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JEWELRY SOLITAIRE PENDANTS : I would advise only buying GIA graded diamonds. (Not"just as good as" GIA, there is no "just as good as" GIA.)This assumes you are buying for investment, which meansyou should also be buying wholesale. Since most folkscan't buy diamonds wholesale & are actually just buyingjunk diamonds at the jewelry store, it's a shame that theyspend so much money. The diamond is NOT a rare stone,& it's a terrible investment when bought retail. If youjust want a regular "we'll agree that it must beworth money because we spent so much on it" diamond like every othercouple in America already has, I think you might as well trysome of the local pawn shops.BTW...Gold is in the toilet right now, so I expect goldjewelry to be a very good buy in pawn shops afterChristmas, since they can't make as much selling thegold for "melt."
JEWELRY SOLITAIRE PENDANTS : You will buy a house, tools, & a TV anyway after youget married...or perhaps even before. Therefore, buyingthese items "instead" of a ring is kinda like whenyour Mom gave you jockey shorts & socks for Christmasinstead of a "real" gift. I'm not saying you have tobuy an expensive ring, just trying to clue you in on a likelyreaction. Good luck, we've had many threads in the past about rings, so DejaNews should be a goodresource for you when you ARE ready to marry.--LeighIMO you're in a much better boat if you _don't_ buy for investment. Webought our original wedding rings intending to replace them later onwhen we were more solvent (they still look great after two years ofabuse, and in fact we're handing them on to another couple who are asbroke as we were). Recently we were given a bit of money for thespecific purpose of splurging on something we wouldn't normally spendon, and were even directly told that it was _not_ to be used foranything practical - obviously they knew me, eh? :-) - so we decidedto go ahead and get our jewelry. After quite a bit of checking around,we located a jewelry wholesaler that dealt with the public... I waseven initially leery of dealing w/him, in fact, since his "shop" wasin an communal building with a dozen other wholesalers! But accordingto the people John asked, he has a good reputation for not screwingpeople over. He priced his wares interestingly, I thought, comparedwith conventional jewelers -- we paid for the gold and gemstonesseparately, by weight and quality. My husband's thick, heavy 14k"comfort fit" band with a 1/4 carat emerald was under $200; my heavy14k band with channel set stones - 6 emeralds and 5 diamonds, each1/10 carat - was about $230 (and an identical ring was in the windowof a fancy-schmancy jeweler down the street who wanted $1100 for it,so I'm not disappointed; it was probably made by the same darn guy!).Personally, I don't give a bleep about resale value, since I chose forsentimental rather than monetary value, and I admit we did not choosethe absolute top quality stones as the lesser ones looked exactly thesame without a magnifying glass! Now I'm sure Leigh our resident gemexpert is going to pop in and tell me how I got shafted *grin* buthey, I'm happy - I got what I wanted for a whole lot less than I"would" have paid if I had gone to somewhere like Shreve Crump & Lowand a lot better quality than if we'd gone to Filene's Basement likeour budget seemed to limit us to.
JEWELRY SOLITAIRE PENDANTS : We'd been keeping an eye on pawn shops but hadn't seen what we reallywanted - for some reason anything with an emerald in it has beenvastly overpriced around here, and as that's always been my favoritestone so that's what I wanted. To hell with tradition. :-)Mari, your emeralds are almost certainly laboratory creations,as are the emeralds in the shop of the fancy-shmancy jewelerwho wanted $1,100 for the same ring. Virtually all emeralds onthe market are, of course. In a sense, your emeralds are REALemeralds -- the lab-grown emeralds do have the same chemistry --but they did not grow in the earth. Only the most precious& rare emeralds are unflawed; I'm hazy on the minerology butfor whatever reason, the vast majority of natural emeraldshave what is called a garden (very large flaws).
JEWELRY SOLITAIRE PENDANTS : I'm a bit annoyed that lab-grown emeralds have nowbecome the standard & are simply sold as emeralds, butthat's because it's ripping off people who think theyare buying the "world's most precious gemstone."Only natural emeralds deserve that title, although onaverage, they are actually uglier than the lab-grown specimens.Since you aren't under any illusions, I don't seea problem.If you ever want to see some incredible naturalemeralds, I highly recommend that you visit theTreasures of the Atocha show when it comes to yourarea. One of the emeralds on display was valuedat $180K! This emerald is so large & yet sobeautiful that it looks...gasp...lab-grown! --LeighI have no objections to lab-created emeralds - to me it's not much ofa big deal whether it was dug out of dirt or not. All I give a bleepabout is whether it looks pretty or not, and since they're the rightcolor and they're sparkly, that's fine with me. (I admit that ithonestly didn't matter much to me if the stones were even CZs - I havea CZ "diamond" and "emerald" tennis bracelet that cost $5 onmegaclearance and is one of my favorite pieces of jewelry. But DHinsisted.) Actually, I know for certain the rock in my husband's ringis a lab emerald, because the seller also showed us a batch of"dirt-grown" emeralds (unless they're making lab emeralds w/flaws?*grin* I wouldn't put it past 'em!) and we actually preferred thecolor in the lab ones. I can't remember if mine were described as labones or not - I was busy playing with the shinies. :-)
JEWELRY SOLITAIRE PENDANTS : I do have another ring with a grown-in-the-ground emerald, and it doesindeed have a large flaw in it. (The large flaw and comparativelylight color made it a very inexpensive stone.) IMO I lucked out on it,though - the flaw looks like a butterfly!The local science museum used to (maybe it still does, but it's been afew years since I've been there) have an _amazing_ gemstone exhibit; Ithink that's where I developed my emerald fetish... I used to hang outfor hours in there staring at all the pretty rocks.I'm hazy on my gemology,too - but I believe even the rare emeralds areflawed. The necklace of Marie Therese in the Smithsonian has flaws inseveral of the priceless stones. Did you see the emeralds in the Cross of St. Boniface in that display?My gosh - they were lovely! My duaghters love seeing it -we've caughtthe show twice and met all the divers except Dirk & Angel Fisher (whodied when their vessel rolled over and sank - before Atocha wasdiscovered).
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