As far as I'm concerned this is the only place to buy your engagement and/or wedding ring(s) in SF. At this terrific little shop on Union Street you get to avoid sifting through all of the ubiquitous, boring, ugly, gaudy, tacky and/or yellow gold junk that every other jewelry shop seems to think women want, like or desire?!?...and instead go straight to the good stuff.
They have a huge selection of mostly vintage & estate jewelry, with a smaller selection of new stuff. Almost everything is either set in platinum or white gold (a huge plus for folks who are not into yellow gold). The rings themselves are sort of divided by price (size & quality of the diamonds), but they seem to have something for every budget.
Their service is impeccable...not only to they make you feel important as a potential buyer, but they let you take all the time in the world, trying on everything in the shop if need be. To top it off, they gave us a very good trade-in value on a petite vintage ring that we used as credit towards the purchase of my dream engagement ring.
We wound up spending more than we'd originally intended, but my hubby-to-be said, ""If you can't splurge on love, then what can you splurge on?"" (Yes, there's a reason why I married this man!). They set us up with a 6 month layaway plan, so we left with the ring that very same day. When I got outside, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was...it almost appeared sky blue in the bright sunshine.
That was over 2 yrs ago...and I love the ring just as much to this day. I love the fact that it is a vintage piece from the 1950's (no ""new blood"" has been shed of it), that it is a one of a kind piece of art, that the artist who created it managed to make a round diamond look square in it's fishtail setting (they did not have square diamond cuts back then), and best of all that the ring has a history all of it's own which is being recreated in the here and now.
I'm looking forward to going back to Old & New Estates someday in the future... probably to buy a nicer wedding band (the one I got wound up being a $20 plain white gold band off ebay, b/c by that time we'd already run through the wedding budget).
I highly recommend this place...as do quite a few of our friends who've had a similar shopping experience here. Save yourself the stress and headache, and just go here...
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