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 […]
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 […]
