According to theknot.com TV, one of the premiere wedding planning websites, the fashion of men’s wedding bands is becoming more popular and more sophisticated. Bill Fulle of Baily Banks & Biddle explains the evolution of this niche market:

“The new thing in men’s wedding bands is that they now have a choice. Thirty years ago if you were a man and you came in, we asked you what width plain gold band you wanted. Those were your choices. We now have platinum, we have yellow gold, we have pink gold. Men’s diamonds are more popular than they ever have been. We’ve got some of the houses carving beautiful designs in the platinum.”

But this market is only starting to expand, as traditionally, rings have been a women’s domain and that which was assigned to men consisted of plain wedding bands or chunky pinky rings. “Fifteen percent of sales are now men’s jewelry,” says Eddie Rosenberg, president and chief executive of Spectore, a manufacturer of titanium jewelry in Deerfield Beach, Fla. “I defy you to walk into a jewelry store and find more than 3 percent of jewelry dedicated to men.”

We expect to see a wider breadth of styles this year in the men’s ring department – anything from which metal to the design of the ring itself. Ellyn Mishkin of Gordon’s Jewelers says that she is noticing more men interested in unusual metals for their wedding bands, such as titanium, palladium, tungsten, and stainless steel. She says, “We see more men taking more interest and having it be a personal choice [more] than it used to be.”

Mark Schneider from Zales says the new trends for men this year are platinum, white gold, and diamonds. Small diamonds set all over the wedding band is becoming more masculine, as after all, says Schneider, “Let’s face it, if you are putting beautiful diamonds on her finger, why not wear some yourself?”

stephenwebster.com

A case in point of a jewelry designer catering to this up-and-coming market is London’s Stephen Webster. He says he has had an overwhelming response to his gold and platinum men’s designs in his new bridal collection. “Men are loving it. They’re so very loyal.” Webster says he will expand the men’s section of his collection for the next season due to growing demand.

Whether you or your man prefer the simple yet classy looks of our fathers or the more modern interpretations of our generation, chances are good that you will benefit from the sheer variety of styles now available today. Take your time and choose something that makes sense for your fashion sense and lifestyle. After all, trends come and go, but your wedding jewelry should last forever.

Sources:
http://www.jckonline.com/2011/12/22/cool-jewels-new-year?utm_source=JCK+eNewsletters&utm_campaign=a1710510db-2011_01_14_Top_Story_Saturday1_13_2012&utm_medium=email

http://wedding.theknot.com/getting-engaged/engagement-rings/articles/6-engagement-ring-trends.aspx?MsdVisit=1

lovepromiseandring.com

For example, Jeff Jaffe of Harold Jaffe Jewelers in Toledo, Ohio, told JCK Magazine, “We don’t believe in any certificates – even from the better labs. If I agree with the diamond grading document, I’ll use it. But we usually go downward – not upward – when comparing our diamond evaluations to grading reports from a lab.”

Likewise, Craig Underwood of Underwood’s Fine Jewelers in Fayetteville, Arkansas, now presents customers with his own diamond reports since he felt there were too many inconsistencies in the reports he received from various gemological labs. He explains, “We’ll give the customer a lab-issued diamond grading report if the customer specifically asks for it, but that rarely happens. Most of the time the lab-issued grading report is filed in our archives and never shown to the customer. The only report the customer receives is our Underwood Diamond Report.”

More than just a response to inconsistencies in major lab reports, independent jewelers are also motivated by cutting costs – thus eliminating the third party evaluation. Retailers began their own reporting in the 1990s as a measure to gain quality control, but certainly the savings involved in this move were also an important factor.

Jaffe insists that his store now certifies fewer diamonds, that “it’s not about the paper; it’s about the diamond value for the dollar.”

And finally, local jewelers can create their own language of certification beyond the traditional four C’s of carat, color, cut, and clarity. Mike Fleck of Occasions Fine Jewelry in Midland, Texas, says, “We use terms such as face-up whiter, or a 90-point spread as big as a carat. Each parcel paper will have three to four Value Notes on it.”

But doesn’t all this creativity miss the point of streamlined evaluation that big labs and jewelers all over the world have been practicing for decades? How can we talk about the characteristics of a diamond without the four C’s – the standard shoptalk for any diamond dealer and consumer?

Indeed, Michael Fried, editor of TruthAboutDiamonds.com, is wary of in-house certifications for exactly this reason. He explains that we could understand if retailers wanted to conduct their own grading system in addition to the standard reports they receive from GIA or AGS, but to reject the traditional certification entirely seems like bad news for you, the diamond consumer.

