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#1
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
I'm thinking of buy this ring from this online jeweler (with ruby) for $699.
I've checked some reviews on the folks, seem on the level--of course a couple of disgruntled customers (mainly stones falling out) but I guess that's expected. Most customers seem pleased. What do you think of the ring and price? http://www.jewelsforme.com/item-main... nth=&Ad=&CU=# |
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#2
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
In article ,
"David G" wrote: I'm thinking of buy this ring from this online jeweler (with ruby) for $699. I've checked some reviews on the folks, seem on the level--of course a couple of disgruntled customers (mainly stones falling out) but I guess that's expected. Most customers seem pleased. What do you think of the ring and price? http://www.jewelsforme.com/item-main...=05&Metal=Y&It emMonth=&Ad=&CU=# Don't buy something like this unless you can see it first. A good quality emerald sells for quite a bit more than this, so I would expect it to either be a pretty poor stone, or something different from what is advertised. Since it comes from a fly-by-night type of organization with no street front or store, once you pay the money, it is unlikely you will ever see any money back if you try to return it. -john- -- ================================================== ==================== John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com ================================================== ==================== |
#3
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
David G wrote:
I'm thinking of buy this ring from this online jeweler (with ruby) for $699. I've checked some reviews on the folks, seem on the level--of course a couple of disgruntled customers (mainly stones falling out) but I guess that's expected. Most customers seem pleased. What do you think of the ring and price? http://www.jewelsforme.com/item-main... nth=&Ad=&CU=# I wanted to send you a personal reply, but your email address is a fake. Since I find this very rude, I don't really want to give you my professional opinion. So I'll give you the redacted version. ......... this ring. The one in the photo is ........... Of course, .................., but ............, and ............! Good luck. -- Abrasha http://www.abrasha.com |
#4
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
What do you think of the ring and price? Way over-priced faux garbage, but what would you expect from a pammer? -Dave |
#5
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
On Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:21:37 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry Abrasha
wrote: I wanted to send you a personal reply, but your email address is a fake. Since I find this very rude, I don't really want to give you my professional opinion. So I'll give you the redacted version. Chuckle. As usual, Abrasha, concise and to the point. Entertaining too, this time. I'll comment that not all readers find the lack of a valid return address offensive, but some, like Abrasha, indeed do so. And it makes it impossible for someone to send a reply that they may not wish to post in a fully public forum. So including some means of personal reply is in the interest of a poster. The traditional way to both do this, and maintain some security from having your email address picked up by spammers, is to munge up your email address in the message headers, but provide, usually in some means readable by a human but not to a bot program, of deciphering the right address. Thus you see posts where an email address may include added blocks like "remove this" in the address, or the text of the message will include text describing how to edit the address to a correct form. Other, perhaps simple methods work, such as signing up for a yahoo or other temporary email address and using this as a reply to address. Some ISPs offer throw away email addresses too. My own, Earthlink, for example, makes it simple to get several throw away anonymous email address added to my account. When one starts to attract spam, discard it and set up another. As to the ring, people seem to doubt the value of this bargain. First, a note on your observed complains. You say some folks complain about stones falling out? Sheesh, guy, that's about the same as some customers complaining that a certain auto dealer sells cars from which wheels fall off. It's NOT normal. Stones, if properly set, should not fall out or loosen until the ring has been worn a lot, enough so much metal has been worn off the prongs or stone settings. If stones are falling out of new rings, that suggests very poor manufacturing. Second, the link you show is an emerald ring, not a ruby. Clicking the rubies on the page may change the picture, but doesn't change the text, price, or description. In short, this is a poorly written page indeed. That seems somehow consistent with the quality I suspect exists in the jewelry. Junk. Third. 