Selling a diamond or selling an entire engagement ring

Sell the entire engagement ring or just sell the diamond.

We love to give our clientele the best advice when it comes to selling an engagement ring or just selling a diamond.  When we aren’t the best place to sell the piece, we let our clientele know it and we try to guide them to better places. We get asked often if we can pay a premium for the ring as well as the diamond.

That makes sense right?  You do want to get the most for your ring as a whole.  I also like being upfront with information, our interest (as well as any other diamond buyer) is generally in the center diamond.  We have about 5,000 new mountings in our store and we’re looking for diamonds to buy to install into those mountings.  Though we do give a premium for rings (especially those with side stones) we generally melt down the mountings. It is much easier for a jewelry store to sell an “estate diamond” in a new mounting vs a pre-owned engagement ring.  We consider the premium that we give for those rings a service to the person who is selling a diamond, yet most of the premium that we pay for a ring is lost when we melt it.

The most profitable method for selling a diamond and the ring

Can you get more for just your engagement ring besides the metal weight and the value of the diamond?  The answer is yes, but the option is isn’t for everyone.  If you’ve purchased a desirable, premium brand name setting or ring (like Tacori, Ritani, Martin Flyer, Tiffany, Christopher Designs, Parade, Scott Kay and the list goes on and on visit www.designerjewelrybrands.com to see some of them) there may be a really good second option to explore. We’ve seen our clientele have some great success by selling the ring and the diamond separately. The reason this works is because generally when selling a premium branded piece, you either find a buyer who will pay a premium for the stone but not the mounting, or someone that really wants the ring style but would rather choose their own diamond. This is completely understandable.  People choose all kinds of diamonds for different reasons, some prefer the best cut, some prefer higher clarity, some prefer the best color – this is the part of what makes the ring unique to the buyer.

This is also why we offer to buy just the diamond, install a cz in the mounting and let the client sell the ring as a non-live mounting.  Ebay is a great, national platform, for selling a non-live, branded mountings.  Many people want to buy the ring style from a specific brand (and search for it online, even pre-owned), but most do not want have to purchase your diamond with it.  New customers, understandably, want to choose their own stone with the parameters that they choose. We soft set a CZ into the ring at no-charge for a client selling a diamond as long as the stone is prong set.  Selling an engagement ring can sometimes being a tough process when trying to figure how to get the most for your ring.  Our plan is to give you tips and help you to really get the most for your ring.

Shane Thompson
Shane Thompson
Shane Thompson is 3rd generation jeweler and works at Windsor Fine Jewelers in Augusta, GA. His fields of work include marketing and diamond buying.
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