Made my wife a ring

[Rave]

I proposed to my wife off the cuff when I was pissed and so was she. Three months later she chose her own ring- a cubic zirconia from Ernest Jones. Cost me £110. When it's clean it looks superficially like yours- at least to people like us who don't have the first idea about how a diamond is supposed to look.

I'm sorry, but I just can't get excited in any way about diamonds. So they sparkle a bit. Big w00t.

Fair play to you mate, you're clearly a capable and successful guy, and you seem to genuinely care for your wife rather than marrying a trophy bit of fluff, so.... If I was in the same position my wife would prefer a couple more holidays a year, is all.

I was going to buy myself a diamond for an investment - AFTER I had called off my engagement. Meaning that there is no judgement on "prospective" husbands. Diamonds are not just for engagements.

Good thing you didn't then- secondhand diamonds are pretty worthless.

Albeit this article os from the last recession:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...g-1557274.html

Here's something a bit more recent:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...e-of-its-value

[Tumble]

We made our wedding rings together.. they're made from the same piece of platinum. It really is the best metal (it's 95% pure win - the other 100% is platinum )

[Brucelles]

That's pretty impressive ! I used to have friends who worked for deBeers , and always told myself I'd get them to source a stone for me. I get the feeling you are a pretty worldly wise chap , but where you worried about being ripped of ? The diamond industry isn't always known for its scruples.

Well, I did say that I had done the research. I checked the 'underground' for reliable and cheap wholesalers and found one worth his weight in diamonds. I eventually got a really great deal (way under even normal wholesale rates, as it had been badly graded) and really, if I couldn't afford to risk the outlay I wouldn't have done it. Once I realised that the markup on diamonds was around 300%, I figured that the risk was worth it.

Some advice though, if you are serious about buying a stone cheaply, and it's an expensive one, consider flying to New York to look and buy, as the VAT upon mailing it to Britain is 15%, which isn't applicable to engagement rings just worn through the green gate, so a few days in New York can be a cheaper option, as well as a holiday in its own right.

Assume that you want to buy a $10,000 diamond (around 6.250 quid) from New York, you will pay about 1,000 quid VAT. A package with flights and hotel for three days could actually be less than that. You could then choose the diamond, have it valued and mounted, and have a 3-day holiday in New York and present it to your fiancée in Central Park in one of the horse carriage things and still have saved money, even over the discount price. There are bigger savings in India, but bigger risks too.

[Moby-Dick]

then again my team leader is indian and I think has some contacts however , It's going to be a long time before I'll be needing to buy a diamond.

[Brucelles]

Fair play to you mate, you're clearly a capable and successful guy, and you seem to genuinely care for your wife rather than marrying a trophy bit of fluff, so....

How dare you imply that I didn't marry a bit of trophy fluff? I'll have you know that my wife is as fluffy as the day is long.

Good thing you didn't then- secondhand diamonds are pretty worthless.

That is bloody true. Look at the simple math:

• I buy a diamond for, let's say $10,000, assume for the moment that I was allowed to import it without VAT, just to keep it simple.
• The guy who sold it makes a profit, not a huge one, as he's a wholesaler, so I am guessing around 30%, so he paid, say, $7,000 for it.
• Tiffanys could have bought the same diamond for the same price as him.
• Tiffanys mounted it on Platinum with little shoulder stones at a cost of around $300
• Tiffanys would have sold it for approximately $40,000 - $50,000, depending on various details. (Tiffanys set my stone for me, in my own setting, and the guy who took my money for the service said that it was good enough to carry the Tiffanys hallmark, and if it did they would flog it off for around that price, in Euros)
• I have my version of the same diamond mounted for about $1,000 in the same setting Tiffany used.

I spend $11,000 to get what Tiffanys would have sold for say $45,000, so I saved myself $34,000.

Hooray!!!

However, if I went to sell my ring today I would be offered less than the wholesaler paid for the stone alone, say $5,000, max. So I actually wasted $6,000.

[IBM]

So I actually wasted $6,000.

So why didn't you buy a second hand stone then? Saved a packet - could have made two rings for the same price...

[TheAnimus]

IBM asked the question i never understand about these things!

One of my colleuges bought his wife a blood diamond, i'm 90% sure......

[ixos]

If you were a plumber you could have made the ring yourself from an olive!! lol

[Rave]

How dare you imply that I didn't marry a bit of trophy fluff? I'll have you know that my wife is as fluffy as the day is long.

Amen. I married my wife because she's intelligent (finishing off her masters degree this year), and very funny- she gives as good as she gets against what I arrogantly see as my world class sarcasm.

But the truth is I chatted her up in the pub for her 36G tits.

[Zak33]

We made our wedding rings together.. they're made from the same piece of platinum. It really is the best metal (it's 95% pure win - the other 100% is platinum )

and I've seen them, and they are truly lovely, though heavy... much heavier than I thought they'd be.

Sair and I have titanium rings it's the only thing I've ever been interested in, in rings. Wearing a ring meant nowt to me, but having a titanium one.. that got me hooked!

Her's is polished, mine is matt, and both have a silver inlaid band.

[Allen]