How to Buy a Diamond Ring

Most everyone gets married at least once in their lifetime, and most, as a matter of tradition, buy a diamond ring as a symbol of love and engagement. Sadly, the vast majority of people have no idea what they are buying and simply buy based on looks and on the advice and listed price at the jeweler. This knowledge gap opens up a tremendous opportunity for unscrupulous jewelers and other salesman to alter the rules of the game in their favor.

Want to avoid being taken? Read on.

A diamond ring is valued in a couple of different ways - the precious metals that make up the band and mount, the surrounding smaller stones, and the main diamond in the center. Its fairly easy to evaluate the quality of the metal, and if you feel the slightest pang of distrust, have the jeweler perform a scratch test in front of you to verify the that the stamped karat is correct. This is more important today as the price of gold is rather high.

Next, ask the jeweler if they cab remove the main stone for examination - and ask if you can get an independent appraisal from someone not affiliated with the store. If they claim they can't remove the stone for loose examination, or will not permit an outside examiner to come in, find another jeweler - both of these steps are critical. This independent appraiser is key to the entire process. If you cannot get an independent appraiser to look at the diamond, do not buy it!

Obviously, it's not practical for the jeweler to remove stones from all their rings for independent examination - so it's important that you narrow down your design selections beforehand to no more than a couple. By doing this, you are showing a genuine interest in buying the product from them, and if they have nothing to hide, the above requests should not be an issue.

You might be asking, "If I am always going to bring in an outside appraiser, why bother to learn about diamonds?". Simple, because it will help you narrow down acceptable retailers, and it will help you ask the right questions. If you ask the right questions from the get-go, the sales folks are much less likely to take advantage of your lack of education.

So here are a few questions that you should ask - if you want to know more about each topic, you can poke around Google for more details:

• Learn the four C's: Color, Cut, Clarity and Carat weight.
  
• Ask if the diamond was laser drilled. Laser drilling is a technique that is used to remove black imperfections from a diamond. It can weaken the stone, and diamonds that are laser drilled should sell for less.
• Ask for the actual center stone diamond weight - don't accept the fractional carat weight usually provided at the display. The reason is that there are guidelines that allow a jeweler to round up the carat weight the next fraction (no one is going to round it down!).
  
• Make sure you understand the total carat weight refers to all the stones on the ring. Proportionally, the larger center stone is worth more than the surrounding stones!
• Ask questions about the grade. Keep in mind that jewelers must be accurate to within one color grade. That may mean the diamond is graded one higher than it's actual grade often resulting in big price differences.
• Avoid jewelers that advertise "blue-white" diamonds. This is usually an underhanded way to cover up a yellow diamond.
  
• Examine the diamonds certificate to make sure it's real and not from a sound a-like institution. The good ones are: American Gemological Society, Gemological Institute of America, European Gemological Laboratories, and the International Gemological Institute).

In addition to the above, you should watch out for big sales. Since diamonds (and gold for that matter) are an international market with daily fluctuating spot prices, a big sale simply means you are not getting the quality you think you are - and that the ring was way overpriced to begin with.

So, there you go. That's just a basic synopsis, but that should be all you need, as you will always call in an independent appraiser before you buy a diamond ring!   Oh, and as an after thought, this kind of precludes buying diamonds online doesn't it?