How To Sell A Diamond Engagement Ring

For any one of a number of reasons you may wish to sell a diamond engagement ring. They can be both sad and happy reasons for selling our ring. Happy reasons include selling the ring because you are upgrading to a new one.

Sad reasons can include a broken engagement, or a few years down the track, a divorce.

As with selling anything, your circumstances will affect how you go about doing it.

If you are coming out of an extremely upsetting broken engagement, you may wish to get rid of the ring as quickly as possible. In this situation you would price the ring to sell quickly. However, the recommended option is to set a reasonable price for the ring and wait until it sells.

So how do you set the price of the ring? Well, you do what you do when you're selling any significant item – look up how much it costs to buy a similar item, both new and second-hand. This will help you set a reasonable price and give you an idea of how much cheaper second-hand rings are compared to brand-new items.

Another major decision is choosing where to sell your ring. There are a number of options.

Classified ads are one option – this could be both in your local paper or on an online website. This will involve having to deal with several people phoning or e-mailing you, and also turning up in person to inspect the ring. This can be a bit of a hassle both in terms of the time it will take and also the possible security issues – it's not recommended that you show people the ring by yourself. Make sure it's clear that there are several other friendly people in the vicinity – this will reduce the risk of being robbed.

An online auction website such as eBay is another option. If your type of ring is a popular one, it may be possible to generate a large amount of interest and hence bids in an online auction. The risk is that many of these online auction sites are removing your ability to set a reserve price, so if there isn't much interest, you may be forced to sell your diamond engagement ring for a lot less then it is worth.

A third option is to sell or trade your diamond engagement ring to a local pawn shop or second-hand goods store. In terms of what you will get for the ring, this is probably one of the worst options as they usually offer you a very poor price. The advantage is that this option can be quick and relatively painless.

If you are selling the ring using classifieds there is some extra work to do to get the best price. You will need to take some photos of the ring that give buyers a clear idea of what they would be purchasing.

Often there is paperwork associated with the ring such as receipts and certificates. Following the lead of James Allen, you may want to take a photo of the paperwork as well, but be sure to cover up any sensitive information such as your address.

When you get to the stage of dealing with the buyer who is ready to buy, you need to set down any return conditions and gather together all the paperwork and original boxing if you still have it.

Depending on where you live, you may need to provide some formal written paperwork for transferring the ring to the buyer – check what your local legal requirements are.