How are you to compare a diamond you find in one store without this certification versus a diamond in another store with independent evaluation notes like “face-up whiter”? And an even more fundamental question: how are you to make an educated, objective decision about a diamond that is not 100% based on the retailer’s opinion and smooth talk?

As always, dear diamond customers, be careful and use us as your resource. We are happy to provide that reassurance or be the source of quality information that you need.

Source:

http://www.jckonline.com/2011/12/21/why-jewelers-are-doing-their-own-diamond-grading?utm_source=JCK+eNewsletters&utm_campaign=a1710510db-2011_01_14_Top_Story_Saturday1_13_2012&utm_medium=email

Courtesy of buzzle.com

That’s what a Florida couple did last month when they realized their engagement ring was missing. They remembered last seeing the ring in the cup on their dresser just before Christmas, but were also sure that there were other people in their home at the time.

Enter private eye John Milano, a former police officer. The couple enlisted his expertise to locate the ring, and promised a $5,000 reward to the lucky individual who could lead them to the treasure.

Milano’s first order of business was conducting polygraph tests of everyone who was in the house at the time of the theft. In order to follow the footsteps of the thief, he also contacted local pawn shops in Martin County, Florida, as well as New York City – the diamond center of the country.

The only suspect to fail the polygraph test was 26-year-old house cleaner Cody Mejias. After that, she began to avoid Milano, thus prompting him to get serious about her potential guilt. “I hunted her down,” he said. “She refused to come in so we had to get the police involved.”

After arresting Mejias and charging her with grand theft, the real story began to unfold. She sold the ring to a pawn shop on Jensen Beach. Owner Charles Sarullo said he bought the ring for $4,800. He testified that Mejias explained she had inherited the ring from an aunt who had recently passed away.

According to the police affidavit, the maid was “apologetic and stated she needed the money to feed her children.” She told the police that she used the money to pay for food, bills, gas, and Christmas gifts.

In order to close the deal and bring back the jewelry, Milano offered Sarullo the $5K reward, plus a reimbursement of his $4,800 acquisition fee for the ring. Sounds like Sarullo did pretty well even though he didn’t get to resell the ring for its true value. Actually, Milano did pretty well too since he solved the case and was surely rewarded for that.

But the couple who hired Milano fared the best. They got their $350,000 engagement ring back and kept their anonymity.

Now there’s just one mystery left: who knows of a trustworthy maid to clean their house?

Source: http://privatedetectivelondon.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/350000-missing-engagement-ring-riddle-solved-by-private-detective/

Good luck!  I really hope one of our dear readers grabs this opportunity before someone else does!

This was such an original idea! He convinced his girlfriend that they were trying out for a reality TV show!  Check it out for yourselves below:

On November 8th, after the market closed, Blue Nile announced their Q3 financial results.  Overnight their stock plummeted from a closing price of $48.81 to an opening of $35.45 on November 9th.  The stock closed even further down the following day at $32.82.  Within 24 hours, the company had lost almost a third of its value.

Mark Vadon, Courtesy of BusinessWeek

The main driver behind the collapse was the fact that Blue Nile’s net income for Q3 2011 fell to $1.9 million from $2.8 million in Q3 2010 – this despite increasing revenues over Q3 2010 by $7.5 million (an increase of 11%).

Unfortunately, the clip above plays more like an informercial than it does a journalistic interview.  The interviewer doesn’t even mention the disappointing earnings, unfavorable outlook, or even the suddenly resigning CEO.  So what really is going on with Blue Nile?

I believe the answer is revealed not in what Vadon says in the interview above, but rather in what he doesn’t say.

At about the 4:30 mark in the video above, Vadon says “online, there isn’t much competition for us.”  Robert Bates, from JCK Magazine, takes Vadon’s claims at face value.  But is this really the truth?

According to comScore, online jewelry sales in the third quarter have grown “over 15%” compared to the third quarter 2010.  Blue Nile’s sales growth for the same period was 11%.  So if Blue Nile has no competition online, why is it that they’re lagging so substantially behind the online jewelry industry as a whole?

Vadon’s no fool.  He’s a very shrewd businessman.  He mentions at the end of the clip that their only real competition offline is Tiffany & Co.  The fact of the matter is, however, that Tiffany is absolutely not their direct competition.  The two stores offer completely different value propositions to their customers.  Vadon begins the clip by mentioning that their gross margin is about 21% while Tiffany’s is at a whopping 59%.  So it’s no skin off his back to mention Tiffany’s name in the clip, because he just qualified the mention with a warning that you’d have to have no interest in value to buy from Tiffany over Blue Nile.

