This is a guest post by Vadim Kapustin, who runs the very helpful DiamondPriceGuru.com, a diamond comparison shopping tool delivered by the web. With his site, you won’t get the wool pulled over your eyes. Check it out!
Stepping over the threshold of your local mall’s jewelry store, you’re hit by three things: a pleasantly chilling air conditioned breeze, a trying-to-be-pleasant flock of eager sales people, and the realization that despite learning all about the 4Cs you have no idea if the rings in front of you are flawless D-colors or slightly included M-colors. So you sit or stand zombie-like in front of the engagement ring section, as sparklies are shown to you by the sales lady who beat her coworkers to the counter. If you’ve really prepared, you may acknowledge some diamond description with a confident sounding, “Oh, I’m not interested in anything below a VVS2.” And hope you were talking about clarity grades.
It’s scary plunking down this much hard-earned money for something that fourth-grade science told you was nothing more than lucky pencil graphite. But if you just take three simple steps, you’ll save a good chunk of your money and feel confident you’ve chosen the right diamond.
Step 1: Pull out pencil and paper and take notes. The sales person thinks you are (gulp!) comparison shopping—whether you are or not. So she’ll show you diamonds with prices that can compete with their peers across the mall at that other jewelry store.
Step 2: Have a basic idea of what you want before you enter the store—4Cs, shape, setting. It helps to write it on that piece of paper you brought along so you remember it even after you’ve been blinded by the 8-carat brilliant cut.
Step 3: Know your realistic price range. The rule of thumb is to pay two months’ wages, at the upper limit. To get more ice for your money use a diamond search engine, like the one we created at DiamondPriceGuru.com to look up the loose diamond’s price at 10 different online retailers and then decide who is going to get your hard-earned cash.
