New York - Engagement Ring Shopping

Hi there,
Heading to New York in January and am going to be buying an engagement ring there. Does anyone know of a reputable jeweller in New York City? The name of a jewellery shop I know over there is Tiffanys but I presume you would pay for the "name"? On the other hand maybe somewhere like Tiffanys may still be cheaper than Ireland when you have factored in the Dollar etc. As the username suggests I am very confused and would love if someone who knows of good jewellery shops in New York could let me know!

Thanks!

Tiffanys is a strange kinda place. If I remember it correctly there are no prices displayed. You have to ask the price of everything. Its the sort of place where people buy something just to be seen with the bag.
Shop around in New York & you'll find much better deals

On the advice of Aer Lingus cabin crew and these girls know their jewellery I bought from Haniken and Son. I don't have the exact address but I think they are in the Diamond Exchange on West 47th St. The place is full of diamond shops and hard to trust alot of them but Haniken really appears to care and Mrs som was really pleased with the ring she got. At a guesstimate we probably got the ring at about half the price you would pay here. He will show you a selection of stones and settings and when you have made your decision pay a small deposit and collect it the day afterwards. No pressure and extremley professional and cool. Not sure of the exact address but I will try and dig it out. Don't bother with Tiffanys unless you have buckets of money or are insecure enough to worry about carrying the little green bag about!

Re: New York - Engagement Ring Shopping
I got good value myself in Diamonds & Dials 106 West 34th St, N.Y. Good idea to look at home first. You need to be familier with prices charged for size, colour and clarity of ring you want to be able to make judgement on what is good value in N.Y. You could try Macy's - they often have good value but you will be spoiled for choice in the Diamond District.! Remember to bargain! Good luck

know a few people who got theirs in Salvatore Jewlers in Diamond District. There are loads of addresses on [broken link removed]

SOM42 said:

Don't bother with Tiffanys unless you have buckets of money or are insecure enough to worry about carrying the little green bag about!

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Having done the Tiffanys experience (and not having 'buckets' of money nor being insecure) i can confirm it is a experience worth doing. Granted you pay more but it's not half as dramatic a difference as you'd imagine given the quality (colour/clarity etc) of diamond you get. You still save versus any equivalent here especially with the dollar the way it is.

Oh and it's a little blue bag

Correct...or a little blue box inside a little blue bag!

I know how romantic it sounds - Tiffanys, but yu will be paying 30% on the brand name alone, I think you should shop around,I presume(!) it's a diamond your after

We bought my beautiful diamond eternity ring at Leon Diamond on 74 W. 47th Street - 1/3 of what it would cost here and they altered the band to a comfort fit while we waited

I think you can only bring back goods up to €175 duty free from the States after that you have to pay duty and VAT..................

Hi there,
thanks for all the comments! Have been looking at all the different jewellers in the diamond district...what a choice! Was finding it difficult to decided whether to buy here or not but all your responses have made up my mind! AM going to check out some of the jwellers you have recommended! Thanks again for all your help! Now all that is left to do is decided where to pop the question!

Not to rain on your parade, but I struggle to see the value in spending a lot of money on an engagement ring. It does seem the man gets nothing out of the experience and the lady gets an expensive piece of jewellery.


It's been so long since I bought the ring (I didn't have to spend too much and I got nothing out of the deal) but what is the going rate for such a purchase?

Gone Fishin' said:

Not to rain on your parade, but I struggle to see the value in spending a lot of money on an engagement ring. It does seem the man gets nothing out of the experience and the lady gets an expensive piece of jewellery.

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If you struggle to see the value in such things then i respectfully suggest you are missing out on a whole lot of life. To suggest that "you got nothing out of the deal" is an astonishing approach to a traditional part of courtship and marraige.

It's not about the money. Never was. I pity your wife. Buy her a bunch of flowers today and tell her how much you love and appreciate her, bet it's been a while.

I would go to tiffanys for the experience, however I would not buy a ring there. First of all they have a very good website so you can see all the designs there, as a previous poster mentioned you are paying for the tiffany name so the ring is more expensive than somewhere else but what really puts me off tiffanys is that you'll pay for a beautiful unique ring for your loved one but itll be anything but unique as so many people buy them. There are about 8 standard designs, they have names, and while at the end of the day a lot of rings look similiar if you have a tiffany ring you can be sure of indentical versions everywhere.

I'm actually just back from NY last week. Bought the fiancée a ring there - she's from NY (I'm a Dub) so she knew the best place to go to: Fortunoffs.

She has friends who work in Tiffany's and, even with staff discount, they do not think the rings are good value there - they have even gone to Fortunoffs!

Fortunoffs is great value, because you get the following:
- full certificates (no messing with dodgy dealers in the Diamond District)
- reputable name: they have been around for years and have a reputation to protect
- will clean the ring for you... I think twice per year
- allow you to upgrade the ring to more than 50% its value, with no extra charge for re-mounting (you pay for the uplift in diamond size - but only the uplift). This might work where you want to go from a carat to a 1.5 carat maybe 5 years later (it's not really worth it 10 or 15 years later, due to fall in the the value of money over time). In that case, you pay only for 0.5 carat extra. (I hope this point is nto too confusing ... please ask me to re-post if it is).

