How to choose engagement jewelry that’s right for you

By Elly Brown, Special to The Sunday

Sunday, May 21, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Chinese jeweler Chow Tai Fook just bought an internally flawless 59.6-carat gem — the Pink Star Diamond — for a record $70 million. But most of us aren’t that flush, so if your romance blossoms into a springtime engagement this year, chances are you just want options.

Many people don’t want to buy pre-made rings. After all, that’s someone else’s idea of the perfect design, right? And there are so many questions about the origins of the gemstones. Are they sourced ethically? What constitutes a nice one? How do you even begin to choose?

Plus, not everyone wants a diamond. When it comes time to commemorate an engagement with jewelry meant to last a lifetime, Pinterest and Instagram can fuel your imagination with a rainbow of custom-made fusions of stone and metal.

Dave Padgett and Richard Shaw of D&R House of Diamonds started their business to bridge the gap between the bricks-and-mortar jewelry shop and the custom online experience. They offered insights on how to pick out the right ring.

Question 1: Where (or who) are you buying from?

• The screen vs. the eye: Folks are definitely heading to the internet these days to buy jewelry. When searching for a diamond online, it’s easy to plug in the cut, color and clarity you want, and 15 different choices might pop up. How tempting is it to just buy the cheapest one and call it a deal?

“But if I were to show you all 15 that are on that listing, and if I mixed them up and said, ‘Which one is the prettiest to you?’ the truth is it’s usually a diamond somewhere in the middle, or higher-priced,” Padgett said. “Because the human eye is involved in assessing the cut, color and clarity, there’s always a degree of subjectivity and variance. The way the diamond is fashioned — the geometry of the stone, can determine: Is it a 40-watt bulb or a 100-watt bulb? At the end of the day, most people want a 100-watt bulb.”

• it’s OK to mix and match

Working with a jeweler offers a high level of customization. For instance, D&R House of Diamonds has about 4,000 designs in its catalog that each can be modified a hundred ways in any metal. The cost is a calculation of the market price of the metal, the weight and worth of the gemstone and how close it is to aesthetic perfection, so various options can be explored.

“I would be naïve to say there aren’t good values on the internet,” Padgett said. “I’ll often advise clients, ‘Go buy it, and if we can help you with the mounting, we’d be honored.’ But you have to do your due diligence. Look at all of the options and then make the choice that’s best for you.”

Question 2: What type of stone do you want?

• What exactly is a lab-grown diamond? Lab-grown diamonds have exactly the same physical and chemical properties as natural mined diamonds — but they were created in a lab, with technology that duplicates the way diamonds are formed deep within the Earth. At an average of 30 percent cheaper than their mined counterparts, they are an increasingly popular alternative that erases the ethical dilemma.

• What about other types of gems? Beautiful alternatives to diamonds are out there for every personality, whether you go for polished abalone shell or a rough-cut garnet. Pink morganite (or pink emerald) is a pretty choice tucked into a rose gold setting; and colored sapphires are making a splash (although they can be nearly as expensive as diamonds). “We get a lot of calls for moissanite,” Padgett said, “which is a common diamond replacement. It’s a very hard stone, lab-grown, that has a lot of similar properties to a diamond — much better than a cubic zirconia, which will get microabrasions over time and doesn’t look real.”

• The Four C’s and Geometry: You might already be familiar with the four C’s of diamond buying: cut, color, clarity and carat weight. But how does that translate to getting what Padgett calls a 10-table diamond — as in, one you can see that many tables away? “Because diamonds are priced by weight, the cutter may take a shallow piece of rough and leave it shallow because it’s a larger stone, since the size trumps proportion. The downside is, you’re going to pay a lot of money for a 70-watt bulb instead of a 100-watt bulb. It may have great color and great clarity ... but that geometry really matters in the wow-factor.” That’s another great reason to consider looking at lots of stones in person, side by side.

Question 3: What type of band do you want?

• Consider the metal spectrum: Silver reflects the entire color spectrum within white light to produce its eponymous color. Gold and copper have more energy but less efficiency, and their reduced reflectivity at the blue end of the spectrum creates yellow and reddish tones.

• Commonly used metals, from most to least precious (read: expensive), are platinum, gold, silver and stainless steel.

Platinum is five times more rare than gold, very durable and doesn’t lose color or sheen over time.

Gold comes in various warm and cool shades due to mixing with other metals to harden the naturally soft material: white, yellow, rose and green. Because of that variation, gold can be contemporary, classic, romantic or edgy. Gold also can cover (gold vermeil), bond to (gold-filled) or be electroplated to (gold-plated) a less expensive base

Silver is also soft, its mixture with other metals making it graded fine (the tiniest fraction shy of purity) or sterling (72.5% pure).

Stainless steel, with an industrial vibe, impervious to staining and corrosion.

Less common jewelry metals include:

• brass (golden, tarnishes to brown over time)

• copper (reddish gold, can turn green over time, oldest known metal used by man)

• nickel (silver-white, can cause allergic reactions)

• palladium (silver-white, from the platinum family)

• rhodium (silver-white, from the platinum family, most expensive of all precious metals)

• titanium (silver-white, hardest natural metal in the world)

• tungsten (steel-gray, hard and hypoallergenic)