How can I sell my diamond ring fast?

While the circumstances that may lead to selling an engagement ring or piece of diamond jewelry may be unfortunate, we, at Diamocycle, remain committed to making the process of how to sell a diamond ring as positive as an experience as possible. Beyond that, we’re deeply invested in helping you understand the best way of how to sell an engagement ring for the most money. 

Here are our 5 Secrets to Sell Your Diamond Ring for the Most Money: 

1. Know How Much Your Diamond Ring is Worth

2. Understand the Pre-Owned Diamond Market

3. Understand Diamond Apprisals 

4. Research the Business Model of Your Diamond Buyer 

5. Pick the Process to Sell Your Pre-Owned Diamond Ring that Works for You

Let’s unpack Secret 1, and find the answer to: 

HOW MUCH IS MY ENGAGEMENT RING WORTH? 

At a fundamental level, the most important thing to remember is the key to selling a diamond ring is focusing on minimizing your loss. As we have often noted, it is very rare to recoup the full amount you spent on a diamond when you sell an engagement ring. That said, there are obviously a variety of places where you could resell a 5 carat diamond engagement ring, all of which will result in a different amount recouped. 

That said, the amount you will be able to sell your engagement ring or diamond jewelry is obviously entirely dependent on the jewelry piece itself. In general, the resale value for diamond jewellery or for selling an engagement ring is somewhere between 20% and 60% of their original sale value. 

For example, if you bought a $10,000 dollar ring, you would be lucky to sell it for $4000, and on average, should still be pleased to sell it for around $3000.

For our luxury clients, if you bought a $25,000 ring - an impressive resale value might be $18,000, while an average resale value for your used engagement ring might be $10,000. 

As no two diamonds, vendors, or potential buyers are the same, there’s no exact formula of how to sell a diamond ring for the most money. That said, as always, we remain committed to helping you get the best price possible (and minimize your loss) for when you are looking to sell a diamond or sell an engagement ring.  

Below we break down the anatomy of your engagement ring or diamond jewelry to help you understand how to sell your diamond ring and see how much your item might be worth, learn our baselines to understand how much your engagement ring is worth:  

How to Know How Much Your Diamond Ring is Worth: A Checklist 

• Know the Quality of the Stone

• Understand the Economic Equation of Where You Bought the Ring  

• Discover How the Anatomy of Your Ring Contributes to Its Resale Price

• When Selling a Diamond Ring, Know Its Quality

To start, the best way to get a great value for your diamond ring is to have a quality item. The more the item is worth, on a base level of materials and diamond quality, the higher is your diamond resale value.  This estimation of the quality of your diamond ring is based on the 4Cs. What is the cut of your diamond? What is the diamond’s clarity and color? What is its carat value of your pre-owned diamond or engagement ring? While two items make look similar, the rating of these 4Cs can make a huge difference in original value and how much you can get for your diamond ring. 

• Where Did You Buy Your Engagement Ring? 

It’s always important to remember that brick and mortar jewelers have large overheads and markups and have likely charged you a significant mark up selling you a diamond against the true price of your diamond jewelry. At a brick and mortar, what you paid is significantly more than the value of the item, as the retailer had to cover their labor and overhead costs.

As you likely know, a retail jeweler hasn’t mined, cut and polished their diamond. Instead, they’ve bought that diamond from a wholesaler, who had bought the diamond from a diamond manufacturer. Each link in the supply chain to bring a diamond to you results in added mark-up that you cannot make back when you have a diamond ring to sell. Beyond that, keep in mind, the retailer will then add an additional markup to cover the overhead of running their brick and mortar store. 

While online vendors will often charge a markup of around 18%, brick and mortar stores have been known to charge up to a 100% marketup, meaning that you’re paying the jeweler twice of what they paid the wholesaler for the stone. As you keep this in mind, it becomes clear how selling an engagement ring to a jeweler may not be the right place of where to sell a diamond ring.  

While the diamond supply chain seems unfair, every step in the diamond sale process must make a minimum of 20% profit to stay in business and support the journey of a diamond from mine to consumer. 

The diamond extraction and sale process has the following process: 

Diamond Mine -> Diamond Polisher/Cutter -> Diamond Trader -> Diamond Wholesaler -> Jewelry / Internet Seller

While a stone may originally cost $8,000, after the various steps of mark-up the price may reach a retail price of  $25,000. Given this, it becomes clear how what you paid for an item is not always representative of what you’ll be able to sell it back for. 

