Quote:
Originally Posted by Misky1951
I'm going to propose to a wonderful woman in the near future. Never thought this would happen at this stage of life. But that's another story.
It's been a very long time since I shopped for rings. Not sure I'm comfortable going online.
Any suggestions on local jewelers?
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The price of diamonds, both man-made and natural has crashed. There is no difference between man-made and natural and there is no test at any level below a top-drawer physics lab that can tell the difference, and, perhaps, not even then.
What broke the floodgates is that the diamond "grading" companies agreed to examine and grade man-made stones as to color, clarity, and karat. The last hold-out of the grading services was GIA, which is considered the gold standard in the industry.
With the certainty of quality grading, the mass retailers, Zales etc., began carrying products with man-made stones. Prices tumbled. You can now buy an unset, quality, 1 karat diamond, online, for $1200. Retail jewelers, who are used to markups of 300% (the reason they can have 50% off sales) are in serious trouble as, while the %'s remain the same, their total revenue has crashed.
Check out websites such as Brilliance to learn what you can buy. If you don't know your ring size, buy a set of ring gauges from Amazon for $15 or less. If you insist on buying from a "bricks and sticks" store, go to Blue Nile at the large mall in Orlando. You'll pay, roughly, 40-50% more than an online store, but will have the comfort of dealing face-to-face with the retailer. Likewise, you can't go wrong with Costco, although the style of the rings from which you can select will be very limited.