Engraving

[pdzwilewsk]

My fiance and I bought plain wedding bands at Tiffany''s and we want to get them engraved. Both of our incriptions are 5 words each, although mine has 28 letters and hers has around 20. For mine they are charging $186 and for hers $134. Is this a crazy expensive price for this work?

 

[jewelerman]

In my opinion yes its very expensive.Are they machine engraving or hand engraving?This could explain the high cost.If engraving is done by hand then this is the norm ,if by machine it should be considerably less($30) or even complimentary considering the high cost of Tiffany jewelry.

 

[surfgirl]

T&C charges by the letter, not the word. I just sent my plain plat wband in for engraving last week and the shorter engraved option was about $105, the one I really wanted was $144. I paid the extra for what I really wanted because it''s a wedding band and if you''re engraving it, you might as well get what you really want engraved inside the ring, right? It''s not the time to pinch pennies,IMO...You''ll wear these rings for the rest of your lives, right? Just enjoy and know that it was hand engraved for you with exactly what you wanted!

 

[Tacori E-ring]

My BK ring was charged by the letter too. I believe it was $5/letter. Adds up fast!

 

[heather318]

I took FI''s platinum band to a B&M store and paid $28 for it.. It was 12 letters, but even if you multiplied it be 2 (if they were charging me by the letter) you would still be paying a lot! The amount you''re paying seems RIDICULOUS!

 

[rainydaze]

wow! i didn''t know engraving was charged for by the jeweler purchased from. the first jeweler we purchased our rings from did it for free, and when i had my stone reset the designer (or jeweler, not sure who did it) also did not charge us to have it engraved. however, it sounds like charging is not unheard of, so i would second what surfgirl is saying and get what you want. in this one instance, it matters enough to be worth it even though it''s a little much to swallow.

 

[kcoursolle]

Yes, it''s expensive...but so is everything at tiffanys. Nobody buys there for the deals.

 

[Elmorton]

Ditto the hand engraving vs. machine engraving prices - I found hand engraving here $40 for something like 6 characters and then $4 per letter after that - I had 30 letters and 7 spaces (spaces were free) - and when we added it up, it cost more than the band.

Keep looking, though. We went to about 10 jewelry places and asked about engraving prices, and there were all sorts of problems - some machines only do up to 20 characters, some machines can''t do a comfort fit or a small mm, some will only do capital letters, some only do script. Finally we went to our original jeweler where we got our wedding sets (and DH''s band engraved) - I got a pretty font (Parisian, I believe) that matches DH''s ring, and I think the total was $30 - for sure not over $40.

 

[purrfectpear]

Tiffanys does hand engraving exclusively. That is fairly normal pricing for that sort of work.
Hand engraving is well worth it IMO. I used to engrave for a jewelry store using a machine and there''s no comparison.

 

[gemgirl]

The difference is between hand engraving and machine engraving, plus you''re paying the "Tiffany premium".

I just had a band machine engraved last week, and the price was $2.50 a character for machine engraving (and $5.00 for hand engraving).

Of course there''s nothing like hand engraving for something very special. Our wedding bands are hand engraved. The piece I had done recently was not my wedding band, so I didn''t mind machine work or the lower cost.

 

[Elmorton]

Honestly...I'm a big fan of the machine engraving we had done. It's very dark, and we had a choice of fonts. From what I was told about hand engraving (and this info could very well be wrong), it's only in script. Here's our rings below. Maybe someone who has hand engraving could post a pic to show you a comparison?

 

[surfgirl]

Elmorton, your engraving font is lovely! Re: the fonts, T&C offers only hand engraving for rings and they only offer 4 fonts - 2 are script and 2 are not.