From: jfieber@sophia.smith.edu (John Fieber)
Subject: Re: Engagement Rings (Where to buy)
Organization: Smith College
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 04:39:39 GMT

In article <1bkfpsINNa8v@rave.larc.nasa.gov> sleight@blackbird.larc.nasa.gov (David W. Sleight) writes:
>I am planning on buying an engagement ring for my girlfriend

Having just gone through this...

>in the next month or so.  I have already started to look at
>jewelry stores in shopping malls and discount places like
>Service Merchandise and Best.  Service Merchandise and Best

For starters, I hate malls.  The thought of buying a ring from a
mass market rock chain just never crossed my mind.  Thinking
about it now makes me feel ill. 

Really, I found a jewelry shop that I was really impressed with.
The owner/designer/artist really took pride in his work (and it
was darn good) and took the time to teach us all sorts of things
about diamonds---how they are cut, how they are graded and all.
He actually showed us an array of diamonds all of varying quality
to show us how the grading system worked and the effects of
different levels of colour and clarity.  The ring we eventually
selected was a handmade one-of-a-kind with a small, but high
quality diamond.  I'd say go for quality, not size.  A good
quality small diamond looks a lot nicer than a poor quality large
one.  (personal opinion)

I think the overwhelming feeling after looking in many stores was
that this jeweler knew his stuff, was honest and far more
interested in happy customers than making money.  I have this gut
feeling that I would not find that sort of service in a mall.  I
would, however, be interested to find out if there are major
price differences. 

>stores to the ring's appraised value?  What are the different levels of 
>quality in a diamond ring ?

Colour ranges from a very clear to a yellowish tint.  From
memory, D is the top grade (why d?  I don't know) and goes down
the alphabet from there.  Take two diamonds of different colour
grade side by side and this factor jumps out.  After seeing it
once, I could fairly eaisly spot the difference in isolated
diamonds as well.  

Clarity.  Diamonds have little marks in them.  The higher the
grade the fewer and smaller the marks.  My jeweler referred to
this as "how much pepper is in the diamond".  I don't recall the
official classification for this aspect.  To be honest, the
effect of this was much less apparent to me than the colour.  Of
course, he didn't have any really bad diamonds on display...

The size.  Everybody should know this one.  The bigger, the more
expensive (generally speaking).  As mentioned above, size is not
always the most important factor in how "brilliant" a diamond is.

The cut can really affect how "bright" the diamond is.  If it is
cut wrong, light coming in the top leaks out the sides rather
than coming back out the top.  We were able to compare diamonds
that were cut differently and it did make a *very* noticable
difference in the brilliance.  


So, that is my advice in a nutshell.  Find a jeweler you feel good
about.  I can't tell you any scientific procedure for this though...

-john
-- 
===jfieber@sophia.smith.edu==================================================
Newsgroups: soc.couples