Getting from point A (cash in hand and no diamond knowledge) to point B (ring in hand sized to fit your fiancé) is a more complicated process than it might at first appear. I will be honest and say that buying off of Ebay presents a more complicated and time consuming process than just visiting a few local jewelers and buying what you think looks nice, but given the massive savings involved (easily 50% savings) Ebay really is worth the extra effort. I’m not a jewler or reseller of jewelry, and thus I have no interest in plugging my particular niche in the market. I did buy my engagement ring off of ebay and from my (extensive) search and purchase, I learned a few tips and tricks that can help you along the way.

Here is what I think is the best procedure to get your ring off of Ebay.

Step 1: Learn the 4 C’s. I won’t go over them here, but take some time to look online at some guides to what the 4 C’s are. You’ll need to know them eventually in order to make an assessment of what type of ring you want to get, so you might as well learn them now. Know them by heart, and as you move on to step 2, cultivate the ability to determine by sight the 4 C’s of any diamond you look at.

Step 2: Visit some local jewelry shops. Your local jewelry shop provides the only way to see rings and diamonds in person and lets you correlate the textual description of a diamond, say a ¾ carat round cut SI2 G stone, to what that stone actually looks like in an engagement ring. Making this mental correlation is essential to your ability to choose a ring/stone, sight unseen, off of Ebay that will have the size, proportion, color and clarity that you want. In addition to listening to the jewelers’ engagement ring presentations, ask them how much they would charge for the following items: Setting a stone in a four or six prong setting in a semi-mount ring; setting a stone you provide in a simple Tiffany style ring bought from them, and for resizing a ring.

Step 3: Determine budget and style of ring/stone. Take what you’ve seen at local jewelers and what you know of your fiance’s tastes and decide what you’re going to get. You can also do a little ebay research (search completed auctions for loose diamonds or diamond rings in the $x - $y range) to assist in your budgeting calculations. There are three main options for how you can put together your ring. 1) You can get a ring with stone all from one ebay seller (sized by them or by a local jeweler). 2) You can get a semi-mount ring and a stone separately and have a local jeweler put them together. The jeweler fee may be in the $100-$250 range if a post and prongs are required to hold the diamond (price depends on size of stone and the material of your ring) but may be under $50 if your ring already has the post and prongs of the appropriate size to accept your stone. 3) You can get a stone on Ebay and set it in a local jewelers ring. This option may be feasible if you want a simple tiffany setting, as some jewelers will sell you their ring and set your stone in it for under $200.

Step 4: Find, bid, and win your ring and stone on Ebay. It might take a while for the ring and stone you want to come up for the right price, but have patience and don’t settle for anything you’re not going to want to look at for the next 50 years (or whatever your expectation is for the longevity of your marriage).

Step 5: Put the ring together and get it sized, as applicable. Use the local jewelry store information you garnered in step 2. This may take a week and a half depending on the store and what you’re getting done. Depending on how confident you are of your finace’s ring size, you might want to postpone the sizing until after popping the question.

Step 6: Think up some romantic way to pop the question and get her to say "yes". Enough said.

General tips to help you on your search:

Used rings on ebay from Estate sale resellers, pawn shops, jilted lovers and the like can present some good deals, though the styles of these rings tend to be disproportionately round cut, yellow gold and tiffany settings. If you’re looking for a loose stone, it might make sense to get one of these rings, take the stone out, and sell the ring for scrap. Rings with fuzzy pictures can be an especially good deal, as long as the seller is trustworthy.

Resizing should be less than $50 locally.

Know that you can get a used ring polished at a jeweler who can make it look just about as good as new for well under $50. In other words, don’t propose with a ring that looks like Dolores Divorcee ran it through a garbage disposal during a heated argument. Resizing will probably include this polishing.

In addition to being more expensive than white gold, platinum tends to lose some luster due to the dents and rubs of everyday use, so for my money, I’d go with white gold over platinum if you want that silvery look. To make the white gold/platinum comparison for yourself, compare well worn samples as opposed to the jewelry store samples.

Get center stone diamonds with clarity between SI3 and SI1. It’s a little risky to get an I1 stone – sometimes they look great, but sometimes you can see their inclusion from 3’ away, not to mention any reductions in brilliance due to the inclusion. But don’t get any clearer than SI1 because then you’re just throwing money away to get a stone that, in everyday wearing, is not any different than its SI1 cousins. The only exception would be for cuts like emerald, where you can see right through the stone, and even smaller dark specs might be unsightly.

Color is very important, especially if you get a white gold/platinum setting. I personally wouldn’t go any yellower than an I. It’s especially important if you’ve got side stones, as you’ll want to match the color of main and side stones within one or two letters.

Think about the wedding band. If you get a ring with an oddball edge profile that doesn’t come with a matched wedding band, you leave yourself with the option of either a misfitting simple wedding band or a VERY expensive local jeweler created custom band.

Marquise and oval stones have the highest face area/carat weight ratio (your stone looks "bigger") though this will be at the expense of some brilliance. Look to these cuts if you’re insecure about the size of your stone. Beware of these types of stones with a pronounced "bowtie" (black areas across the middle of the stone) as this is an indication of a bad cut job.

Appraisal values are universally (and somewhat uniformly) overstated. You ought to pay ¼ to ½ (sometimes less) of a reasonable appraisal value for whatever you buy off of ebay. You ought to get an appraisal, though, just for insurance reasons and to verify you didn’t get ripped off by your ebay seller.

That 2 month salary thing is bogus and a complete fabrication of the diamond/jewelers industry. If people followed that guideline, minimum wage McDonalds workers (320hrs/2 months x $6/hr = $1920/2 months) would be getting 1.5ct SI-1, G solitaires (easily within budget – just check ebay’s completed listings). Although, when you pay the jewelry store markups, that stone shrinks a lot.

A word about the moral depravity of the diamond industry:

If you, like most, are going the diamond engagement route, be sure you are OK with the moral quandaries associated with the stone. Conflict diamonds today come from mines controlled by rebel groups within countries. Their proceeds fund civil wars, guerilla groups, and crime. Diamond mining is principally responsible for the existence of apartheid in South Africa. Preventing the right to vote, the right to possess or own a diamond, and the right to travel freely were all measures enacted to make the labor supply at the Kimberly diamond mine more reliable and affordable. And the company that perpetrated this (DeBeers) now controls most of the world diamond market! There’s a decent ebay guide about diamond substitutes which look similar to the real thing if you want to consider alternatives.

So that said, enjoy shopping for your ring, and may your marriage be till death do you part. And if this guide was indeed helpful, give it a helpful vote in the rating system. It would be nice to see this guide eventually jump up in the rankings past all those simplistic and redundant guides expounding the 4 C’s.