SILUX LONDON

The engagement ring guide · free

What an engagement ring actually costs, and the nine questions to ask before you pay

You are about to spend more on a single object than on almost anything else you own, on something you cannot easily return, bought from someone you may have known for a matter of weeks. Nobody hands you a manual for that. This is the manual.

Written to be useful whoever you buy from, including a studio that is not ours.

  • 32 pages
  • 12 chapters
  • Written by the maker

The Maison List

Join and I will send you Before You Propose, a straight-talking guide to buying an engagement ring: what actually drives the price, how to judge a design before it exists, and the nine questions worth asking before you pay. Then first viewings of new work, and occasional notes from the studio.

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Before You Propose, a 32-page guide from Silux London, shown as a printed book

What is inside

Twelve chapters, in the order the decisions actually arrive. Read it end to end or open it at the one question you are stuck on.

  1. 1.What Actually Drives the Pricep. 4
  2. 2.How to Judge a Design Before It Existsp. 7
  3. 3.Natural or Lab-Grownp. 9
  4. 4.Shape and Proportionp. 10
  5. 5.The Metal, and What It Is Actually Like to Live Withp. 12
  6. 6.What Holds the Stone, and What Each Choice Commits You Top. 14
  7. 7.Size, Finding It and Finding It Without Askingp. 17
  8. 8.What to Spend, and Where the Rule You Have Heard Came Fromp. 20
  9. 9.Together, or a Surprisep. 23
  10. 10.The Three Papers, and Why They Are Not the Same Thingp. 25
  11. 11.Your Rights, and the Two That Get Confusedp. 28
  12. 12.Wearing, Care, and the Questions to Ask Before You Payp. 30

Look inside

Three pages exactly as they arrive, from the file itself.

The contents page of the guide, listing twelve chapters with their page numbers
The contents, page 2
A page from chapter two showing two views of the same ring design side by side
Judging a design before it exists, page 8
The final chapter, listing the questions to ask a jeweller before paying
The questions to ask before you pay, page 31

What you will know by the end

Most of what unsettles people buying a ring is not dishonesty. It is silence. This guide says the quiet part out loud.

  • Why two rings that look identical in a photograph can be priced hundreds of pounds apart, and the single question that makes any quote readable.
  • How to judge a design before the ring exists: the two views to insist on, and the real reason people end up saying "it is not what I approved".
  • Natural or lab-grown, answered without either being sold to you, including the two things nobody can honestly tell you about that choice.
  • Why carat weight does not tell you how large a stone will look on a hand, and what to ask for instead.
  • The UK hallmarking thresholds, cited to the Act itself rather than to a jeweller telling you what is normal.
  • What actually holds the stone, and what that choice commits you to for the life of the ring: cleaning, repair, and whether it can ever be resized.
  • How to find a ring size when you cannot simply ask: which methods are reliable, which merely flatter, and what to do when the size is genuinely unknowable.
  • What to spend, and where the rule you have heard about spending actually came from. It is advertising copy, and it is younger than you think.
  • Whether to choose the ring together or keep it a surprise, treated as several separate decisions rather than one, because that is what resolves it.
  • Which piece of paper means what: a hallmark, a grading report and a valuation are three different documents from three different people.
  • Which rights you actually have, and the two that everybody confuses: changing your mind is narrow and often absent on a commissioned piece, whilst the right to a piece that is what was agreed is not weakened by it being made to order.
  • Which metal to choose and what it is actually like to live with, including the durability question that circulates as settled fact and is not.
  • The 9 questions to ask any jeweller, ours or anyone else’s, before you pay a penny.

Written by Hamed Arab, designer at Silux London, in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham. No cost, and no obligation to buy anything. Every factual claim in it is sourced, and where something genuinely cannot be known, it says so instead of guessing.

The hallmarking part has a longer piece of its own: how to read a UK gold hallmark, including the weights below which a piece needs no mark at all.

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The Maison List

Join and I will send you Before You Propose, a straight-talking guide to buying an engagement ring: what actually drives the price, how to judge a design before it exists, and the nine questions worth asking before you pay. Then first viewings of new work, and occasional notes from the studio.

By subscribing you consent to receive occasional letters from Silux London. Unsubscribe at any time. See our privacy policy.

When you would rather ask the questions than read them: book a free design session. No cost, no obligation, and no clock running.

Already having a piece made rather than choosing one? Before You Commission is the guide for that. Or look at the work first: the collections, how a commission works.