funketrade
Rough_Rock
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2013
- Messages
- 14
As a thank you for all the helpful education ,information and feedback I've received on these forums during my e-ring planning/purchase, I thought I'd give back by posting my experience of the A-Z of buying a stone online (my 1st time) and having a ring custom-made by my own ring-maker, I live in Canada so this may be of particular interest to Canadians with shipping/tax-relared questions, especially since the ring was made in another city from where I live. I ran into a few challenges throught the process which made it take longer than I'd hoped, but I'm very satisfied with the end result... it was well worth waiting for... I hope my soon-to-be-finacee agrees!
1. Deciding to buy online - I was very skeptical about this initially but a lot of research reassured me that it wasn't as sketchy as it sounded. I started out looking at Blue Nile and then researched other online stores and was quickly overwhelmed with the sheer # of verndors with different terms, warranties, etc... Once I realized the distinction between virtual stones and physical stones, I decided to go with physical and quickly narrowed down to Brian Gavin, Whiteflash and James Allen - I also considered Good Old Gold (great feedback if a more limited selection). Since I'd decided to prioritize cut above all else I felt that since these companies all had a "premium" in-house-certified line (A Cut Above, True Hearts, Signature Series...) I had a bit of reassurance of getting the best of the best cut (or better of the best at least). It also helped with the confusion surrounding the finer points of trying to objectively understand what's better than what AGS0 vs. GIA3x (5 point scale vs. 10 point scale), and that all the certificates and analyses tell only part of the story and without being an expert there's only so much you can know about the quality when buying sight unseen. Like anything, a lifetime of experience and expertise cannot be fully summed up into a few simple rules of what's better than what, moreso for diamonds, which is as much anart as a science.
During this time I also visited a few brick and mortar jewellery stores, dimaond dealers and a jewellery store in a duty-free caribbean location. I was uniformly unimpressed with the limited selection of stones and ring styles and over-pricing. In the caribbean they tried to sell me Hearts On Fire which were not even GIA or AGS-appraised (apparently HOF has their own in-house appraisal... as if that's trustworthy!). Seeing stones in the safe meant coming back at a pre-specified time (due to time-locks), the promise to get me "any stone in the world" amounted to no different than me buying the same stone from bluenile - but worst of all was these people trying to reassure me that trust had to be the main factor in the sleaziest, most non-trustworthy way(felt like used car salesmen) - maybe it was my budget (a mere 8k for a stone), but they were quite dismissive, especially when I mentioned points indicating that I had done my homework and knew more than just the basic 4C's.
2. Selection of online vendors - As I mentioned, the 4 vendors I pursued my search with (all very reputable and with majority very positive customer experiences) had in-house collections. All had very helpful and responsive customer service agents who responded to questions thoroughly and quickly and also suggested other similar stones to consider when trying to find the right balance of cost and characteristics. I finally went with Whiteflash - mainly because they had a stone that hit the sweet spot in terms of "bang for the bucK" (as far as I could tell), but another big factor was the ease of having all images (idealscope, Sarin, ASET) readily available rather than having to reserve to get the reports and having a maximum of reservations. This helped accelerate the process of posting images to the forum and collecting feedback. Special praise goes to Brittany at whiteflash for her good service!!
3. Payment, Shipping & Taxes - I paid by wire transfer so I got the wire transfer and pricescope member discount (thank you pricescope!). In my case the bank screwed up the wire transfer and it had to be resent a week later. Then on the 2nd try, it was held up by the US bank issuing the funds (JP Morgan) since the reason stated on the transfer was "diamond" (I still don't know what could possibly be unclear about this... but do yourself a favour and say "jewellery") - in all the wire transfer took 10 days to arrive at whiteflash (instead of 3-5). Whiteflash would not release for shipment until the wire transfer is received (it was not sufficient to send a fax of the wire transfer documents in order for them to ship). The delay meant that my ringmaker would not be in my city at thetime of the arrival of the stone so I had to change the delivery location to go directly to her... which led me to the next challenge - delivery to a 3rd party necessitated a Fedex Power Of Attorney form to be completed, which I only found out when my ringmaker went to pick up at the fedex office, which meant another weekend and a day to process the form. Upon pickup the CDN taxes (13% HST in Ontario) had to be paid.
Reappraisal - My ringmaker got the ring appraised at a trusted local appraiser. All the same characteristics were noted (the measurements were very slightly different) - to my delight the appraised value was almost double the cost of the stone!!!! I also got the final ring appraised. Also, I decided not to get the stone insured (for the ringmaking) since i really trust the ringmaker and setter she works with.
