Harold Stevens Jewelers San Diego antique cut

[shesastunnah]

Has anyone shopped at Harold Stevens in San Diego? What was your experience like and did they have a good selection of oec/omc diamonds? Thinking about making the drive from Orange County but it will be around to a 3 hour drive with traffic - don't want to get there and not have much to look at. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Thanks!

 

[marymm]

I had been to Harold Stevens' downtown San Diego store several times but over the last year or two they had a series of "going out of business" sales and no longer have that store front (which was on the ground floor, easily accessible/viewable from the street, with lots of jewelry cases).

From what I understand, they moved to a different downtown office building and have a suite on the 15th floor. From mailing circulars I received and from the website, it looks rather bare-bones, with very few items on display. They encourage appointments so that they can pull (or order?) stuff applicable to what you're looking for ... For sure I wouldn't bother making the drive unless you had an appointment and had confirmation the quantity/quality of applicable items they have on hand would be worth your drive.

If I was in Orange County, I'd probably check out LA sources first ... YMMV

 

[Alexiszoe]

I have done some custom work with them before. The owners, Harold and Joy, were very knowledgable and personable, took the time to explain the pros and cons of the diamonds I was looking at, and I never felt any sort of pressure to buy - plus prices were reasonable.

Not sure about OEC/OMC, but given that they are so rare, it's best to drop them an email and let them know what you are looking for before popping in.

 

[shesastunnah]

Following up on this post, I met with Ryan (son) of Harold Stevens in SD at their beautiful loft suite and both Ryan and his dad were very friendly and like Alexiszoe said, I never felt any pressure to buy.

I reached out to him about an antique diamond for my e-ring and he was very responsive and took the time to write back more then just a few sentences (as I've experienced with other vendors). It seems, if they do not have enough options for you in house, they will reach out to other venders (in this case, SinglestoneLA) to have around 3-5 stones (6 for me) that will closely fit your preferences to show you.

Ryan put together a very informative and pleasant diamond viewing experience for us and you can tell he is genuinely interested in diamonds and finding out what we like. He made sure we could appreciate the beauty of each stone he showed without the bias of specs and did not push us towards one stone or another.

I found an OEC I really liked and will be revisiting it at SinglestoneLA (I think it was originally sourced from there).

They are down to earth jewelers and also dog friendly! I also saw some really nice settings and bands. I would definitely recommend.