniversary, reminding us that we could send it back to him (at no extra charge) for cleaning.

A risky process maybe, but it worked out very well for us.

grimeire

I got one for the misses in January.

Best piece of advise is to stay away from big jewellers like H. Samuels and Keanes. Keanes give a load of vouchers for wedding locations, meals etc.. which is great but they are a bit over priced.

Got her ring in a small family owned jewellers was a 5 diamond ring and all in all it was 1.7 carats. A near identical ring of 1.3 carats was in Keanes and even aftering getting a % knocked off the price it was still more than the price i paid. The ring i got had better quality diamonds and 3 out of the 5 diamond came with certificates that was not the case in keanes.

Another thing to remember is the cost to maintain the ring also. So ask when buying does it include regular cleanings and check-ups. Insurance wont cover the ring if a diamond falls off and gets broken etc.. unless it has been maintained. May sound like a small thing but you would be surprised what a professional cleaning would do to a ring and some places charge 80 a pop for a cleaning and check up.

gav86

If your close to the border would maybe suggest up North with the sterling on its arse at the moment.
I went here - https://www.ellisonsjewellers.co.uk/
Cant recommend them enough, had a fair idea from the catalogue online, enquired and they had it in the shop in Belfast, gave decent discount in shop as well. Re-sized it and cleaned it for free after holidays as well..

Murt10

Some nice ones here. It's where some jewelers buy theirs. If the value is in the stones, then buying one here, and having it remounted means I assume that it would then be classified as a new ring.

At least if you bought the ring here, and wanted to flog it again for whatever reason, the loss you would suffer would be a fraction of what you would be facing if you bought the ring new.



https://www.oreillysfineart.com/auctions/current-auction/#?pagenum=1&searchterm=&tag=&order=asc&orderby=lot_no

ToxicPaddy

Bespoke diamonds on Kildare Stare definitely worth having a chat with. Martin is the person we dealt with in there. Really nice fella, very relaxed approach and knows his stuff. No hard sell or pressure and we got very good value for money on a very decent ring.

chancer007

these brothers are really good
https://www.martinsjewellers.ie/

Sleepy

eBay.

No, I'm not joking. Diamonds are about the most over-priced thing in the world thanks to deBeers legendary marketing campaigns at the start of the 20th century. Add in the ethical problems with this over-valuation creating the market for blood diamonds and imo, the only ethical way to buy a diamond engagement ring is to either buy a vintage/antique one or to go down the synthetic route. Not to mention you'll save a small fortune which you could either use to offset some of the costs of the wedding or allow you to buy something better than you could have afforded otherwise.

Greenlights16

Any way of Bookmarking this for future use?

Cerveza

If you want to buy a ring here forget about it. Best go abroad, you can get a token ring here and best place for that is heat merchants plumbing. They have various size olives from 10mm to 2.5 inch. I suspect the 2.5 olives are being used as rings on other body parts but that’s your own business.

SuperS54

Luckily my wife is a practical soul. We looked at various rings and options then at the complete nonsense associated with diamonds, primarily the fact that they're worth SFA! Try and resell a diamond! We decided on synthetic diamonds, she originally and very specifically did not want a large rock anyway. It's takes an experienced jeweler with magnification to tell the difference between a synthetic and a natural diamond. They cost very little, about what a diamond is really worth, they look identical to anyone without magnification and you don't have to worry about them ~ no worry about getting ripped off on grade/clarity/size etc., if they fall out or you lose the ring just buy another one, no need for insurance and associated bs. There is no "best value" in natural diamonds rings just trying minimize the ripoff you're heading for. Spend the money you save on something useful.