Every few days, someone stands at our counter at 9 Hatton Garden and asks the same quiet question: what is the stone for a May birthday, or an October one, and does it actually mean anything. Birthstones by month are one of the oldest gift traditions still alive in jewellery, and one of the most […]
The most common emergency in our workshop is not a broken clasp or a lost stone. It is a groom two weeks from the wedding holding a band that will not pass his knuckle. Mens ring sizes UK follow a letter system that runs from A to Z and beyond, and men typically sit in […]
A ring leaves 9 Hatton Garden on a Saturday afternoon in a small box, with the receipt folded underneath it. The receipt records what was paid. It does not record what the ring would cost to replace in three years, and that gap is where most engagement ring insurance claims come unstuck. Smith & Green […]
Two stones sit on a tray at a Hatton Garden counter, both round brilliants of about a carat, both bright, one priced at a fraction of the other. The cheaper one is a laboratory-grown diamond, and the question the buyer asks is the obvious one. Smith & Green Jewellers is a fine jewellery retailer in […]
The certificate in the seller’s hand is not proof of anything. That sentence is the whole article, and almost nobody buying a pre-owned engagement ring understands it before they hand over the money. A grading report is a description of a stone. It is not a chain of custody, it is not attached to the […]
The lift doors open on the first floor, and you are already rehearsing what to say. Most people arrive at a first engagement ring consultation with a phone full of screenshots, a budget they are slightly embarrassed about, and a low hum of worry that they are about to be found out. Found out as […]
The box has been in a drawer for 4 years. You have opened it perhaps twice. The ring inside belonged to someone you loved, and it is not a ring you would ever have chosen, and both of those things are true at once and have been quietly bothering you since the day it arrived. […]
Two quotes. Same brief, same budget, same saved screenshots. One is 40% higher than the other. Both jewellers seemed competent, both produced certificates, and neither did anything you could point at. This is where most buyers make their worst decision, because only 2 moves appear to be available and both are bad. Take the cheaper […]
The engagement ring is done. It has been said yes to, photographed, admired at 3 separate dinners, and it has quietly become part of the hand it lives on. Then, some months later, a second question arrives that nobody prepared you for. What goes next to it? Matching a wedding band to an engagement ring […]
There is a specific moment at the consultation desks at 9 Hatton Garden when a buyer’s eyes travel down a grading report, past everything they have researched, and stop on a line nobody warned them about. Carat, they know. Colour and clarity they have read about for weeks. Cut, they have opinions on. Then, near […]
