After the Divorce, Get Several Estimates Before Deciding What to Do with Ring
The relationship has gone south, but the bling remains, albeit tarnished by complex feelings unique but oh-so-common to most break ups. The question almost everyone who gets divorced or breaks off an engagement now faces is, What do I do with the ring?”
We sell a lot of divorced rings,” said Gloria Lieberman, vice president of the fine jewelry department for Boston-based Skinner auctioneers and appraisers. In most cases, it’s the woman selling the ring, and she is going through a lot of anger and hurt, and the first thing to take the hit is the ring. I tell people to wait a little bit. Things done in anger aren’t the most prudent. The worst thing they can do is sell it to the first person they see. Let’s think about this. The ring represents a lot of things, but it could also represent some money.”
They usually are very sad and upset,” agreed Alex Harris, chairman of A. Harris Jewelers, an estate and antique jewelry dealer based in both London and New York, which also purchases what Lieberman calls divorced rings. But while we do feel sorry for them, we are professionals and we can’t give extra money just because we feel sorry for them.”
While waiting and letting the dust clear is the best advice that experts in the jewelry business agree on, it’s often not a possibility when you need cash quick. The worst thing the wife can do with her ring is give to her lawyer as a retainer,” said Eric Freedman, president of Huntington, N.Y.-based Freedman Jewelers and one of 400 certified gemologists in the country.
The lawyer is going to give her pennies on the dollar. This practice is a lot more common than people think. If you’re the stay-at-home wife and your husband has been in control of the money. He closes bank account and clears out the credit card and asks for a divorce. Where are you going to get the money to retain a lawyer? You look at your finger, but that is the worst thing you can do.”
Freedman agrees with other jewelers when he says the best first step is to shop your ring around to several jewelers to get an idea of what cash you can get for the ring.
Take it to six jewelers and get their offers. Now you have a starting point. You want to find jewelers who have in their stores what you are trying to sell, especially if it is unique and the stone is big. If you just have a one carat diamond, every jewelry store on the planet has that. Then go to another jeweler, and another. And when they ask, ‘How much do you want?’ start upping the price,” said Freedman, 61, whose family has been in the jewelry business since the mid-1800s.
Don’t just go to the guy you’ve been doing business with for 20 years. Go out of town. Find some high end jewelers”someone who can afford to pay you right then and there. For instance, if you came to me with a five carat diamond, I could write you a check for it right on the spot.”
Finding comparative values will not only give you information, it will also bolster your confidence about what your ring is worth in the current market right now. In addition to shopping it around, Lieberman also suggests you get as much paperwork as possible to help substantiate that value and give the jewelers some sense of history and its original purchase price.
Do you have a bill of sale? An old appraisal of the ring? A certificate, like a GIA certificate? Was the ring ever included on your insurance policy? Gather all the documentation to corroborate what you have and get a handle on it so you have more knowledge about its value,” said Lieberman, 62, whose auction house, Skinner, offers both online and live auctions for its fine jewelry. If you need to get one more opinion, you can always go to someone who buys strictly diamonds and see what the cash offer is. The idea is to get the best idea on what the value of your ring is right now.”
After you gather your paperwork and get a solid idea of what you can get for your ring on the street, Alex Harris suggests you also get an appraisal from an auction house. Go to one of the auction houses, like Christy’s or Southeby’s. They will give you an accurate, independent appraisal. Once you’ve been to an auction house, you will have an idea of the fair market value and they will give you an evaluation on the piece. Once you have a guide, it can make you more comfortable and at ease because it is always very fair and not just based on what they want to pay.”
But fair, unfortunately, doesn’t translate into getting back what you paid for the ring. Which doesn’t lessen the sting for jilted fiances and divorced spouses who find themselves not only dealing with the mish-mash of raw emotions following a break up, but the bare truth that they aren’t going to get a windfall. Just how much you will get depend on a variety of factors. But estimates range anywhere from 35 percent to 80 percent.It depends on two things: What you bought and where you bought it. If you go to the mall to one of these national chains, you are going to pay up to a 200 percent markup. And they are not going to want to buy it back and there is no way you are going to get that back,” said GIA-certified gemologist Freedman.
In retail jewelry in general, there is a very large markup. It’s kind of like as soon as car leaves the parking lot, the price drops. But generally, you’re looking at 100 percent markup at most jewelers on the retail level,” said Kate Hemphill, 28, who works for A. Harris Jewelers in New York and was previously employed at the retail jewelry level.
A. Harris is one of many jewelers purchases divorced engagement rings and wedding bands, and believes he is giving consumers them a solid deal. I can buy it from you on the spot for 80 percent of the value. Or I can sell it for you at value, but you will most likely have to wait for the money because I have no way of predicting how long that might take to sell your diamond,” said Harris, 40, who represents the seventh generation of jewelers in his family-owned business. A. Harris would then take 10 percent of the sell price as commission.
But while most consumers are shocked when the price offered is a far cry from what was paid, or what they believe they should be getting, many in the jewelry business wonder why. I don’t know why people get angry at jewelers because their jewelry hasn’t held its value. They don’t get angry about their cashmere sweaters for not holding their value. Try selling a used sweater and see what you get. They are always picking on jewelry because they think that it has resale value,” said Lieberman. Jewelry does have value, but often it is over time.”
Lieberman believes that the best bet is to auction your diamond, a service her company, Skinner, has developed a strong reputation for. I believe it is the fairest way to do it. We have live auctions and also online auctions, so you have huge market,” she said. You are appealing to a huge audience ” wholesalers and retailers. We are scrutinized more than any jeweler.”
I had a divorced ring and the owner paid $102,000 at Tiffany’s. Tiffany’s will not buy back its own jewelry. They got an offer of $45,000 from a retail jeweler, and decided to put it up for auction at a range between $50,000-$60,000. It sold for $72,000,” she said.
And for that service, Skinner charges about eight percent of the sale price. But if you want to sell the ring immediately, plenty of jewelers will buy on the spot.
I will sit down with someone and if I can’t offer them a good price or I don’t want the ring, I will suggest someone who might pay them a fair price. If it is something that I am interested in, I will go on the Internet to check the current wholesale cost of the diamond, and I will offer you 15 to 20 percent less. That is my motivation for buying it from you today on the spot. Because I am getting it a little bit cheaper than if I bought it wholesale,” which is basically how it works, said Freedman, adding that having a GIA certificate, something jewelers call a certed stone, is the best way to ensure knowing its value. Freedman also will offer to sell the ring for what is considered the industry standard commission of 10 percent.
Perhaps the best advice comes from the forewarned-is-forearmed school of thought. Before buying a diamond, it helps to make an arrangement with the jeweler just in case things don’t work out. The best bet is to talk frankly with your jeweler when you purchase the ring and ask, “Will you buy this back? Can I at least trade it up?” said Hemphill of A. Harris Jewelers. It sounds strange that you would ask that before getting married, but then you have an understanding with the original jeweler right from the beginning.”
We already know nothing lasts forever. Well, nothing except a diamond,” added Lieberman.
Click here to read a blog about what to do with wedding rings after a divorce. Click here to read about the legal opinions on who should get the wedding ring after a breakup. Lenore Skomal is a career journalist with 25 years of professional writing experience. The author of nine books and columnist of an award-winning weekly column in the Erie,Pa.,Times-News, she also teaches college journalism in Pennsylvania.