Base Cost of Diamond: $10,000

Service Costs: $16,00-17,000

Retail Range: $26,000+

While the mark-up of a stone is disheartening, unfortunately moving through various steps of mark-up is the only way for the public consumer to buy stones from a multi-level and complex industry. 

Regardless of where you sell your diamond ring, given the above and the nuances of the diamond development process, please remember that selling a diamond ring is a process of minimizing risk rather than making a profit. 

• Here’s Our Anatomy of a Ring Checklist to Understand How Much Your Pre-Owned Engagement Ring is Worth: 

1. The Diamond

2. The Setting 

3. The Brand

1. How Can I Get the Most Money for My Diamond? 

The brutal fact of selling your engagement ring or diamond jewelry is that the price you are commanding to sell your diamond jewelry for cash truly only has to do with the center stone. 

As we’ve previously discussed, the resale value of a diamond is often based on the 4Cs (color, cut, clarity, and carat), each of which will impact the value of the diamond and the price at which you’ll be able to sell it.

That said, as the central diamond will be the main anchor for your resale price, we strongly recommend that you get an appraisal of your engagement ring or diamond jewelry to have an upper benchmark of how much to sell your diamond ring.What’s a Diamond Appraisal?  (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

When you bring a diamond in for a jewelry appraisal, you are asking a jeweler or gemologist the value of the diamond jewelry. Given that there are 27 different types of appraisals, based on purpose, the reported value might also change. That said, you can get an appraisal to help you determine your engagement ring’s resale value. 

To learn more about Diamond & Jewelry Appraisal, read our Diamocycle Guide: Diamond & Jewelry Appraisal 101.

2. What is My Diamond Ring Setting Worth? 

Unfortunately, the setting is not a huge factor in determining the resale value of a diamond ring. When you pay for an expensive setting, you’re paying for the labor and the mark up price, not the actual value of the setting. As a result, when you sell an engagement ring, the price you’re being offered is simply for the largest (and often center) diamond stone. Trying to sell an engagement ring setting will not land you a large amount for the setting alone. 

In addition, many purchasers of engagement rings and diamond jewelery are paying for the base prices of the center stone and the metal components, not the labor involved in making the ring. When you sell your diamond ring, you are truly just selling the center diamond. 

That center diamond is the main determinant of value. As mentioned above, if you have an elaborate setting you likely paid for the labor and the mark-up of that setting, but it will factor less to not at all into the resale price. As much as it hurts to hear it, settings are often melted down for their metal components, rendering all the money you spent on the labor of making the setting ineligible as part of the resale value of a diamond when you are trying to sell your engagement ring.  

3. What Brand is Best to Resell Your Engagement Ring? 

If you were to have a brand name designer, such as Tiffany & Co, it might be possible to sell your engagement ring to a jeweler for a higher price. That said, when you sell your engagement ring, you’re truly selling it for the resale value for the diamond - the value and cost of the setting rarely factor into the offer price. That said, some brands are able to fetch a premium price in the selling (as they will also fetch a premium once resold to the new lucky owner). Cheap designer engagement rings can have a comparable resale values because the setting of designer rings might be what is upping the price.

That said, we also warn you that several brands (including Tiffany & Co) charge a very high markup on their rings, and as discussed, often, that markup is not reflected in the offer price when you’re trying to sell your diamond ring for cash. Unless the brand makes a difference to your buyer, you may end up getting the same offer for a 1 Carat diamond ring from Tiffany & Co as you might on a 1 Carat diamond from Blue Nile. Again, it all depends on the buyer as much as it does on the stone. But assuming that all things are equal in the diamond, this is not an unlikely occurrence when you’re selling a diamond ring. 

HOW DO I GET THE MOST MONEY FOR MY ENGAGEMENT RING? 

Below are our  five secrets for the best way to sell a diamond ring and how to sell an engagement ring and get the most money. 

1. Know What Your Engagement Ring’s Worth

As mentioned, we strongly recommend getting an appraisal for your engagement ring or diamond jewelry. 

With that in mind, however; we encourage you to remember that just because a jewelry appraisal tells you your engagement ring has a certain resale value, there’s no guarantee that you’ll actually get that offer when you go to a store and sell your engagement ring! 

