Deanna and I made a vow a few years ago that on our tenth anniversary or our first child, we'd get diamond stud earrings for her. With the birth of twins Bryce and Gwen, it's come time to get down with some serious bling. We started the process last September by shopping at Tiffany's in SF. Deanna picked out a simple Platinum bezel set. We kind of blanched at the Tiffany prices and decided to put this off until after the kids came along.
Over the past few weekends we've gone to a few stores locally to find better prices for custom made earrings. I was looking through chapters.ca for a book on Tuscany (thanks Noah!) and I saw that Chapters offers online diamond ordering! I had *not* expected online diamond earring makers. And the prices!
Let's look at the out of our range prices.
Tiffany's 1.07 total carat weight platinum, H, VS1 is $10K US.
Blue Nile.ca has this cool Java app for narrowing the search, which shows 1.004 total carat weight, G, VS1, ideal cut is $3502 CA + $300 for setting. If we really wanted to spend $10K US, about $11.5 K CA, we can get 2.0 total carat weight, H, VS2, ideal cut.
They come with GIA certificates.
Wow, did the bottom just fall out of the diamond market? And it's about darned time that diamond selling ought to succumb to some price pressures from the net.
Wait a few years, and then you're into emeralds and rubies and other precious stones. After 40 years, you really have to improvise. By the way, my son's name is Gavin, Gavin Lightwood Orchard.