Diamonds: The great American rip off!!!!

[Finder]

I agree with much that has been posted on this thread, HOWEVER - you cannot put a price on the years of happiness (and conversely, unhappiness) you will enjoy having pleased your wife with the "perfect" diamond ring. Happy wife = happy life

Disclosure: I just gave my long-time girlfriend a diamond engagement ring and she said yes

Nickelmeister, well said and congratulations.

Congrats!

We have been married 17 years, a word of advice from experience.
I hope it doesnt offend you.

Forgive.

I do hope your marriage will be full or nothing but rainbows and butterflies, and hills filled with the sound of music,
as you dance happily to a tune only the both of you know and hear.

But the reality is that marriage isnt always that way.

My wife and I have learned over the years that one of the key ingredients to any relationship, especially our marriage, is forgiveness.

Forgiveness has been described as giving up your right to hurt someone for hurting you.

So my advice is to always remember and try to put into practice Ephesians 4:32 which says:

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christs sake has forgiven you.

If you dont already do so I would take her to bible believing church THIS Sunday, and keep yourselves there.

Also, one of my favorite verses pertaining to marriage, spoken by the wisest man to ever live, Solomon:

Proverbs 18:22
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.

[JerrySpringer]

Interesting, very detailed story about diamond industry:

http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/prologue.htm


The thing I noted is that if diamonds were actually a good investment, you'd never have De Beers having to maintain floors on the pricing.

[highroller4321]

Blood diamond is a good movie to watch to really learn about diamonds.

[Copper Catcher]

Diamonds... an interesting subject. I think in the old forum this was discussed. Let me put the spotlight on this subject for a moment!

Every wonder why you see the same type and style of jewelry in the different mall jewelry stores? Here is why......

Sterling Inc. for our first example. Sterling has over 1300 Jewelry Stores nationwide. They have them all over the country under 12 different Brand names. A lot of these names will be very familiar to you. (Highly Commercialized!) You could probably walk into any Shopping Mall and see at least 2 or 3 of them at any given time.

The list of Sterling Inc. (Signet Group in the UK) Brand Names are:

Kay Jewelers
Jared the Galleria of Jewelers
J.B. Robinson Jewelers
Marks & Morgan Jewelers
Belden Jewelers
Weisfield Jewelers
Osterman Jewelers
Friedlanders Jewelers
Rogers Jewelers
Goodman Jewelers
LeRoys Jewelers
Shane's Jewelers
H. Samuel (UK)
Ernest Jones (UK)

Zales Jewelers is another big corporation with 690 Stores all across the country. They operate under the multiple names of:

Zales Jewelers
Gordon's Jewelers
Peoples Jewelers (Canada)
Mappins (Canada)
Piercing Pagoda
Zales Outlet Diamond Store

Samuels Jewelers is another big company with 132 Brand Name stores. (Owned by Gitanjali USA - part of the De Beers site holder company, Digico Group). Their Jewelry Store Names are:

Samuels Jewelers
Samuels Diamonds
Schubach Jewelers
Rogers Jewelers
Andrews Jewelers

Fred Meyer Jewelers (400 Stores) is in the same boat. They have stores by different names and even have some in the Kroger Food Stores. (Would you like a Potato with your Carat?) Their Names are:

Fred Meyer Jewelers
Littman Jewelers
Fred Meyer Market Place Stores
Kroger Market Place Stores
Barclay Jewelers

Almost all of these jewelry stores sell "promotional jewelry" meaning low quality high mark up. The sales flyers in the newspaper are all geared to certain "price points" and demographics.

You don't hear the term much out in the open but "triple keystone" is not uncommon.
Keystone refers to doubling the cost of jewelry, whereas triple keystone is tripling the cost of jewelry to determine the retail value (A staggering 300% Mark Up)! I know lots of jewelry stores claim this is not the case but that is total bull in most cases!

