Ouch- paying retail for jewelry is the pits. Friends don't let friends pay retail for jewelry. If you want a great free education, find a good pawnbroker with a bit of time on his or her hands and ask them what jewelry is _really_ worth. It might hurt your feelings once but it will keep you from getting them hurt again and again.
As a rule they offer about half of what they expect to sell it for, and they will generally sell it for about half of what the retail cost was. But then you know that now... .
As to giving your mother an engagement ring- well, my mom stole my wife's first one. True story, of course she didn't KNOW she was stealing it, but it worked out that way just the same.
I don't like diamonds a whole lot in general and I wanted something special for my wife-to-be. One of my friends (one of those pawnbrokers I was talking about) told me she had 'a really old engagement ring' one day and I went by to see it. It was just like a picture I had once seen in Harry Winston's book (IIRC) of a style called a bouqet, a center diamond surrounded by six more diamonds of the same size. This was an early type of diamond engagement ring which become popular in America, just after the Kimberly strike in South Africa made diamonds more plentiful- and less costly. These stones were cut in an older style, not the Tiffany or brilliant cut familiar to most folks today, with fewer facets. But the stones were good, they were all contemporary (no replacements) and the engraving in the ring dated it to 1874.
I bought it.
The band was 14k yellow gold and so were the settings, typical of older jewelry. The prongs were worn a good bit and so the ring needed work as well as sizing. I took it home, intending to take it to a trusted local jeweler for the attention it needed. But I never got it to town, so I left it in my old dresser drawer in its box, with the idea I'd take it in next time I was home.
Didn't happen that way. I call my mom at least every Sunday night, and a few weeks after my visit she asked where that ring in my drawer came from. I told her I had bought it because it was old- hadn't told her or anyone else yet I was planning on proposing. Her next question gave me a sinking feeling- "Can I have it?"
Well, what do you say to a question like that? Gonna tell your mom "No?"
I said, "Of course you can have it. But I brought it home because it needs work, take it to the jeweler and have him reprong it and size it to fit you." This is my mom, you understand, who has told me repeatedly NOT to give her rings as gifts, because she thinks her hands are ugly and she doesn't want to draw attention to them. Oh well... who knew?
So I had to launch a search for ANOTHER antique that I could afford, and luckily we found one, though not as old as the original by almost fifty years. The engagement and the wedding came off as planned, and years later the honeymoon still isn't over.
And we still haven't told my mom she stole my wife's first engagement ring... it's our only family secret.
lpl/nc