It’s also always invaluable to understand what kind of diamond your diamond is. Is it real, fake, synthetic or natural? To learn more about diamonds and how to tell what your diamond is, visit our Diamycle Guide: How to Tell if a Diamond is Real

Diamond appraisals, even when specifically done for a resale value, often overestimate the value of the stone and ultimately create high expectations for the seller of the diamond. Given that the appraiser is not purchasing your stone, they have little incentive to give you a realistic quote and would rather leave with a happy customer than a customer disputing the legitimacy of their appraisal. However, in the end, this overestimation only hurts you the seller as sellers often then think (and hope!) that they can sell their engagement ring for more than they actually can get.  

To help you better understand the resale value of your diamond, check out our Diamond 

Weight Calculator - which offers a gentle estimate of how many carats your diamond 

might be and, in effect, how much you should sell your engagement ring for. 

2. Understand the Pre-Owned Diamond Market

Contrary to popular belief, diamonds are actually not a strong investment over time. While we often believe that there is a strong resale value for diamonds and diamond jewelry, in fact, diamonds do not increase significantly in value over time.

Besides a small selection of specialized and rare color diamonds, the vast majority of commercial diamonds have actually decreased slightly over time.

That said, when you’re looking over a long time period, it might look like diamond prices have increased. While research might tell you that the market price of a diamond per carat from 1960 to 2016 has increased by ten times, a 10x increase on your money is actually an incredibly poor investment, when you take into consideration inflation and the value your money have been accruing via traditional investment means. 

For example, while a diamond purchased at $1,000 in 1960 would now be worth $10,000, $1,000 invested in the S&P 500 in 1960 would have grown to approximately $213,690, offering you a far better total return on your investment.

In addition, any seeming increase in diamond value must also take into consideration inflation. For reference, there’s been cumulative inflation of over 700% from 1960 to 2016 which actually means that any appreciation in value for your diamond is incredibly low. In addition, the pressure from synthetic diamonds in the marketplace has also contributed to a lowering in price of natural stones when you’re looking to sell an engagement ring. 

With this understanding of diamonds in the larger investment and resale market, we hope you’ll equip yourself for a realistic experience as you aim to resell your engagement ring or sell a diamond. 

3. Understand the Diamond and Engagement Ring Appraisal Market 

While we strongly recommend that you get an appraisal of your engagement ring or diamond jewelry prior to selling it, we also encourage you to remember that appraisals often overestimate the value of the diamond and should serve as an upper boundary of what you might be able to sell your engagement ring for. 

The first reason that your appraisal may be overvalued is that the appraiser is often trying to offer the consumer a value for the future, and takes into consideration the potential for an increase in price. The other reason that an appraisal is often inaccurate is that the appraiser often tries to soothe the ego of the purchaser and minimize any possibility for buyer’s remorse. Appraisers often overestimate the resale value of a diamond ring to make purchasers and diamond owners feel good about their engagement ring and feel like they got a good price. Lastly, by having a valuable appraisal done, it is less likely that the receiver of the appraisal will doubt the appraisals claim or ask for a refund. While this tactic is morally dubious as consumers then often end up paying more for insurance, we ask that you please take this into consideration as you move forward with your appraisal information and as you begin to try and sell your engagement ring. 

4. Research the Business Model of Your Pre-Owned Diamond Buyer or Seller

As always, it helps to understand the business model and mindset of the person across the table from you as you seek to sell your diamond ring. 

While we dive deep into the business model of pawn shops and quick value stores in our Diamocycle Guide Where to Sell Diamond Jewelry, we’d like to take a moment to explain how local retailer jewelers sell diamond wedding rings. As you likely know, local jeweler often buy diamonds at market rate from wholesalers. Given the longevity and trust built into that relationship, a retail jeweler’s only incentive to buying a diamond elsewhere (ie from a consumer) would be at a very cheap price. While local jeweler might seem like a great place to sell your engagement ring, we remind you that just because a retail jeweler pays a good price for a diamond from a wholesale jeweler, doesn’t mean they’ll pay you that price, even if it seems to be half price diamond rings. While retail jewelers do purchase diamonds at market rates, it’s incredibly rare for retail jewelers to offer that level to engagement ring sales out of their standard chain of sale. 