Most people are not willing to take the time to learn all about the diamond grading which covers numerous aspects of each individual diamond's qualities, but there are four grades which are critical to understand: cut, clarity, color, and carat weight. Also as mentioned by others better quality diamonds generally come with a diamond certificate, which is sometimes called a grading report, is a complete evaluation of your diamond that has been performed by a qualified professional with the help of special gemological instruments. Each stone bears its own recognizable, individual characteristics, which is listed on the certificate.

Do not however confuse a diamond certificate with a jewelry appraisal. Appraisals are not worth the paper they are printed on for the most part and only are given for insurance purposes.

Also note that if your jewelry is stolen and you claim a lose with your insurance company they are not going to pay you that inflated number on your appraisal but most likely replace the jewelry you lost.

[Cerulean]

The fastest way to shatter the illusion of diamond valuation is to try selling one.

[cesariojpn]

The fastest way to shatter the illusion of diamond valuation is to try selling one.

See that all the time on Hardcore Pawn. Especially funny when the person that owns the diamond goes bonkers.

[68Camaro]

(No offense to the females here but...) Most women have drunk the DeBeers kool-aide. And unfortunately too often there is little that men that can do about that, at least in certain circumstances. For my wife it was an emotional thing, and as crazy and irrational as it sounds (and, in truth, it is), if I didn't get her the big diamond, then I didn't love her enough and I didn't feel she was "worth" it. (And this is in an otherwise unusually rational and logical highly educated woman who makes her living based in large part on truth and logic.) We had a brief explosive argument about it, until I finally decided that this wasn't something I could change anytime soon, and this was effectively just a "tax' to DeBeers that I was going to have to suck up and pay if I wanted this woman in my life. I accepted it, put my issues away and we collectively just searched for the best "deal" that could be had (and given that, did "well'). I have no illusions that this is any type of real investment, except that it made/makes her happy, and as long as it's a one-time thing, that is a worthwhile investment of a different type.

That said, I've been slowly working on helping her come to a realization that diamonds are a manufactured, emotional, desire - created by a masterful marketing machine. I don't want to ever have to buy another one.

[Copper Catcher]

That said, I've been slowly working on helping her come to a realization that diamonds are a manufactured, emotional, desire - created by a masterful marketing machine. I don't want to ever have to buy another one.

I wonder if woman would say the same thing about men and cars or boats or ???

[68Camaro]

That said, I've been slowly working on helping her come to a realization that diamonds are a manufactured, emotional, desire - created by a masterful marketing machine. I don't want to ever have to buy another one.

I wonder if woman would say the same thing about men and cars or boats or ???

I'm sure they could say it...

The resale value and depreciation of cars and boats are, at least, well understood. And for some of us (my Camaro a perfect example) it is or was or can be a sickness similar to a DeBeers diamond. However, even with the market drop, I can resell my Camaro for something approaching what I put into it, if not more. And my wife can say that about other parts of her jewelry, so not begrudging her that (and she looks good in it) . But she can't say that about her diamonds... (Sorrry hun...)

[barrytrot]

Sorry about the issues with the OP's grand daughter.

The problem was not shopping around for something which was clearly almost out of price range for this young couple.

Diamonds are over priced, of course, but they look pretty nice. And they have so many that they have one in every price range. This couple, for some reason chose one that was double what they could afford.

Also the jeweler is clearly not a good business man. Taking the ring back and removing the debt is the obvious thing that any sensible business man would do. He's made his profit in the down payment, he doesn't need to squeeze this one customer for everything he can. And obviously she's never coming back and will likely dissuade a few others over her life as well. Not smart for the business.

Congrats to nickelmiester! All you need to do is treat her with love every day. It's that simple and also that hard.

[John_doe]

Take your soon to be blushing bride to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, hand her a shovel, bucket, seive, big staw hat if it's sunny and tell her her dreamed of diamond is in there somewhere. She just has to do her part and find it. You'll pay to have it mounted in a gorgeous copper setting .

Apperently I can sell them at a good premium.

dig!