jewelry store question

sweet tea

suppose you found yourself in the market for a plain ring. say, a gold ring. not with a limitless budget, but buying with the intent of having something you'll keep for a long time.

any local suggestions?

belzjm

http://www.martiniboys.com/NYC/citystock/jewelry/1431.html

scarlett

Um, like for a wedding band???!!!!! Wheeeee!!!

shishkab

haven't been in there for years, but i was always a fan of Clay Pot back in the day.

hubby and i both got our wedding bands there. unique, not mass produced, and we didn't spend a fortune.

scarlett

Second hand is a great green way to go! Rumor has it there may be a wedding band available from a fellow brooklynian.

pitu

Is that St Kilda's place still making a go of it on 5th Ave?
Alternately, there's a place on Thompson St in Soho...argh, memory fails.

MOD

I'm a big fan of platinum rings, Just an idea.

BTW you do know Papi and I are both Reverends in the Universal Life Church, right?

pitu

p.s. if you don't see what you like with new designers, maybe a spin through museum stores for reproductions . . . Bklyn, the Met, MOMA

I never looked for rings, but got some fab.u.lous necklaces at the Met for some co-workers when I had a budget and a time crunch

Love the second-hand thing, but a little 'fraid of the symbolic attachment if I didn't know the backstory...

Happy for you, tea!

booklaw

They're not plain gold, but they are very, very lovely:http://www.jewelryofchardavogne.com/gallery/rings/rings.htm

pitu

The Met:



and MOMA

sweet tea

thanks, y'all. these are great suggestions. st. kilda is still there, btw, and very nice.

camaysar

7th Avenue Jewels and Time Pieces
301 7th Ave (at 8th St.), (718) 788-3131‎

Nice traditional place...in the Slope for at least 20 years.The owners are a nice Russian couple. Great for the nabe!

mw11215

camaysar wrote: 7th Avenue Jewels and Time Pieces
301 7th Ave (at 8th St.), (718) 788-3131‎

Nice traditional place...in the Slope for at least 20 years.The owners are a nice Russian couple. Great for the nabe!

i would avoid this place. i resized a wedding band there, they mangled it badly. had to return three times, never got it quite right.

booklaw

I had an egregiously terrible experience with 7th Avenue Jewels and Time Pieces. I would never, ever go back.

whatchuwant

Titanium. Durable as all hell, and stylish! Cheaper too, these days- gold has reached quite a high these days.

longtimesloper

I have shopped at the store on 7th avenue and 8th street many times over the years and have had many things repaired there including having my diamond engagement ring reset. Never had a problem with them and their work always came out good. If it didn't, they had no problem fixing it for me. But, I know other people who have had issues with them.

opossumqueen

Clay Pot has lots of stuff, but for the record, they do not have an in store jeweler. I took some things in for alterations and they gave me the card of the jeweler they use. I don't have it near me now, but it was somewhere in midtown, so not in the neighborhood.

Although they have gorgeous jewelry, I have yet to have a good experience with the staff. Every time I've been in they've all been chatting with each other and it was really hard to get them to stop and help me or anyone else.

sweet tea

i basically agree about the clay pot staff. the person who dealt with us was fine, but the other people working there seemed very short with their customers. although i don't think the woman helping us did anything wrong per se, we did feel ...generic, maybe? like we were getting "the wedding ring spiel." nothing terrible, just not the way we were treated at the smaller stores we went to. as it happened, we didn't love any of the rings we saw there, either, though they do have a wider selection than most other places we looked. just not to our taste.

the gf checked out 7th ave jewels but said they didn't seem likely to be able to get us a matching pair, since much of what they sell is old.

after also going to a number of small stores in the city, we decided that our favorite ring was the first one we saw, at st. kllda's. (website seems to be partly down today; posting link in the hopes that it gets patched up. more info on their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brooklyn-NY/St-Kilda-Jewelry/38911404246 )

everyone we've dealt with there has been lovely, from the young woman working in the shop when we first came in to the designer herself, who helped us with sizing when we ordered the rings. made us feel special without being weirdly obsequious. like they were genuinely happy for us, which is nice. prices reasonable, especially for non-mass-produced jewelry. the shop itself is small but very welcoming. definitely worth checking out.

jane_birkin

i posted about this on the weddings thread, but...i would honestly recommend going to a pawn shop. Modells on Atlantic Ave and Clinton has been around 100 years or so and they only do jewelry. their selection turns over pretty quickly so if you don't see what you want you can go back a few weeks later. also E-Z Pawn on 5th avenue in the 40s has good service and a selection almost as big as Modells. sure there's some junk among it, but overall nice stuff at a fraction of the mark-up you pay at a regular jeweler. i now have a Tiffany's ring for $400. and no one will know where you got it unless you tell them.

whatchuwant

jane_birkin wrote: i now have a Tiffany's ring for $400. and no one will know where you got it unless you tell them.

I saw that previous post, Jane, and I'm wondering- have you gotten it independently appraised? Fabulous that you got a Tiffany ring for that price! The older the better, I say.

While I wanted an antique, I got a one-of-a-kind cognac diamond ring in the antique style and I'm SO in love with it. We're getting married in 32 days!

xlizellx

i usually try to keep away from chain stores, but we got our bands from Kay Jewelers because if something should happen/need to be fixed/cleaned, we could go to any Kay in the country. They have decent sales as well.

jane_birkin

watchu-- i LOVE the cognac diamonds, they are just gorgeous! and i didn't have it appraised, so there's a chance it might be a knockoff. but it is a real diamond in a setting i just love, so that's what counts. plus my FH didn't have to spend too much.

where is your wedding? in Brooklyn?

whatchuwant

No, it's on LI at the Northport Yacht Club, where I grew up.

http://www.northportyachtclub.com/


Halloween wedding, though it's NOT a theme. However, I have a feeling there will be some guests with a sense of humor.... :roll: BUT! It'll be great- I can point at them and laugh! Cannot. Wait.

xlizellx

Whatchuwant wrote:

Halloween wedding, though it's NOT a theme. However, I have a feeling there will be some guests with a sense of humor.... :roll: BUT! It'll be great- I can point at them and laugh! Cannot. Wait.

it also means your anniversary is halloween, meaning the wedding attire (dress and tux) can be worn by you two each year as both a halloween costume and for your anniversary. one year, be a zombie married couple, one year be cake toppers, etc..

whatchuwant

xlizellx wrote: [quote=Whatchuwant]

Halloween wedding, though it's NOT a theme. However, I have a feeling there will be some guests with a sense of humor.... :roll: BUT! It'll be great- I can point at them and laugh! Cannot. Wait.

it also means your anniversary is halloween, meaning the wedding attire (dress and tux) can be worn by you two each year as both a halloween costume and for your anniversary. one year, be a zombie married couple, one year be cake toppers, etc..

Lol- well, I paid enough for the dress! I should wear it every year!

booklaw

We bought my wife's engagement ring from a dealer in the diamond district who specialized in estate sales. It was a large blue-black opal surrounded by a ring of tiny diamond chips. It was a lovely antique ring, and was not at all expensive.

Several years later the diamond chips started to fall out one by one, and finally so did the opal... the gold setting had become soft with age.

So if you buy antique jewelry, that's another question to ask the jeweler... how strong/reliable is the setting?