How to find a lovely vintage/antique/estate ring?

[Loves Vintage]

I went into a well-respected local shop, just to look at rings. This was about a week ago, and my first (and still my only) stop into a store to look at engagement rings. I always knew that I liked the idea of a vintage ring, but like I said, the topic of rings has only recently come up. Sooooo, they have a very small selection in the store, maybe 24 rings total? I immediately noticed this "estate" ring. I didn''t even know it was when I asked to have it taken out of the case.

It is a lovely ring. Round stone, ideal cut, .95 carat, F colored, with three small diamonds (G colored) on each side. I think the stone is a VS1, but could be a VS2. I don''t recall. It is set in a hand-made platinum setting. The diamond is set fairly low into the setting, and is very very sparkly. The ring has a bit of engraving on each side, just a small line.

This is the first ring that I''ve tried on, and I immediately kept referring to it as my ring. My BF and I went to look at it again this Saturday. He really likes it too. My only criticism is that I wish there were more diamonds on each side. They are round, and are separate by beads. When I asked what the setting was called, she told me that they were separated by the beads, so it''s definitely not channel set, but I do not know what it is called. It just seems like there could be more.

So, my questions are -- it was priced at 6,500 -- how do I know if that is a fair price? Where else can I go to look at many vintage rings at the same time?

 

[kellyfish]

www.singlestone.com has beautiful jewelry.....

 

[Rhea]

I''m not sure about the price, but I do agree with Kelly on trying Single Stone and will also add artdecodiamonds.com and antiqueenagementrings.com and isadoras.com as three other sites that have great antique rings.

 

[Circe]

Also, as silly as it may sound ... while I wouldn''t trust eBay for a great many things, uncertified diamonds first and foremost among them, for antique semi-mounts, it can be a treasure trove! A lot of jewelers use it to sell off pieces that they can''t sell in their b&m locations (at least, not without enough work to make the profit margin meager), but which are too good to use for scrap: here''s one I was eyeballing tonight.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEBTOX:IT&item=140178874292&_trksid=p3984.cTODAY.m238.lVI

It''s not like I *needed* another fishtail prong setting, but oh! pretty ... and seeing how little it went for, perhaps I should have paid more attention to the auction. Le sigh ....

 

[littledebbie]

Do you want an antique ring or get ideas to have a custom ring made that has an antique look? Here are several London jewellery shops that have antique rings. I''ve been looking to get ideas, but I suppose you could purchase from them if they had good return policies.

My favorite:

http://www.berganza.net/berganza_jewellery.html

Other good sites:

http://www.arullmann.com/jewellery.jsp

http://www.john-joseph.co.uk/

This one is not antique, but antique style:

http://www.luciecampbell.com/

I think I bookmarked a few others, but I can''t find them now (my bookmarks badly need to be organized!). If I find them, I''ll post them. Have fun!

 

[Love in Bloom]

I preferred the look a vintage ring too, but I also really wanted a matching wedding band. Are you in the same boat? It proved to be a very difficult task to find an old set that I liked, so I ended up getting just the vintage ering and looking for a modern band...but then I couldn''t find a band I thought suited my ering and had some problems with the setting. Eventually I ended up resetting my diamond into a newly made setting and purchasing the matching wedding band. The rings still look vintage though...they are Van Craeynest. I would recommend them if you want the look of vintage without the possible hassles of a true vintage ring.

 

[Loves Vintage]

Thank you all for your responses. I hadn''t even thought of a matching wedding band yet. After doing some more research, it seems that I should get a copy of the cert for the ring that I like.

I''ve also looked at all the suggested websites and I really like the ebay idea too!

I love this site!!