I used lake. He's incredibly helpful throughout the entire process of designing the ring and picking a stone. Highly recommend
Lake is a great dude. I’m about to get another ring off him. I would highly recommend using him for anyone thinking about getting a ring.
Can anyone chime in (if you feel comfortable) with what sized diamond you were able to get for the price? Looking at a .75ct ring for about $5k. Does this line up? Jewelry is a foreign language.
Not really enough info on it TBH, this stuff is a real slippery slippery slope if you don't have a guy.
I’m using Lake, and based on what people are saying, I’m getting high quality stuff. It’s just get a little murky when I see I can get over a 1ct ring for about the same. However, the quality of it may not be as good.
Well and the crazy thing is the diamond may look bigger than the1ct. There's so much that goes into it to figure out what is right. He talked me into a smaller diamond than I was going to get because it actually looked bigger based on the cut/quality. Diamonds are crazy shit. That said, he's never done me wrong. I've been using him for like 8 years now (holy shit lol)
“If we did that ring with a max budget of $5k, we'd be looking at a stunning, GIA or AGS graded, Ideal Cut round diamond that's bright white, has no visible flaws, and dazzles like a disco ball on Miss CANE’s finger in the .75 - .80ct+ range.” I’m mostly trusting this based on everyone input here. I would rather pay more for quality any day.
That's outrageous. You can get an excellent 1 CT round diamond for that price. As far as sparkle goes, they all get dirty in 1 week. Ask for the best 1ct round stone he can get and do that.
Looks big for that, too. Can't really tell without a frame of reference, but it's a good looking ring.
Thank you, sir. I guess he said something about how the top portion of the diamond is fatter than the bottom. Makes it look bigger than usual. I’ll take it
He's gonna love it! jk.....I had the exact same response when it arrived, this is better and bigger than anything I saw in the stores locally. He does a great job with the settings to prop it up and show the diamond the best possible way. All her friends will be impressed. We'll be calling Lake in another two months for our wedding bands.
Can anyone PM me how to get in touch with Lake? I’ve added him as a friend on LinkedIn but there has to be a better way. TIA
Dabeers is rolling out man made diamonds starting this fall. They've engineered the process to actually be significantly less expensive than naturally made diamonds. $800/carat. There are man made diamonds now, but they aren't really much different in price. This will turn the market for diamonds upside down as a really expensive machine is needed to tell the difference. There's no other way to determine man made or natural. Theyre chemically identical. I'm certain GIA will buy the machines. They have to. You'll want to make sure you have a GIA certificate going forward.
A little late to the party here as I know you’ve already gotten the ring, but I would recommend to future buyers to explore diamond marketplaces like Blue Nile to get a feel for what a fair market price is for a diamond. I would recommend going smaller with better color and clarirty. When I was going through this process, I got the diamond online and then found an antique setting (as was requested) for it locally. It definitely was the best value play. The finished product was valued by an independent appraiser at about 30% more than I paid for it, and although I would be pretty upset if this happened, if it was lost or stolen I would come out ahead after my insurance deductible.
Does anyone have a story where their appraisal was even or less than what they paid? Seems like literally everyone had it appraised at a higher value
Yeah, appraised values are always considerably higher than what you pay for it. If not, you got fucked badly.
Might want to take a look at that policy. Not many of them just cut you a check for the appraisal value. Typically they pay for a replacement (many require an approved jeweler), which is always going to be less than your appraisal.
Obviously I don’t prefer that scenario so coming out ahead was a bit of an overstatement. The contract says that they will replace it with something “comparable in quality and value” up to the value of my policy. If I do not want what they offer as a replacement, then they pay out what their cost was for that replacement which is probably where they screw you. Ultimately they will have a difficult case issueing a replacement that doesn’t carry a value above what I have in the ring so from a value standpoint I’m not sure that I would come out with less than what I have in it... but backing my way into cash from there to get what we really want in that scenario may not play out favorably. Again I hope that I never have to go down that road, but obviously I’m fairly confident that my thorough and well executed procurement process set this up well for me if I ever have to go through that.
Yea....best bet is to get the insurance from the jeweler than filing a claim with your homeowner's insurance.
Yeah, my agent who posts here told me to go with the jeweler insurance as it was a better situation than putting it on my homeowner's.
You need a personal articles policy. It is separate from a homeowners policy and has no limits on theft, like a homeowners would and typically has a $0 deductible. My wife’s ring is about $8 per month.
Don’t worry guys, it only gets better after you buy the engagement ring. We just picked up her infinity wedding band, which turned out to be 47% more expensive than the damn engagement.
This guy made Kendra Scott's engagement rings. Apparently she's been divorced. I bet those were both expensive pieces of jewelry.
There was a Reddit post about a guy that started man made diamond company and was talking about the big guys finnally breaking down and buying the equipment.
Y Yea, from what I've read, the newest man made diamonds are nearly impossible to tell the difference from natural ones without a special machine. The usual tests and machines won't work.
No one in here posted any of his contact information so I googled a phone number for him and he answered at 530PM and we chatted. I said that my gf likes Kendra jewelry and he said well I actually have made 2 engagement rings for her.
Using Lake for my engagement ring...but I’m skeptical. After being presented pricing, it seems like I can just get more for my money at one of the online vendors. He has explained all aspects of quality that don’t have to do with the 4Cs...it’s either I trust him and risk getting ripped off, try to negotiate, or go elsewhere. Has anyone tried haggling with him?
Also told me I have till 9am to decide because the hold will expire on the diamond. Seems questionable but I admittedly know nothing about the industry
Beyond4cs will teach you pretty much everything you need to know about evaluating diamonds. Going with a non lab grown diamond is basically taking 40% onto the price for no reason
I mean I felt the same way. The way he explained it was that he has access to those diamonds as well, the problem is they are on a site like they are to get rid of them as they aren’t really good quality diamonds. I made the decision to trust him and I am happy with the results.
Oh I wasn’t going to pull the trigger on what I felt was a deadline. I told him to send me the specs so I could think it over and if we lost the diamond than it wasn’t meant to be. I wanted to be respectful of his time in not finding a ton of diamonds to pass on but I also didn’t want to pull the trigger until I felt comfortable.