I’m going to buy my lovely lady a diamond ring, but I don’t know how to determine what the diamonds ought to cost before I start negotiating. I’m leaning towards a garland ring (something like this), which, I assume depending on the size of the stones, would require 10 or 13 diamonds. My budget’s up to $10,000. Is there an online calculator where I can compare how changing the variables for clarity, color and size affects the cost? I realize diamonds don’t have fixed prices (which is why I’m negotiating), but I’d like to have some sense for what I might expect. Thanks.
Bluenile.com has a section where you can search for loose stones by carat, clarity, cut, shape, etc. that should give you a pretty good idea.
I saw that, but since Blue Nile sells diamonds, I wasn’t sure their numbers wouldn’t be skewed so you’ll feel you’re getting a great deal.
Also, as long as I’m getting advice, I might as well ask another question:
I’m going to buy the diamonds in New York’s diamond district. Is that the best or worst place to buy them?
There are other loose diamond purchasers online that will allow you to adjust the search parameters, I think it’s a pretty good gauge of what’s available online since you are just looking for a ballpark figure.
Any price that you’ll actually find anyone selling a diamond for is more than you should be spending on it. They’re only a little rarer than quartz. What’s more, people are starting to actually realize this fact, and so the value of diamonds is probably going to drop over the next few decades.
Is this true for gem-quality diamonds, or are you including industrial diamonds in making this claim?
Diamonds are worth vast amounts because DeBeers says they are.
It’s a good place to buy them. It helps a lot if you know someone.
To start with, are you sure she wants a diamond ring? Some women would prefer a precious stone that isn’t a diamond (sapphire, emerald, etc.), even for their engagement rings.
If you have ascertained that she does indeed want a diamond, you could look into a Canadian diamond. It (arguably) may have less baggage than an African diamond.
By the way, the ring you linked to is GORGEOUS! 
Once a diamond is resold, no one, NO ONE, can say it came from Canada/Russia/Africa.
I don’t know whether it’s a good place for an uneducated person to buy a diamond. Don’t they expect the buyers to be familiar with valuing diamonds? How much education are they willing to give you? And if you’re going to buy loose stones, do you have any idea what it costs for mounting? Labor is expensive in the US.
I am not anything resembling a diamond expert but last week I bought a diamond to upgrade the stone in my wife’s engagement ring (20-year anniversary gift). The problem with diamonds is that the buyer is at a huge information disadvantage, unlike new car buyers. At least, that was my experience. The dealer I bought from had a chart of retail market prices based on color, clarity, and weight. The larger a diamond is, the higher the cost per carat. These prices fluctuate, though I’m not sure how much. They were fairly open about showing me this pricing but I think it’s all bullshit and they just charge whatever they can get you to pay.
I just reviewed the Blue Nile site and it’s quite a good source of information as to retail prices because they have so many stones cataloged. I am quite stunned that they have about 25,000 diamonds in the 1-2 carat range. They don’t give a formula for pricing but that search engine is the next best thing.
Yeah, you might want to ask her about that. My wife hates diamonds and all the misery they stand for. She wears an opal, which is her birth stone.
Yes. Also, some women prefer white gold, while others prefer yellow gold. I vastly prefer yellow gold to white gold, or to platinum or any of the other silver/white metals. And I’d much rather have a sapphire or even an amethyst rather than a diamond. And some women prefer real estate.
I haven’t bought a diamond in the Diamond District, but have bought watches and other jewelry.
If you have someone you can trust there, it is good. However, if you don’t, my experience is that you can do well if you know what you want and shop around. Whenever I’ve gone there, I have made sure to know exactly (or pretty exactly) what I want. Just walking into the street dealers, I’ve gotten a wide range of prices from different dealers. Also, some you just get the feel that they want to screw you, and others seem to want to make a reasonable deal. The advantage is that you can go up and down the street to find someone you feel comfortable with who is giving a good price.
One way to get at least an idea of the low point of your range: get a co-worker or somesuch to lend you their engagement ring, and take it to “we buy diamonds” places. Get them to make you an offer. Be shocked at how low they are. That is what you can expect to get for your purchase if you ever wish to sell it.
Not surprisingly, there is a large spread between what you’re offered and what you’ll be charged for a similar item.
Diamonds are one of the greatest marketing victories in history. They really have very little intrinsic value. The reason people pay what they do is because the cartel has done a great job with managing the supply, and convincing y-chromosome burdened schmucks that buying diamonds shows they love their girl. They even made rules! (3 month’s pay) and great, if factually incorrect, slogans. (Diamonds are not, in fact, forever)
Unfortunately, the cartel is showing cracks. There are too many areas of supply no longer under their control. It’s not hard to imagine a level of supply that will bring pricing near cubic zirconia levels being not to far off. So diamonds are not, as some jewelers like to describe them, an “investment” .
The reason for buying a diamond is to show your gal that you are willing to engage in wasteful conspicuous consumption on her behalf, to prove your love. It is a classier version of lighting her cigarets with $100 bills. That being the case, it might not go over well if she finds out that you’ve been trying to do such at the lowest cost possible - to the point of defeating the purpose.
Some alternatives: Shop “heirloom” jewelry stores. Heirloom means used, but sounds better, and you can mention how designs from the 30’s-50’s are so much more classic. Sales people at these places are great at making up wonderful stories about the pieces in question, so now you don’t just get a piece of carbon with a gold band, you get passion! emotion! history! baked in. Not co-incidentally, at a lower price. You could also look at (natural) emeralds. They are a lot more rare (at quality, anyway) and IMO way more interesting to look at.
One last thing, the only thing more bogus than diamond pricing is the concept of total carat weight (TCW) . 4 diamonds of 0.5 carat do not come remotely close to 1 diamond of 2 carat.
Educate yourself on what to look for in the diamond district and then head straight to a pawn shop and get one for a third of the price. Get the one some other sucker bought for his true love five years ago just to have her pawn it for a cruise.
Get her one that already has an inscription too, no need to waste money on that.
Now, I’ve never bought a diamond or spent time in the diamond district, so perhaps I’m talking out of my ass, but I always thought this was a place meant for serious buyers and sellers and not a place where people are happy to spend time educating buyers on how to select and value diamonds. Especially not when your goal is just to learn enough to buy from a pawn shop.