Engagement ring

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Engagement was around a month's pay back when I was finishing off my Masters at Uni - so around £4000 equivalent in NZ dollars. It's what I could afford at the time without going without or borrowing money.

The eternity ring some years on however that was a much more expensive affair!
 
Abraham said:
They also limit the amount of diamonds on the market and successfully promote that only natural diamonds are worth having (which can only be mined in the mines they own).
They are ridiculously enterprising and it works.
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The story I heard regarding the origins of the one month thing was that De Beers did some market research asking women about what they wanted when getting engaged/married. The response was that women would rather men saved their money for getting a mortgage or furnishing a house or whatever. So De Beers switched tack and moved to targeting men, telling them that women want diamonds. The men fell for it. The one month's salary thing followed from that. Now, years later the original plan has kinda come to fruition as peer pressure among women ensures they want diamonds in order to maintain tradition and to keep up with the Joneses.

As regards synthetic diamonds... De Beers moaned about them, and argued that it was obvious that they were too perfect and thus were obviously fake, and not as valuable as real ones. So, in the quest for the perfect diamond, a too-perfect diamond is marked out as a fake and is thus degraded. The last I heard was that the synthetic producers were getting the hang of introducing enough realistic looking flaws into their diamonds so that they would look as good as the best natural ones.
 
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About £250 IIRC. I was an apprentice earning about 50p/year at the time. Even offered recently to get something shinier if she wants, but she turned it down. :cool:
 
SteveOBHave said:
About 5k but did it smart and didn't buy off the high street - valued at around 12K.

Ring-1.jpg
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Can I ask where from SteveOBHave, if not from the high street?
 
My friend recently got hitched but her other half proposed to her with a diamond he had imported from the US. She got to choose the setting and substrate, went for platinum so it doesn't scratch. It cost him around £3000. It has been valued and insured for £10,000.

Personally i wouldn't want anything that expensive on my finger. It doesn't need to be anything very extravagent to be special and in my job (rep in the vehicle repair trade) it is likely to get damaged.

If your missus is more interested in the value of the ring than the sentiment it comes with then you should be questioning why she is marrying you.
 
The only 'rule' worth following is buy what you can afford. If you have to get a loan or buy on the never never, then you're spending too much.

I think I paid about £1650 in 2004.
 
A months salary, no idea what it's valued at now as frankly we don't intend to sell it! Insured privately by jeweler who'll replace if it's lost/stolen like for like.
 
Von Luck said:
The only 'rule' worth following is buy what you can afford. If you have to get a loan or buy on the never never, then you're spending too much.

I think I paid about £1650 in 2004.
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True. My colleague bought this girlfriend an engagement ring with his bonus last year. Think it was around £5000. This morning I had to borrow him £10 as he is chronically skint .. again.
 
SteveOBHave said:
There are warehouses for them or you can buy the diamond online from somewhere like Bluenile.co.uk and get them set elsewhere. Small diamonds that go on the shoulders of the rings cost diddly - like about £30-£40 so the setting and shoulder diamonds can cost significantly less than if you were to get them completed with the ring. Check it out online and then read site reviews.

A setting in platinum will set you back about £500-£900 depending on the weight of the metal and the extra diamonds set.
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So you bought the diamond and got it made at a local jeweller?

Just looking on that Bluenile site and you can make a ring on there. Do you think their setting costs (or actual ring costs) are too high?

It's all very confusing all of this :p
 
^TANK^ said:
Can I ask where from SteveOBHave, if not from the high street?
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I bought the diamond for about 4k from Bluenile and then got it set at a central london jeweller. I work in the precious metals industry so I was able to tap into some contacts to get it done at a good rate.
 
ZG002 said:
So you bought the diamond and got it made at a local jeweller?

Just looking on that Bluenile site and you can make a ring on there. Do you think their setting costs (or actual ring costs) are too high?

It's all very confusing all of this :p
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We had a very specific design in mind and some differences that you don't normally see on a ring like having the bottom shaped so the ring doesn't rotate on the finger. I think the blue nile pricing is pretty reasonable but as I said, we weren't going for a generic design.

ringside.jpg
 
I'll be taking the plunge in the next 9 months or so.

Was thinking about browsing the Jewellery quarter in Birmingham, but wondering if these class as what's been referred to in here as 'high-street'?
 
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