7 hundred dollars for a 14K ring with a decently large genuine ruby? Who are they kidding? Same for the emerald. Both these stones, if they are of any quality at all, should have at least one more decimal place in the price of the gem alone, not just the whole ring. If these are "real" gems, they've got to be garbage. While the public often hears about high markups on jewelry or other merchandise (you think jewelry is high, look at clothing, furnature, or many other consumer items...), the truth is there's no magic way for these guys, or any other manufacturer, to buy good quality gems at a totally insanely lower price than anyone else. The market in rare gems like ruby or emerald is a sellers market. Fine gems always command decent prices, and these are too low. The only way these could be sold for the price listed is if they are not what the site implies, ie reasonaly good quality. Certainly, if they look as good as the photos, there's something fishy going on. Either some form of major enhancing treatment, beyond what's normal, or these are synthetics of some sort. Now the price might be right if this was listed as a good quality Gilson or Chatham synthetic, but not a good quality natural ruby. Not unless some fool has gone out of their head and is giving the things away for less than the wholesale market, which is unlikely indeed. Then finely, get out any decent piece of jewelry you own in the size class and metal of this ring. put it on a gram scale. Compare the weight of your ring with what they say this thing weighs. The site said something like 3 3/4 grams. Guy, that's next to nothing for a design like this. Perhaps OK for a small delicate ladies ring, but the only way this ring can weigh that little is if it's hollowed out inside to a very large degree. A lot of really cheap jewelry is made that way, but it's just that, cheap junk. You really aren't getting a good buy when you get metal that's little more than foil thin. It won't hold up at all. Gold, when pure, is currently selling for over 800 dollars an ounce, and scrap jewelry can be sold back to refiners for only a few percent less than this any instant a dealer wishes to scrap in their old metal at these high price levels. 800 an ounce translates to a raw materials cost of about 16 dollars per gram for just the 14K gold raw material, and it takes a little more than the final weight to make the ring. So the manufacturer has at least 65 dollars invested in just the raw metal, plus other manufacturing costs. By the time you're done with that, the ring mounting alone should be costing maybe a hundred fifty or more, leaving even less of the purchase price for the gemstone, and that's assuming a foil thin crappy peice of cheap junk jewelry. Take away the stone, and the price might be reasonable for a well made, commercially made (custom work costs more) gold ring with no stones, or nothing especially costly. It could be about right for an also well made commercial ring looking like this IF it's sold as being set with a decent synthetic gem (which might indeed be an attractive ring, just not valuable for a rare natural gemstone.). Anyway, as usual, I'm rambling. Sorry 'bout that. But just remember. You get what you pay for. This is a really cheap price. The most you could buy for a cheap price is a really cheap ring. And chances are, there can be more fishy stuff to a site like this, unconnected as it is with any recognizable decent manufacturer or seller with any decent history, than you expect. Getting exactly the cheap ring this seems to be is likely the best you can get. it could be worse by far. The site does have a New York contact address listed for returns, but that's about it. I'd worry about that quite a bit if it were my 700 bucks on the like... Peter Rowe moderator rec.crafts.jewelry |
#6
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
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#7
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:40:36 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry "David G"
wrote: Yeah, funny guy. I seriously doubt I'm missing much. Sorry, didn't realize no address was so important. Here's one for me: Much? not in volume, no. Abrasha has often rightly accused me of taking two pages to say what he says in two sentances. But a missed opinion? Yes. Even if Abrasha sometimes has a sometimes earned reputation for not being so nice and polite in his opinions, you'll find that even if some people find his opinions on jewelry to be... um... "blunt", they are in my experience, always dead on correct. He is one of the most highly skilled and exacting goldsmiths I've ever met or you're ever likely to meet, and his patience with junk jewelery or sloppy jewelers is understandably somewhat limited, to say the least. But he's also an extremely well trained and experienced jeweler and goldsmith, and you're not likely to get an opinion from him that's incorrect technically or aesthetically. You might not LIKE what he has to say or how he may choose sometimes to word it, but you should listen, if you're looking for a true expert opinion on a jewelry subject. Could be. They say "3.73 grams of 14k solid gold." I guess this could be a deceptive bit of wording, meaning of course that the gold *that is there* is 14k solid gold, but not that the *ring* itself is solid. I'm glad you pointed this out. note that I don't mean hollow like an inner tube. It just means the inside surface of the ring is scooped out to match the outer profile, so the whole ring is essentially like thin sheet metal. It's not thicker where the design gets thicker on the outside. The result just feels, and is, flimsy. The gold will be a 14K gold alloy, which means 58% gold, the remainder of the alloy base metals. Just as it should be. My note wasn't that wording is deceptive, just that this is awfully light weight for a decent ring of this design, meaning it's thinner metal than it should be. Perhaps this explains why some customers have had stones fall out. No, interesting reading. thanks. I think they give 30 days or something similar for returns, and according to some reviewers, they honor this pretty well. One would think this might