5 Stone Engagement Rings

Selecting the most appropriate engagement ring can be problematic when you see the options available - the different carats, cuts, clarities and colours of diamonds - but if you adopt a few simple rules the process is quite pain free.

The most important thing to determine when buying a diamond ring is how much to spend on it. The budget is a very personal thing and only you can decide how much you want to pay (or how much she is worth!). An old rule of thumb historically was that a fellow would budget for spending one month's salary on his wife to be's engagement ring. Some still stick to this rule but only you should decide how much to spend.

Once you know how much you are spending you need to think about the style of your ring. For example, diamond engagement rings typically use one, two or three diamonds where eternity rings can have five stones or a complete band of identical stones without a beginning or end - denoting eternity.

The advantage of diamond rings is that, mostly, you can make a style of ring fit your budget simply by adjusting the size and quality diamonds. Most people who buy diamonds or diamond jewellery know that the most expensive stones are the icy white stones that sparkle the most and have few, if any, inclusions (visible specs of carbon). On larger stones of a carat or more, inclusions are usually visible to the naked eye, but those in smaller stones typically require an eyeglass to see them.

The most popular diamonds being sold are round cut stones of between 10 and 25 points in weight (between 1/10 and a quarter of a carat) and most people don't realise that without comparing diamonds side by side, the novice observer would find it very difficult to tell a flawless diamond from one of lower quality. However in terms of cost, a ring made with lower quality stones will cost a fraction of a similar ring with flawless stones.

Diamond is the most durable natural substance in existence and as such diamonds retain their value as the stones will not damage, degrade or tarnish even over many years. You can use this feature of diamonds to your benefit. Jewellers know that a diamond that he (or another jeweller) sold many years earlier will have an equivalent worth
in today's market. As such he offer you a very good trade-in value for your diamond jewellery against a new ring. Some well-informed, and not particularly wealthy, diamond buyers upgrade their diamond jewellery every few years and keep the same setting and just exchange the existing stone or stones for larger ones and pay the difference. Doing this over many years can build you a very impressive jewellery collection featuring large, high-quality stones.

Of course the advice offered above changes. As you get larger diamonds the inclusions, colour and a poor (less sparkly) cut become more obvious. So as a rule: the bigger the stone, the better quality it has to have to keep its effect.

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Written by Internet Marketing for Engagement Rings.