Final Shipment - Once the ring was complete - round stone in bezel setting with 2 marquise-side stones in bezel settings it was time for shipment from Ontario to me in Quebec and time for my last challenge... it seems that fedex and other couriers do not ensure jewellery unless you have a corporate account or have a very low limit (2000 for UPS). I found a courier called Malca-Amit which is a courier specialized in high-value shipments, which does ensure for regular joe-sixpacks like me. If it's under 100k in value they just have Fedex deliver it insured on their corporate account, however over 100k they send an armored car. They do require an appraisal and have to inspect the goods to make sure you shipping the item that's been appraised. In my case it cost 60$ for overnight shipping insured for the appraised value of $10,500. A shipment of this sort for a simple document is 20-30
So thanks for reading my long-as-hell story and thanks again for all the valuable info and guidance I received in these forums. I've attached a few pics of my custom-designed bezel set e-ring, featuring a 0.828ct G SI1 A CUT ABOVE Hearts and Arrows Super Ideal Round Cut stone and 2 marquise-cut side stones. (the pictures don't capture the brilliance of the stone but it's extremely lively)
1. Deciding to buy online - I was very skeptical about this initially but a lot of research reassured me that it wasn't as sketchy as it sounded. I started out looking at Blue Nile and then researched other online stores and was quickly overwhelmed with the sheer # of verndors with different terms, warranties, etc... Once I realized the distinction between virtual stones and physical stones, I decided to go with physical and quickly narrowed down to Brian Gavin, Whiteflash and James Allen - I also considered Good Old Gold (great feedback if a more limited selection). Since I'd decided to prioritize cut above all else I felt that since these companies all had a "premium" in-house-certified line (A Cut Above, True Hearts, Signature Series...) I had a bit of reassurance of getting the best of the best cut (or better of the best at least). It also helped with the confusion surrounding the finer points of trying to objectively understand what's better than what AGS0 vs. GIA3x (5 point scale vs. 10 point scale), and that all the certificates and analyses tell only part of the story and without being an expert there's only so much you can know about the quality when buying sight unseen. Like anything, a lifetime of experience and expertise cannot be fully summed up into a few simple rules of what's better than what, moreso for diamonds, which is as much anart as a science.
During this time I also visited a few brick and mortar jewellery stores, dimaond dealers and a jewellery store in a duty-free caribbean location. I was uniformly unimpressed with the limited selection of stones and ring styles and over-pricing. In the caribbean they tried to sell me Hearts On Fire which were not even GIA or AGS-appraised (apparently HOF has their own in-house appraisal... as if that's trustworthy!). Seeing stones in the safe meant coming back at a pre-specified time (due to time-locks), the promise to get me "any stone in the world" amounted to no different than me buying the same stone from bluenile - but worst of all was these people trying to reassure me that trust had to be the main factor in the sleaziest, most non-trustworthy way(felt like used car salesmen) - maybe it was my budget (a mere 8k for a stone), but they were quite dismissive, especially when I mentioned points indicating that I had done my homework and knew more than just the basic 4C's.
2. Selection of online vendors - As I mentioned, the 4 vendors I pursued my search with (all very reputable and with majority very positive customer experiences) had in-house collections. All had very helpful and responsive customer service agents who responded to questions thoroughly and quickly and also suggested other similar stones to consider when trying to find the right balance of cost and characteristics. I finally went with Whiteflash - mainly because they had a stone that hit the sweet spot in terms of "bang for the bucK" (as far as I could tell), but another big factor was the ease of having all images (idealscope, Sarin, ASET) readily available rather than having to reserve to get the reports and having a maximum of reservations. This helped accelerate the process of posting images to the forum and collecting feedback. Special praise goes to Brittany at whiteflash for her good service!!
3. Payment, Shipping & Taxes - I paid by wire transfer so I got the wire transfer and pricescope member discount (thank you pricescope!). In my case the bank screwed up the wire transfer and it had to be resent a week later. Then on the 2nd try, it was held up by the US bank issuing the funds (JP Morgan) since the reason stated on the transfer was "diamond" (I still don't know what could possibly be unclear about this... but do yourself a favour and say "jewellery") - in all the wire transfer took 10 days to arrive at whiteflash (instead of 3-5). Whiteflash would not release for shipment until the wire transfer is received (it was not sufficient to send a fax of the wire transfer documents in order for them to ship). The delay meant that my ringmaker would not be in my city at thetime of the arrival of the stone so I had to change the delivery location to go directly to her... which led me to the next challenge - delivery to a 3rd party necessitated a Fedex Power Of Attorney form to be completed, which I only found out when my ringmaker went to pick up at the fedex office, which meant another weekend and a day to process the form. Upon pickup the CDN taxes (13% HST in Ontario) had to be paid.
Reappraisal - My ringmaker got the ring appraised at a trusted local appraiser. All the same characteristics were noted (the measurements were very slightly different) - to my delight the appraised value was almost double the cost of the stone!!!! I also got the final ring appraised. Also, I decided not to get the stone insured (for the ringmaking) since i really trust the ringmaker and setter she works with.
Final Shipment - Once the ring was complete - round stone in bezel setting with 2 marquise-side stones in bezel settings it was time for shipment from Ontario to me in Quebec and time for my last challenge... it seems that fedex and other couriers do not ensure jewellery unless you have a corporate account or have a very low limit (2000 for UPS). I found a courier called Malca-Amit which is a courier specialized in high-value shipments, which does ensure for regular joe-sixpacks like me. If it's under 100k in value they just have Fedex deliver it insured on their corporate account, however over 100k they send an armored car. They do require an appraisal and have to inspect the goods to make sure you shipping the item that's been appraised. In my case it cost 60$ for overnight shipping insured for the appraised value of $10,500. A shipment of this sort for a simple document is 20-30
So thanks for reading my long-as-hell story and thanks again for all the valuable info and guidance I received in these forums. I've attached a few pics of my custom-designed bezel set e-ring, featuring a 0.828ct G SI1 A CUT ABOVE Hearts and Arrows Super Ideal Round Cut stone and 2 marquise-cut side stones. (the pictures don't capture the brilliance of the stone but it's extremely lively)
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