choice between vendors for martini setting

[katiedid]

I thought this post might get lost in my other thread about the martini earring setting...

I''m talking to 2 different jewelers and once I get a price from this local guy, I''ll make a decision. Here''s the deal... one jeweler is out of state, is EXTREMELY nice and wonderful to deal with (I almost ordered my eternity set from him, but I decided I liked the look of the SP set better). He gave me a great price, and has the martini settings in stock.

His price for the new settings in 14k white gold, unmounting the stones from my current earrings, remounting them in the martinis, 2 sets of backs (a regular set and a set of the bigger backs that kindof stabilize them on your ear so they don''t droop), 2-3 day shipping back to me, and insurance is only $85 and he said he''d credit me the ounce or two of gold in my old settings, which would bring it down another $11-22. So around $74 plus $22 or so for me to ship them to him. Total price for me would be around $96 at most.

The local jeweler gave me a price of $105 plus tax. That would come to about $113 total. So less than a $17 difference (and he may actually give me a little bit of a discount on this price). He would need to order the settings since he doesn''t have any in stock.

So, is it better to just let the local guy do it and not deal with shipping them off for several days?

I''ll try to attach a "before" photo of the earrings as they are now in the 4 prong baskets with screw backs. (Geez I hate screwbacks--can''t WAIT to get the new settings!) They are 1.5 ctw (so around .75 each).

 

[katiedid]

Here are the earrings as they are now.