Quality of work: Unique Settings of New York

[Bananadon]

Hello All,

I'm a long time lurker here and i've finally hit a wall with purchasing a setting. I already have my 1.5ct vintage cushion but I'm looking for a solitaire with 3/4 pave setting to be created for less than $3000. I live and work in Manhattan which helps however i've gone into four jewelers and they all use Unique Settings of New York to create their rings with quotes varying from 2500-3000 with a one week turn around time. I did a little more research and found out that a lot of the big online vendors also use Unique or Adwar Casting Co (Whiteflash, Blue Nice, Etc).

Can anyone comment on the quality of their work compared to say.. Leon, BGD, Mark Morrell, or JBEG? (I havent seen their work in person but from the hype and reviews on here they seem to be the best)

Any suggestions or direction would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Michael_E]

I use Unique Settings for a lot of clients who want to keep their costs down a bit and I find that they and all of the other casting houses such as Adwar, Stuller, Roseco, Ingwer, etc. produce very fine settings. They do arrive as cast and require a competent bench jeweler to finish them. That said, they are not comparable to a custom setting. Some are close...maybe 85% to 90% as good, but they lack the refinement and little touches, that are made specifically for you, that a custom setting can offer. The upside is that the cost of a commercial setting is usually 50 or 60% of that of a custom setting, since there is much less time and skill involved in making it.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I own both Unique cast settings (my present e-ring) and have owned custom pieces from WF and BGD and agree with Micheal E. The Unique settings tend to be a little chunkier in my experience. I am, however, very very happy with the quality for the price.

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

Great info Michael_E much appreciated.

 

[denverappraiser]

I'm with Michael. Unique is a casting house and they do a good job on what they do. The problem is that it's usually not the complete job. Someone else is doing the finishing and the setting work and skill levels at this vary quite a bit from one retailer to the next. If you're considering on buying from one, ask to see some work they've done. It's not just Unique that's working on the piece and if they get their part right, but the next step gets screwed up by their customer then the results are bad. On the other hand, if Unique has a problem but the finisher fixes it, the end result can be quite nice.

 

[Bananadon]

Thank you all for your help! Very much appreciated!