lend them some respectability, as I would think some customers would go get their stuff appraised after receiving it, but then again, most probably don't. Most probably don't, since most reputable appraisers would likely charge around a hundred bucks for a proper appraisal. Those who charge less are not likely giving a truely accurate market appraisal, but rather, stating a percieved maximum market price (sometimes used as an insurance appraisal price, but not really reflecting a true value). Often such appraisals are written specifically to make a sellers lower price seem flatteringly good, when in fact the lower price is closer to market average. So yes, most people don't bother to get a 700 dollar ring properly appraised. Not all unhappy customers bother to return a ring they don't like either. The net is full of buyers who buy there because they're too busy or lazy to make the rounds of brick and morter stores, and that convenience disappears when you've got to go to the trouble to mail something back. And if the customer testimonials you refer to are on the company's web site, do keep in mind that what's there is what the company allows to be there. The worst of the fraudulent internet sellers sites often have lots of glowing testimonials from happy customers to make themselves look good. Those, of course, are all written by the folks who put up the site. Now, I'm not implying this site is fraudulent at all. I have no idea if it is, and no reason to think it is. Just remember that because you read it on the net doesn't mean it's real or valid. You don't know the real source of the information. The only thing I see is a site claiming that this is a good quality natural ruby of a given size for 700 bucks. Now, I'm pretty sure I can't go legitimately buy a new 700 series BMW automobile for a thousand dollars cash from the dealer. If I saw one offered, I could be pretty sure it was stolen, wreck salvaged, or otherwise a fraudulent sale, because you simply can't buy a car worth 50 thousand for one thousand, right? The price differential in this case, between the selling price, and the market price for what an experience jeweler or gemologist (like me, for example) would consider even decent quality in a natural ruby may not be on that same level. But the concept is the same, and what a good ruby of that size SHOULD sell for is a lot more than 700 bucks. Good ruby is one of the truly rare gems. Much more so than diamond. People who have good ruby for sale might, in a depressed economy, have to drop their price some if they have to move inventory. But this is WAY too cheap. So something is wrong. Either the quality doesn't measure up to what the site implies, or it's not quite the right gem. My guess would still be either a good synthetic (which would be a blatantly fraudulent advertisement) or most likely, natural ruby that's simply a lot more flawed and included than the site implies. Mind you, these can still be very pretty. And it IS possible to get natural ruby of lower qualities, in this price range. But I think it won't look like the pictures in that web page. If it's nice and clean and clear (good clarity), it simply won't be a nice bright saturated red color. If it's a good red color, then it will have a lot of prominant and obviously visible inclusions (cracks,flaws, etc) My dad gave me his ruby ring many years ago. One day while in college, I took it off to wash my hands in the restroom, and absent-mindedly left it on the sink. Some member of the general public, being the honorable lot they often are, was nice enough to lift it before I realized what I'd done. Likely the very first guy in there stole it. I left notices in the RR, but nothing ever turned up. yeah, I did the same thing in college when I sat down at the piano in the lounge area to play for a bit. Left the ring I'd made myself just a few weeks earlier on the music stand for a moment and it disappeared. Bummer even when it's one you can replace. Peter |
#8
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
Yeah, funny guy. I seriously doubt I'm missing much. Sorry, didn't realize no address was so important. Here's one for me: Much? not in volume, no. Abrasha has often rightly accused me of taking two pages to say what he says in two sentances. Or as they say around here - "why use one word when a thousand will do!" |
#9
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:16:48 -0800, "Peter W.. Rowe,"
wrote: So yes, most people don't bother to get a 700 dollar ring properly appraised. Not all unhappy customers bother to return a ring they don't like either. The net is full of buyers who buy there because they're too busy or lazy disabled! to make the rounds of brick and morter stores, and that convenience disappears when you've got to go to the trouble to mail something back. -- Marilee J. Layman http://mjlayman.livejournal.com |
#10
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Need professional opinion (or at least somewhat informed)
"Marilee J. Layman" wrote in
: On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:16:48 -0800, "Peter W.. Rowe," wrote: So yes, most people don't bother to get a 700 dollar ring properly appraised. Not all unhappy customers bother to return a ring they don't like either. The net is full of buyers who buy there because they're too busy or lazy disabled! to make the rounds of brick and morter stores, and that convenience disappears when you've got to go to the trouble to mail something back. Or located over 30 miles from a grocery store, 60 from a emquality/em jewelry store., |
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