- Joined
- Feb 21, 2017
- Messages
- 357
I've been visiting local small jewelers in the last couple weeks, seeing who has nice estate jewelry. Yesterday, I found my new Favorite Shop Ever: gorgeous estate jewelry (at very fair prices!) alongside some of the jeweler's own designs. The SA was personable and engaging, and he took tons of items out for me to try on.
....and then today's adventure I found a store via its stellar Yelp reviews. Granted, it's mostly new jewelry and their own designs, but they had some estate stuff, according to Yelp. The antique jewelry they had was pretty though less my style than that of My Favorite Shop Ever. They even had an Old Mine Cut, a cut I'd never seen in person. It was large (3.17 carats), M VS2, but with unremarkable faceting. It was in a restored, thin platinum solitaire setting with a tiiiiiiny baguette on each side of the OMC. I noted it was an M, tried it on, then looked at the price.
$90,000.
I'm pretty sure I kept my outward reaction to this:
Although in my head, I wondered who the heck came up with that absurd number. Subsequent price comparisons on many different vendor sites (both of loose antique stones and whole, original antique settings) confirm that their price made no sense.
And inside, I was busting up over it. Who did they possibly think would pay that much for a restored/not entirely original ring with an OMC of that weight with a flat/boring cut?
So, what about you? Any fun stories of having to keep your face in check when you've seen a jeweler/B&M store trying to play customers for fools?
....and then today's adventure I found a store via its stellar Yelp reviews. Granted, it's mostly new jewelry and their own designs, but they had some estate stuff, according to Yelp. The antique jewelry they had was pretty though less my style than that of My Favorite Shop Ever. They even had an Old Mine Cut, a cut I'd never seen in person. It was large (3.17 carats), M VS2, but with unremarkable faceting. It was in a restored, thin platinum solitaire setting with a tiiiiiiny baguette on each side of the OMC. I noted it was an M, tried it on, then looked at the price.
$90,000.
I'm pretty sure I kept my outward reaction to this:
Although in my head, I wondered who the heck came up with that absurd number. Subsequent price comparisons on many different vendor sites (both of loose antique stones and whole, original antique settings) confirm that their price made no sense.
And inside, I was busting up over it. Who did they possibly think would pay that much for a restored/not entirely original ring with an OMC of that weight with a flat/boring cut?
So, what about you? Any fun stories of having to keep your face in check when you've seen a jeweler/B&M store trying to play customers for fools?