Think of Selling Your Engagement Ring  Like Selling a Used Car

As you move through the process of selling your engagement ring, we encourage you to think of the process much like selling a used car. You definitely won’t get the list price (or the appraisal value) but it can be helpful in giving you a sense of around how much you might be able to fetch when selling your diamond ring. 

In addition, it’s helpful to remember that if you see an 18k engagement ring priced at $5,000 with the same specs as yours listed, that’s the replacement value - ie how much you would have to spend to replace your item. That said, if you are trying to sell that diamond ring to the same exact vendor- you’ll likely be offered a fraction of that (say $3,750) for the resale value of the diamond, as the vendor will then turn around and sell your engagement ring at $5,000, and of course needs to make a profit on the item. The profit that vendor makes, of course, is the difference between the item’s resale value ($3,750) and its replacement value ($5,000). The higher the overhead or profit that the vendor is hoping to make, the less you’ll be offered when you sell your diamond ring for cash. 

With this in mind, we again encourage you to investigate how to sell your diamond ring online, as the factor of a physical store will be removed from the equation and your bottom line. 

5. Pick a Process to Sell Your Engagement Ring That Works For You 

The price you will sell your engagement ring will likely be less than what you paid for it, and likely less than your appraiser quoted you. Even so, Diamocycle still has strong opinions and recommendations of where to sell your engagement ring. There are many vendors and operations that would love to pay you a suboptimal amount for your engagement ring.

While you might not get as much as you like, you can certainly end up going somewhere that will pay you far far less and another place that might give you a fair bargain when you sell your diamond ring for cash.

We strongly discourage selling your engagement ring to a pawn shop. While it seems like an easy and fast solution, you are guaranteed to get an incredibly low offer to sell your diamond ring for cash. Instead, we recommend selling your engagement ring to a private individual within your network or using a wholesale online insured vendor such as Diamocycle. 

To learn more about the places to avoid and the places you can trust for selling 

your diamond ring, read our Diamyocycle Guide: Where to Sell Diamond Jewelry. 

That said, here are our quick tips on how to beat the process of selling your used diamond or engagement ring: 

1. Be Willing to Wait & Put in the Work to Get the Best Price for Your Diamond Ring

2. Cut Out the Middle Man and Get a Better Price for Your Diamond Ring

3. Sell Your Ring to a Ring Specialist Who Knows its True Value 

1. Be Willing to Wait & Put in Work to Get the Best Value on Your Used Diamond Ring 

While pawn shops and other stores provide quick easy cash, the best way to minimize 

your loss on selling a diamond is to do so via an online retailer (such as Diamocycle) or via a mutual friend.  

Doing the research to figure out where you can sell your engagement ring and get the most money or waiting to find the right mutual friend obviously takes time and effort, but as we discuss in our Diamocycle Guide, it’s usually worth the work when you have a diamond ring to sell. 

2. Cut Out Middle Men to Get the Best Price for Your Engagement Ring

The fewer people standing between you and the final destination of the ring, the better. As you evaluate processes and potential options of where to sell an engagement ring, we strongly recommend that you cut out as many middle men (or women!) as possible to end up receiving the highest offer for selling your engagement ring as possible. 

3. Sell Your Diamond (or That Engagement Ring!) to a Diamond Specialist

We want you to get the best price for your engagement ring. With that in mind, we strongly recommend that you begin (and hopefully) end your search of where to sell an engagement ring online with a diamond specialist. 

Given that they’re online - when you sell a diamond ring online you’ll eliminate the fees added on your diamond sale price that brick and mortars need to charge to cover their physical overhead. And beyond that, their expertises and niche in the market allows them to garner better prices for engagement rings, and, as a result, offer you a fair and reasonable resale value for a diamond. Lastly, their online model is often built on ease of use and efficacy, meaning that you rarely (usually never!) pay for shipping and handling, can count on your diamond being insured, and lastly, receive payment fairly immediately after sale. Given the combination of fast, secure, and high price, selling online to a diamond specialist, truly is the place to sell a diamond ring.  

To get a sense of what you might be able to sell your engagement ring for, visit our Diamocycle Diamond Resale Value Calculator. 

As always, we take pride in helping you navigate the tricky decisions and moments of life ahead. If you ever have any questions about how to sell your engagement ring online, never hesitate to contact us.

Your Neighborhood Jeweler, 

Diamocycle

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