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 […]
There is a moment in almost every engagement ring consultation at Smith and Green when the conversation shifts. The couple has spent twenty minutes discussing carat weight and colour grades, comparing two stones that look nearly identical in the light of 9 Hatton Garden. Then someone asks: Which setting? And the room changes. Because the […]
Ask a jeweller whether their diamonds are ethical and most of them will say yes. They will say it quickly, with confidence, and with very little supporting detail. This is worth paying attention to, because “ethical” is not a standardised term in the jewellery trade and it does not mean the same thing from one […]
Someone walked into the 9 Hatton Garden showroom one Wednesday in late October with a flight booked to Edinburgh on the 23rd of December. He had not bought a ring. He had not chosen a stone. He had a partner he loved very much and a proposal location already chosen, and he wanted to know […]
The centre stone is chosen. The carat weight is settled, the certificate is in hand, and the buyer at the consultation table has been quietly thrilled for 20 minutes. Then the next question lands and the room goes quiet. Which setting. Claw, pavé, bezel or halo. Most buyers arrive at Smith and Green’s 9 Hatton […]
A client returned to the 9 Hatton Garden showroom on a Tuesday afternoon last spring with a story that arrives more often than it should. Her engagement ring had slipped down a hotel basin drain in Lisbon, the hotel plumber had not been able to retrieve it, and her insurer was now asking for documents […]
There is a small ritual that takes place every working day at the consultation desks of 9 Hatton Garden. A buyer is handed a folded piece of paper, slightly larger than a passport, with a hologram in one corner and a string of numbers running down its left edge. They glance at it, smile politely, […]
A couple sits at the consultation table on a quiet Thursday at 9 Hatton Garden, the engagement ring already a year old on the left hand, the wedding eight months away. They have come in to choose the wedding bands. Within ten minutes, it becomes clear that the engagement ring was bought in a hurry, […]
