“My jeweler showed me a Moissanite engagement ring upon my request but discredited it quickly and steered me to a diamond. Why? What’s the matter with Moissanite?”
We hear this often and the simple answer is nothing is wrong with Moissanite. Your jeweler doesn’t make near as much money from selling you a Moissanite gem as he does from selling you a diamond. The markup on a diamond is approximately 100% or more,whereas Moissanite, because of its much lower price doesn’t bring in the same revenue for your salesperson. If pressed about the virtues of a Moissanite gem, its durability, its sparkle and now colorless status, your jeweler would have a very hard time to refute it.
To a degree I understand, its tough these days for most brick and mortar stores to compete with online vendors but its a bit odd (and frankly, dishonest) to vehemently discredit Moissanite to keep your sales of diamonds up. It’s better to be honest and recognize that there is an audience for both stones.
We had an interesting experience when we first were shopping for our engagement ring which is where this whole Moissanite journey began. We went into a local jewelry store on a bright sunny day with the hopes of being able to take the Moissanite ring out onto the street and out of the dazzling jewelry store lights. The sales lady was very lovely and obliging as she brought out a 1ct near colorless diamond solitaire and an equal size Moissanite solitaire ring. She presented the seemingly identical rings and asked us to identify which was the diamond. My then fiancé and I pointed to the stone that was the most beautiful. It turned out we both pointed to the moissanite ring! This was very interesting to us as my fiancé had been in the diamond business in the past. After reading several articles about Moissanite written on diamond jewelers sites and diamond jewelers blogs discrediting Moissanite we were expecting it too look so much less beautiful than a diamond but the opposite was true! Of course the diamond looked beautiful as well but in every way the Moissanite simply looked better to us: clearer, brighter, more sparkle. It just looked like a better,more expensive diamond.
I still needed to step outside though, to get out of the jewelry store lights that give even the saddest stones sparkle. I offered to leave my wallet with a whopping $60 in it, my car keys and my fiancé (priceless) as collateral. To my surprise she allowed me to take both rings out to the sunny sidewalk without hesitation. Equipped with both rings and reading glasses I headed out, unequivocally, the Moissanite engagement ring was still my favorite. What I found was the Moissanite sparkled like a diamond does when you are under the jewelry store’s sparkle lights, but the diamond never really looks like that in natural light. Just to make sure I liked it more I turned away from the window, out of her view and I pulled my jeweler’s loupe out of my pocket to inspect further and much, much closer. The Moissanite was clean and clear of any visible inclusions, things were not so bright for the diamond. I know some jewelers are going to say “Well, it probably wasn’t a very good quality diamond and especially if she was allowed to leave the store with it.” As I mentioned before, the diamond was near colorless, which gave it a high price tag – if I recall it was just north of $12,000. The truth of the matter is, diamonds just aren’t worth their price tag. The reason most believe a diamond is the necessary stone for an engagement ring is marketing and marketing is based on the seller making a profit and that is what this whole article is based on. If you want to read about who started the diamond engagement ring tradition click here. To hear the end of this story, read on…
I came back into the jewelry store to pass the rings and glasses to my fiancé so he could head out of the store and out in to the natural light on the sidewalk. To my surprise the sales lady allowed us both to head outside together with the rings. This was a tremendous opportunity to be able to discuss the pros and cons of each stone while presently holding them both. I was very interested to get my fiancés opinion as he is the expert on diamonds. After he looked with the jewelers loupe, he too was even more positive that he liked the Moissanite better. The diamond for sure was beautiful and sparkley but the Moissanite was just prettier to us in every way. I was convinced that this would be the stone for my engagement ring.
Because of my fiancés involvement in owning a diamond business prior we had gone into the jewelry store with a bit of an idea that we would possibly do a Moissanite website if the Moissanite was visually comparable to a diamond. It certainly was and beyond. We left that store that day knowing we would be embarking on a new journey.
To my dismay though, I did find out after we left that while the sales lady was lovely to my face and appreciative of my desire to save the ecology of the planet by NOT choosing a diamond or any other mined gem, she was a little more forthcoming to my fiancé about her actual opinion. She suggested to my fiancé that we could start out with a Moissanite engagement ring and save for a “real diamond engagement ring” and that “no one would know the difference” WHAT?!!! Two thoughts came to my mind right away: 1) If no one would know the difference if we swapped out the moissanite for a diamond later, then no one would think we didn’t have a diamond to begin with
AND 2) Hey!! How rude! We rolled up in a nice ride, we are in our 40’s, we weren’t dressed in rags. Maybe it was my comment about only having $60 bucks in my wallet…get with it lady, nobody carries cash these days! So it’s far more likely that the markup on a Moissanite was just not enough for her bottom line so she thought she would try to humiliate and belittle my fiancé about his possible lack of finances and/or devotion to me by being stingy. Quite bold and brash of her but sadly this making people feel less than adequate tactic works on far too many consumers.
For us we weren’t trying to pass a Moissanite engagement ring off as a diamond or necessarily save money but we are ecstatic that we were able to do both while helping with the ecology of our beautiful planet. Many people do want to pass their Moissanite ring off as a diamond and you will get no judgement from us, we are delighted that there is an alternative stone that has the ability to do this and we are happy to assist you in selecting that perfect engagement ring. And for those who consciously choose a Moissanite engagement ring for the purpose of preserving the ecology of our planet and want to promote the fact that they chose Moissanite, we are happy to stand with you. Either way, it’s a win win.
Oh, and BTW, I went up a carat size cuz well…why not?! I love my Moissanite engagement ring and I want it to be noticed and it absolutely is, everyday. It gives me an opportunity to sing the praises of Moissanite and educate one person at a time…who, I hope in turn will tell others. This my friends is the power of one! Here’s hoping you choose the right engagement ring for you and not the right ring for your sales person.
As always, we are here to help you with any Moissanite queries you may have.