No outside diamonds rationale?

[teobdl]

Some of the jewelers that I've considered working with with to have a setting made do not allow customer's to provide their own diamonds anymore. What is the rationale behind this?
I can understand that an artist may want a certain look to their pieces so s/he only uses old cuts, for example. I know that for at least one vendor, it allows him to sell the complete piece in the event that an item is returned. However, I suspect that for many it's purely to gain the diamond markup.

If it's purely monetary, what would be a reasonable "setting fee" to offer so they might consider setting my diamond (3/4-1 ct)?

 

[hawk25]

I can only speculate, but I'd imagine that some jewelers just don't want the risk of being responsible for damage done to an outside stone. When the vendor sets their own stone, they know the exact condition, and who and where they got it from. If a customer brings in a stone, the vendor has next to no history of what happened to the stone, or if it's at risk. IIRC, WF requires the stone to be graded by certain labs (GIA/AGS I believe) as one of their conditions to set outside stones.

There must be an extra cost for insuring the store against those damages, and I've always thought the setting fee was to offset that additional insurance cost. But perhaps a small monetary gain is partially the reason as well, they are businesses afterall

 

[denverappraiser]

It's about the money. Isn't it always? Mind you, I think it's a foolish policy but it's theirs to make. Some setters refuse to take breakage risks, some will cover it for a fee and some won't do it at all. Not surprisingly, the ones who accept the risk are rarely the cheapest. If they don't want your business, shop somewhere else.

Consider buying the mounting, not just the labor, from whoever DOES want to earn your business.

I wrote a fairly long answer about this question a few days ago. It's rather near the end of this discussion:
[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/jeweller-doesnt-want-to-be-liable-for-setting-my-stone.190094/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/jeweller-doesnt-want-to-be-liable-for-setting-my-stone.190094/[/URL]

 

[Elysian]

I recently asked a setting designer if they are willing to set my stone, and the answer was no... they do not set outside sourced diamonds. Over the phone, a pleasant conversation... They offered one of their own stones, a $24K stone for me to consider with pics and GIA report, talked about where the said diamond is located now being serviced... where the designer had traveled to and lived, where I live, the weather, you know small talk... I looked up this exact stone from another reliable source (PS vendor) using the specs provided and GIA numbers... $16K. Why the $8k difference? The setting is around $2K, so why not advertise the setting and labor as $10k upfront?

So yes, I would say this was my first hand experience with this phenomenon...

 

[kenny]

If it's purely monetary, what would be a reasonable "setting fee" to offer so they might consider setting my diamond (3/4-1 ct)?

Apparently $8,000.