Hey Everyone,
My Fiancee's ring just came in from being done. It is a 1.71 H/VS2 Old Mine Brilliant from Mark T at ERD on a custom Singlestone platinum engraved setting with .42 carat weight of OEC sidestones. It also has two surprise stones, a garnet for her birthstone and a diamond for mine.
Here is a mini review:
Mark T from ERD:
Mark was great to work with on finding a diamond, I sent him my budget through his web form and he instantly got back to me saying he had a stone in exactly the size I wanted in the low end of the budget I had, which was great. I am in San Jose and my GF really wanted to see the rock in person so he shipped it out to an appraiser in SF, she loved it immediately and the price was right for an antique style cushion, so we snatched it up. It looks even better set than it did in the store now that it is set, puts off tons of colors and fire, and just sparkles like crazy, its pretty awesome, fits the antique style of the ring really well.
Ari from SingleStone:
Ari has been very fun to work with, the quality on the ring turned out fantastic if you see it in person. My GF wanted to replicate a real 1920's art deco ring that she had seen online, in platinum, and it has a ton of engraving work on it. She also wanted real OEC melee stones which a lot of other setting makers couldnt provide. Ari got back to me super quick, said they could definitely reproduce the setting and gave me a quick turn around on getting a quote. Their quote was around $300 more than the lowest quote I got for the setting(which was actually from Mark T), BGD gave me a quote of around $700 more than Singlestone which was surprising, and wasn't going to use OEC stones for the melees. My GF really wanted it to be hand made, which it was, and apparently engraved by an 80 year old man who uses no scope even, all by hand, which if you see the work is ABSOLUTELY NUTS that he can do that, the engraving is probably the best part of the entire ring. It is engraved all the way around so luckily the damn thing fit. We went with singlestone cause she wanted something antique style and she trusted based on their other settings that they could do it, even if it was $300 more. She couldn't be happier with how it came out.
Other vendors: I had a great experience with GOG as well, they were just over our price range for an AVC that was smaller, but their customer service was fantastic. I actually had a very bad experience with BGD which seems to not be the norm, while their customer service was good at first, I had told them I was looking for an antique cushion and they said they would send out for one. They kinda pressured me to wait for them to send it out even though it was above my price range just to check it out, so I obliged. It then took an extra week and a half after they said for it to come in, and it was NOT an antique style cushion just a normal one. After I said I didnt want it they tried to charge me $55 without asking for shipping it out, after they had told me repeatedly that there would be no charges filed for looking at it. They explained this as "If the diamond was a lemon, we wouldn't have charged you, but since it was so nice we are charging you" which made no sense considering I wasnt looking for a modern cushion so it was a lemon to me. Then when I got a quote about the setting from them first they tried to say, why not get this stock setting which looks the same(it looked nothing a like), and then gave me a really high price for custom doing the setting. That was just my experience with them personally.
Anyways here is some pics, sorry they aren't so great cause of my camera.. really doesn't show off how amazing the engraving is on this ring however my friend might take some pics for me with his DSLR so if people care enough I can post those later.
Just wanted to say thanks to all of PS for helping us find the perfect diamond plus setting for a great price!
My Fiancee's ring just came in from being done. It is a 1.71 H/VS2 Old Mine Brilliant from Mark T at ERD on a custom Singlestone platinum engraved setting with .42 carat weight of OEC sidestones. It also has two surprise stones, a garnet for her birthstone and a diamond for mine.
Here is a mini review:
Mark T from ERD:
Mark was great to work with on finding a diamond, I sent him my budget through his web form and he instantly got back to me saying he had a stone in exactly the size I wanted in the low end of the budget I had, which was great. I am in San Jose and my GF really wanted to see the rock in person so he shipped it out to an appraiser in SF, she loved it immediately and the price was right for an antique style cushion, so we snatched it up. It looks even better set than it did in the store now that it is set, puts off tons of colors and fire, and just sparkles like crazy, its pretty awesome, fits the antique style of the ring really well.
Ari from SingleStone:
Ari has been very fun to work with, the quality on the ring turned out fantastic if you see it in person. My GF wanted to replicate a real 1920's art deco ring that she had seen online, in platinum, and it has a ton of engraving work on it. She also wanted real OEC melee stones which a lot of other setting makers couldnt provide. Ari got back to me super quick, said they could definitely reproduce the setting and gave me a quick turn around on getting a quote. Their quote was around $300 more than the lowest quote I got for the setting(which was actually from Mark T), BGD gave me a quote of around $700 more than Singlestone which was surprising, and wasn't going to use OEC stones for the melees. My GF really wanted it to be hand made, which it was, and apparently engraved by an 80 year old man who uses no scope even, all by hand, which if you see the work is ABSOLUTELY NUTS that he can do that, the engraving is probably the best part of the entire ring. It is engraved all the way around so luckily the damn thing fit. We went with singlestone cause she wanted something antique style and she trusted based on their other settings that they could do it, even if it was $300 more. She couldn't be happier with how it came out.
Other vendors: I had a great experience with GOG as well, they were just over our price range for an AVC that was smaller, but their customer service was fantastic. I actually had a very bad experience with BGD which seems to not be the norm, while their customer service was good at first, I had told them I was looking for an antique cushion and they said they would send out for one. They kinda pressured me to wait for them to send it out even though it was above my price range just to check it out, so I obliged. It then took an extra week and a half after they said for it to come in, and it was NOT an antique style cushion just a normal one. After I said I didnt want it they tried to charge me $55 without asking for shipping it out, after they had told me repeatedly that there would be no charges filed for looking at it. They explained this as "If the diamond was a lemon, we wouldn't have charged you, but since it was so nice we are charging you" which made no sense considering I wasnt looking for a modern cushion so it was a lemon to me. Then when I got a quote about the setting from them first they tried to say, why not get this stock setting which looks the same(it looked nothing a like), and then gave me a really high price for custom doing the setting. That was just my experience with them personally.
Anyways here is some pics, sorry they aren't so great cause of my camera.. really doesn't show off how amazing the engraving is on this ring however my friend might take some pics for me with his DSLR so if people care enough I can post those later.
Just wanted to say thanks to all of PS for helping us find the perfect diamond plus setting for a great price!
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