Vintage Engagement Ring Pros and Cons
Daisy is a sucker for the 1930s and she wants Jay Gatsby to get a romantic vintage engagement ring with the style of a bygone era. It sounds romantic and it could save money as well as it could be a huge pain.
To buy a vintage ring depends on personal taste. You should know what you can expect from it and it’s past when you get it.
Value
At any time, buying vintage and antique engagement rings gives more valuable than new rings. These lovely and unique rings are still second-hand pieces with few exceptions like the Edwardian Bombe which are rare antiques and can be sold at a higher price. Anyway, you can buy a used beautiful vintage or antique diamond for a great deal.
Durability
As diamonds last forever, the detail of the ring itself such as the filigree of Victorian pieces can be fell apart after wearing. Metals do show signs of age and usage so it is important to know whether this ring is suitable to wear every day or not.
Our friend got engaged with a lovely pearl and diamond ring from 1903. The entire ring needed refurbishment shortly after the engagement because the side diamonds fell out. In the end, she bought another ring to wear daily and the 1903 beauty ring is used on special occasions.
So, if your girlfriend wants to wear her ring every day, you should always check the overall “wearable condition” of the ring before buying it.
Antique Ring = Antique Cuts
If your girlfriend loves to “shine like diamond” Rihanna style, you may reconsider in which era your diamond was cut.
At present diamonds are better cut to maximize sparkle, known as brilliant cut, with 58 facets. Machines can precisely work as opposed to hand cutters whose imperfections made the diamonds lopsided and increased the size of the cutlet. If your diamond was cut by hand to maximize its glow under the gaslight of the era, you may see a large dark hole in the center of your diamond which people in the past did not mind. Diamonds today are cut to minimize dead spots and black holes and give a sparkle of modern blink which is not like vintage diamonds.
However, these old cuts are unique, personal and like Old European which boasts chunkier facets making it seem like candlelight dances through the diamond. These well-done old cuts could be exactly the factor to get a high deal on an antique diamond.
Those Settings Tho
Your mother may say “they just don’t make things the way they used to”
During the Victorian, Edwardian, and especially Art Deco periods, a beautiful ring made by craftsmen had no expense. Today, the Lacey filigree on the Victorian rings, the diamond-encrusted baskets of the infamous dome-shaped Edwardian pieces, and the rich flair of Art Deco design can’t be beaten and no replica can compare.
If your girl likes these all details, you should find a suitable durable setting, and the ‘wow -factor won’t be beaten.
Perfectly Different
If your girlfriend doesn’t want to look engaged to your friends with those 1or 2 carats round six-prong solitaire on a white gold band, you can choose a vintage ring for her. These kinds of rings are romantic, original and exactly have a special factor to stand out and make people turn to stare.
Today’s standard is that the whiter diamond is better than the warmer diamond. For many years warmer diamonds or yellow diamonds have gone in and out of fashion. They are cheaper compared with whiter ones which are rare to find, also with cutting techniques and place they were mined.
Now it comes to style for L, M or R colored diamonds to take center stage. Anything commonly goes and women wear either creamy or warmer diamonds. Just don’t skimp on the cut!
The Bottom Line
When you are looking for unique, antique, and vintage diamond engagement rings, you should know their historical fabulous stories. If you do good research on them, you can save some money on size and avoid overcharging from antique dealers for the only reason that they are old. The most important thing is to be sure that your lover wants an old ring used by someone before.
Source: SMP
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