There are a number of stores ... [broken link removed]
I bought mine in Manattan (5th Ave), but also went to the Westbury location. The prices vary between the stores... the Westbury one was less expensive, but didn't have such a good range at the time.

Two other things to bear in mind:
1) call them in advance to see if they will be holding any special promotions. I got 15% off a ring because they just happened to be holding a charity promotion the week I was there
2) New Jersey's tax is around 5% lower than NY's, so perhaps savings can be made there!

Overall, the cost of a ring works out at around 50-70% lower cost than you pay in Ireland (not incl. the cost of travel). I spent around a third of what it would have cost me here.

One final final piece of advice... decide on the exact specification of the ring in ADVANCE, before you travel. Get your girlfriend to try on different rings and be clear on the type she wants. That way, you will maximinse the time you have available when you are over in NY.

Good luck!

Eurofan said:

If you struggle to see the value in such things then i respectfully suggest you are missing out on a whole lot of life. To suggest that "you got nothing out of the deal" is an astonishing approach to a traditional part of courtship and marraige.

It's not about the money. Never was. I pity your wife. Buy her a bunch of flowers today and tell her how much you love and appreciate her, bet it's been a while.

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Tell me then, how much money should an engagement ring cost? And where's the "value" in that? What is the difference between a e1000 ring and a e10,000 ring? (Apart from the hole in the man's bank account)

It does seem that some people, especially women, expect the poor man to shell out many thousands on a piece of jewellery. If someone's that shallow, to place such emphasis on a ring, than they are the ones who should be pitied, not me, or my wife.

My wife got an engagement ring, I got nothing. That was a statement of fact. An "engagement" is a promise to marry, and shouldn't depend on the value of a ring. Unfortunately it seems to be the opposite.

Gone Fishin' said:

Tell me then, how much money should an engagement ring cost? And where's the "value" in that? What is the difference between a e1000 ring and a e10,000 ring? (Apart from the hole in the man's bank account).

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Various factors...
(a) type of metal - platinum is the most expensive, then white gold, then yellow gold
(b) size of stone - the bigger the carat, the more it costs
(c) quality of stone - the higher the quality, the higher the cost

Gone Fishin' said:

It does seem that some people, especially women, expect the poor man to shell out many thousands on a piece of jewellery. If someone's that shallow, to place such emphasis on a ring, than they are the ones who should be pitied, not me, or my wife..

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I tried on rings from £500 - £10k and picked the one that suited me, and our budget. I certainly didn't waltz into Applebys going "Gimmee the biggest & most expensive"... in fact the most expensive one was the one I liked the least!

Gone Fishin' said:

My wife got an engagement ring, I got nothing. That was a statement of fact. An "engagement" is a promise to marry, and shouldn't depend on the value of a ring. Unfortunately it seems to be the opposite.

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God love you, my husband got a state of the art home entertainment system as his engagement pressie

Gone Fishin' said:

It does seem that some people, especially women, expect the poor man to shell out many thousands on a piece of jewellery......Unfortunately it seems to be the opposite.

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I think now days most couples either pay 50/50 for the ring or do as babaduck did exchange "gifts". I think at the end of the day most couples discuss what they want to spend and what their budget is and nobody is forced to spend loads of money on a piece of jewellery.

Gone Fishin' said:

....expect the poor man .....

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You are kidding right? If the "poor man" feels he's being forced into spending a lot of money that he doesnt want to spend then I think he has bigger problems than getting an engagement ring....getting a backbone should be first.

Try Turfan Jewellers in the Diamond district West 47th, bought my wife's engagement ring there about 3years ago, we then went and got the wedding band in Tiffany's so she got the best of both.
Mr Turfan and his elderly father are both very nice originally from Liverpool so if you can talk about football your laughing.
The wife had picked out a style she wanted in Tiffany's we went in and he made the ring up the same, but better quality diamond and higher grade platinum for good price. We've since been back to New York and called in to say hello, without asking he took the ring away and cleaned if for free.
My Brother and a friend have been over and bought there aswell.
Just to experience the whole fussing around you, even if you don't buy is great fun. But be prepared to say no, some of the shops can be very pushy. Bargain bargain and bargain, the first price they quote and the last price is some difference but its all part of the game.
Agree with above Tiffany's little blue box is definitely a lot of girls dream.
Enjoy

My last contribution on this, (only babaduck attempted answer my questions).

Far too much emphasis is placed on the ring, by far too many people. FOr me an engagement was something a hell of a lot more important than a financial purchase and, to me, the ring symbolised nothing.

(By "poor", I meant unfortunate, and buying a ring does not prove one has a backbone.)


To those who are getting married, best of luck.