The simple problem here is that none of Blue Nile’s real competition (ie, James Allen, BrilliantEarth, Whiteflash, etc.) are publicly traded companies.   These are companies that are growing and thriving despite the disadvantage of not having their name in the news on a daily basis by virtue of the fact that they’re public.  Vadon knows this, of course, and he’s not about to give his competition free advertising.

And furthermore, Blue Nile’s strongest competitors have each evolved beyond the basic business model that Blue Nile created, while Blue Nile has stayed more or less the same over the years.

BrilliantEarth and Whiteflash have each become much more efficient profit machines than Blue Nile by virtue of their focusing on niches within the online jewelry market (Conflict-Free and Super-ideal cut diamonds, respectively).

James Allen, Blue Nile’s largest competitor, appears to be quickly closing the gap on the industry sales leader.  They are accomplishing this by recognizing the major flaw in Vadon’s vision for Blue Nile (that all diamonds are commodities) and offering a solution to the problem (high-res magnified “virtual loupe” photos for almost all of their diamond inventory).  The fact is that only a very small subset of diamonds can be bought intelligently without seeing them (specifically round diamonds of very high clarity grades).  Virtually every other type of diamond (other diamond shapes and diamond with medium to lower clarity) can only be bought prudently after inspecting the diamond’s inclusion layout and the diamond’s silhouette to determine its cut quality.

This is a flaw that Blue Nile has consistently refused to recognize.

Blue Nile’s proposed solution for dealing with their slowing growth is to develop their international business as well as their non-engagement business.  While I believe the first solution is a positive development, I think the second solution is doomed to failure.  What made Blue Nile a great business was that they never had to own any inventory.  They sold virtual goods that cost them nothing to list on their site and sell.  Diamond wholesalers were happy to participate because this way their diamonds were always “in play” – even while their stones were simply sitting in their safes.

But this all falls apart when they begin to stock regular jewelry.  There will need to be major inventory commitments which will immediately level the playing field with their competitors both online and off.  Furthermore, while diamonds and engagement rings are an easy sell online because there’s essentially very little variety (You pick your diamond and a setting, and that’s it), fashion jewelry is far from it.  This is a product that people want to touch and feel and try on before they buy.  And finally, the average ticket of a non-engagement piece of jewelry is probably about a tenth of the price of an average engagement ring.  Their sales volume would have to increase exponentially to just keep pace with their engagement business, something that is extremely unlikely to happen given the above restraints.

Picture from Dirt.com

As readers of TruthAboutDiamonds already know, there are just about an endless amount of pitfalls one can fall into when shopping for an engagement ring.  That’s the truth whether you’re looking to spend one thousand dollars or whether you’re looking to spend one hundred thousand dollars.  In fact, I would think that when a celebrity walks into a high end jewelry store, they’re probably even more likely to be taken advantage of then than your average joe customer looking to spend under $5,000.

In fact, the Yahoo News report indicates that Theroux has “decided on a ring worth £10,000, which he believes is perfect.”  That’s fantastic, and if the report is correct, I truly applaud him for not spending more than that.  One doesn’t need to spend like a Kardashian to purchase a breathtaking engagement ring.  The problem is that the report continues to describe the purported ring design as “an exquisite three-carat Asscher-cut diamond ring with a row of smaller diamonds set in a vintage platinum band.”

This is simply not possible.  There’s either a journalistic error here, or somebody is lying to Cox and Theroux.  The lowest a combination like this could cost in a visually impressive quality (meaning a quality that looks great to the naked eye and not more than that) would be roughly £23,000.  In the type of high end jewelry shop that Cox would take Theroux to, they don’t even stock this quality I’m referring to (around H color and VS2 clarity for an Asscher-cut), and their profit margins are much higher than the sources I’m suggesting.

Most likely, the journalist left off a zero to the price estimate.  It makes much more sense that the ring discussed in the report is priced at £100,000.  If that’s the case, then I would like to offer my personal diamond consulting services to Theroux and Cox.  I am confident that I could save Theroux £50,000 at least and he’d still end up with an incredible looking ring.

Whether or not he takes me up on my offer, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the new soon-to-be engaged couple!

He just sent us this adorable video he made of his marriage proposal to his now fiance.  Watch and enjoy!