The question buyers ask me most often is whether lab grown diamonds are real. It is the wrong question. They are real diamonds, the same crystallised carbon, the same hardness, the same fire. After 20 years around the Hatton Garden trade I can tell you the honest decision is not about authenticity at all. The […]
A receipt proves what you paid for a ring in Hatton Garden. It does not prove what the ring is, and it does not tell an insurer what replacing it would cost. Those 2 jobs belong to a proper valuation, and the gap between the documents catches buyers out every year. Ring insurance and valuation […]
A diamond report is only as useful as your ability to check it, and most buyers never check it at all. They are handed a folded certificate, they glance at the grades, and they take the rest on trust. After 20 years around the Hatton Garden trade, I can tell you the certificate is where […]
Choosing an engagement ring is rarely a calm, linear decision. Most buyers arrive having scrolled through a hundred images and still feel unsure, because a screen cannot show how a stone behaves in daylight. A sapphire changes that conversation. For the buyer who wants colour, history and a stone that withstands daily wear, a sapphire […]
A white gold wedding band comes back to a Hatton Garden counter with a warm tint at the base of the shank and a bright top. Nothing has gone wrong with it. The rhodium plating has worn where the ring meets the palm, and the alloy underneath is showing through. Smith & Green Jewellers is […]
An oval diamond looks larger than a round one of the same weight and flatters the hand, but two things decide whether it is beautiful: its proportions and its bow tie. Neither appears as a grade on the certificate, so both have to be judged by eye.
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 […]
