HOW TO SAVE ALMOST 50 PERCENT ON A GORGEOUS DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING

This particular ring with this particular diamond at this particular point in time costs £9,055. Of course, go to the high street or a high-end dealer and you'll pay more than £20K for a ring like this, so if you've made it here you've already saved 50% before you read on!

That’s a phenomenally good price for a platinum 1.00 carat, F colour, VVS1,  Triple X GIA diamond engagement ring. Unless you don’t happen to have £10,000 stuffed down the back of your sofa…

The truth is, not all of us can afford to – or wish to – spend nearly £10,000 on a ring. The happier truth is, you shouldn't have to.

A ring doesn't have to be expensive to be gorgeous. The beauty of creating your own ring by choosing the setting and diamond yourself is that you can have a gorgeous ring for whatever price you want.

To prove it, here are four simple steps you can take to save hundreds, if not thousands, on any piece of diamond jewellery you buy.

STEP ONE - Hire a Lookalike

That platinum round twist tension setting up there is lovely, but it would be just as lovely in ultra-modern Rose Gold – a pinkish-white metal with a shine that can rival platinum any day of the week.

Rose Gold may be a fresh-faced newcomer to the jewellery world but with the durability of white and yellow gold, it’s quickly growing in popularity.

OUT:
Platinum round twist tension setting - £1,015

IN:
18K Rose Gold round twist tension setting - £865

New ring price
£8,905

Total Saving
£150

STEP TWO - Drop Some Weight

It’s a well-kept secret that diamond prices jump significantly for whole-carat weights. A one-carat diamond will cost you a lot more than a 0.95-carat diamond, even though there would be very little difference in size.

So what happens when you shave just a little bit of carat weight off your 1-carat diamond? All other factors being equal (colour grade, clarity grade, cut) you can still make a massive saving.

OUT:
1 carat, Triple X, F colour, VVS1 clarity, 9.52 DiamondScore - £7,890

IN:
0.93 carat, Triple X, F colour, VVS1 clarity, 9.55 DiamondScore - £6,050

New ring price
£6,915

Total Saving
£2,140

STEP THREE - Get Some Shade

Talking about colour in diamonds is a little misleading because, of course, diamonds don’t have any colour. Asked to describe the colour of any given diamond, most people would say ‘white’ or ‘clear’, regardless of the actual colour grade.

However, all but the rarest and most expensive diamonds possess colour, yet the faint yellow hues present in most stones are virtually undetectable, especially when mounted in a solitaire setting (i.e. not sitting next to another more colourless diamond).

So let’s swap out your F colour grade diamond for a nice, near-colourless G grade:

OUT:
0.93 carat, Excellent cut, F colour, VVS1 clarity, 9.55 DiamondScore - £6,050

IN:
0.93 carat, Excellent cut, G colour, VVS1 clarity, 9.35 DiamondScore - £5,570

New ring price
£6,435

Total Saving
£2,620

STEP FOUR - Lose Some Clarity

Of all the Four C’s, clarity is the one that has the smallest impact on the look of a diamond. Diamonds are graded for clarity under 10x magnification and most of the tiny inclusions can’t be seen with the naked eye.

This means that unless you go really low – SI1 grade or lower - your diamond will look as clear as the next, so you can make great savings simply by dropping a clarity grade or two.

OUT:
0.93 carat, Triple X, G colour, VVS1 clarity, 9.35 DiamondScore - £5,570

IN:
0.93 carat, Triple X, G colour, VS2 clarity, 9.12 DiamondScore - £3,895

New ring price
£4,760

Total Saving
£4,295

STEP FIVE - Loosen Up (just a bit!)

Now you may have noticed that we've been talking about "Triple X" diamonds, and for those of you who aren't in the know, It refers to Excellent Cut, Excellent Polish, Excellent Symmetry... and for good measure, we've also kept to No Fluorescence for the purposes of this comparison.

The final trick is to loosen up a little on some of these attributes... set them between Excellent and Very Good (and None to Very Slight for Fluorescence) and you've found some real gems (excuse the pun!), often slightly bigger, with better colour or clarity and sometimes scoring higher than other diamonds.

For example, on updating this today, I found a lovely diamond...

OUT:
0.93 carat, Triple X, G colour, VS2 clarity, 9.12 DiamondScore - £3,895

IN:
0.92 carat, (still) Triple X, G colour, VS2 clarity, 9.12 DiamondScore - £3,370

New ring price
£4,235

Total Saving
£4,820

You've now actually saved more than you've spent, just by following these five simple steps. In fact, you've knocked a whopping 53% off the price of the original ring – and you didn't have to haggle at all.

Most importantly, your new ring is just as stunning, scintillating, sparkling and altogether show-stopping as it was, to begin with.

The minor tweaks we've made might have had a huge impact on the price, but the effect on the beauty of the diamond really is minimal. That’s because all the diamonds above have an Excellent cut grade – the best you can get. Cut determines how much fire, brilliance and sparkle your diamond has, so that’s one aspect we’d recommend you never compromise on.

The Quality Diamonds Challenge: How Much Can You Save?

What you've just witnessed is a demonstration – a setting and diamonds picked at random from our website to illustrate how much it’s possible to save with just a few minor changes.

How much you can really save depends on your starting price and how much tweaking you’re willing to do. It’s easy enough to get a £10,000 ring down to under £5,000. It’s harder to get a £2,000 ring down to £1,000….or is it?

Start with your ideal diamond then follow the four simple steps above. Once you've played around with the carat weight, colour and clarity, use our ever-so-useful DiamondScore to find the absolute bestest pick of the bunch. The higher the DiamondScore, the better the diamond and the better you’ll feel about your incredible bargain. So, what are you waiting for? Start tweaking and see how much you can save!