cost of custom work in the US versus UK

[OoohShiny]

I was under the impression that anyone flying in from outside of America had to get a photo taken of their iris(es)? I may be wrong, of course, I don't know many people who have flown there recently to ask.

I'm sure I also read that they are taking fingerprints on the way on?


The above might all be urban myth, though - any non-American's who have recently flown into there for the first time would be best to comment! lol


Anyway, apologies for the Off Topic

It's true. The Brit I married hates to travel to the US and avoided for about 4 to 5 years recently, broke his streak help me visit family after surgery. I mentioned going for Christmas this year and i think he's back avoiding the US.

Thanks for the confirmation - the US remains on my No Fly list, then! lol

It's a shame, there is a lot of america it would be cool to see!

Anyway, there's me veering off topic again... lol


Attempting to get back on topic, I recently had a look at the Danhov collection at the UK stockist. Irritatingly they are nice in real life... and I like their tension settings even more now I've seen them! Gnargh! As mentioned, they are not cheap, though.

I actually popped in to Durrants just down the road - the guy was very straight talking, no nonsense, and if what he said was true (and he seemed straight enough) then they do work for Cartier, Graff and other high end labels, so I think they might be worth looking at for custom work. He said tension settings were very risky but any others should be fine, and it's likely to be <£1000 for a ring in platinum, going north of that if you want anything particularly tricky. He also said they use 950Pt but that's all, and he didn!t think any other different alloys are really being used in the UK, so it may be that one would have to source one's own choice of metal if a particular mix was wanted / needed. I tempted by his frankness, seems a lot less pandering than other vendors, and third party stones are fully insured in the premises (although I didn't check about during setting).