I sold my diamond ring on worthy.com and here is how it went.
The Back Story
I have been divorced for almost 3 years now and often thought about what to do with the sparkly diamond that lived in my safe. Should I keep it? Try to sell it myself? Trade it in? Auction it?
There are mixed reviews online about what is the best way to sell diamond jewelry. Most people rave about Worthy, so they were always at the top of my list. But first, I had to do more research. I’m a single mom in the middle of a pricey house renovation, so I needed to get the most money I could out of this sale. I was on a mission!
Fortunately, and also unfortunately, I had two love bombing, fast moving ex boyfriends who both wanted to me to join their 3rd/8th wives club. Let’s not even get into the absurdity that was that portion of my growth journey. Insert ashamed eek face here. Love bombers looooove love and love to get you locked in with an engagement, so I went with both of them a couple of years apart (not all together in a bizarre multiple potential husband trio) to the local jeweler who sold me the diamond originally to see what my options were for a trade up/trade in/sale.
Let me do a little myth busting here. And this isn’t the fun kind with two silly scientists.
Similar to a new car that loses massive value as soon as you drive it off the lot, engagement rings plummet once you leave the store with them! There is generally a 100%-200% markup on diamonds and how the heck do you think you will resell it for more than that!? Plain and simple, diamonds do not hold their value like you may have been told when you purchased it.
Repeat after me: “depreciating asset”
your turn: “depreciating asset”
When you look at your appraisal paperwork ($39,000 for mine) just erase that number from your mind because ain’t nobody giving you anywhere close to that. Hard reality check. I figured if my diamond is appraised at $39k, it must be worth $39k and I can probably get around that for it. False.
However, in the event you are trading way up (typically twice the price of what your ring is valued at) jewelers will usually apply the full value of your ring to the purchase of a new diamond. I think that is where many of us get confused on thinking it’s a good investment. Me included. A few years before I got divorced, we traded in my original engagement ring (valued at about $10k) for a much larger diamond that was well over twice the price and the trade in value was the full $10k.
Back to the jeweler visits with my suitors…
Both times I was told I could sell it back to them for a fraction of what I was hoping or could enter into a 2:1 trade in plan. Or something like that, I was confused, but I didn’t ask a lot of questions because I didn’t want more fancy jewelry and I certainly didn’t want to spend any more money on that. He advised that if I wanted to get the most money out of it to try and sell it myself with no middle man.
I’m pretty well connected and so I attempted to diamond slang on the streets of Fort Worth. I had three very interested wifeys wanting upgrades but no takers.
This diamond was too pretty to spend its life in a dark safe in the same closet at my cat’s litter box. I was ready to cut ties with this symbol of an expired time in my life and decided the auction route was the best way to go. Worthy has a huge online presence and so many great reviews, so I dove right in!
The Worthy Auction Process
I contacted Worthy through their website and submitted the information and photos of my ring.
Since I had an especially high value item, I was entitled to Worthy VIP which is a higher level service experience. I scheduled a call to talk details and she was able to walk me through the process and answer any questions I had.
They send a shipping label to print, you put the jewelry in a small container and then put that container in a bigger box. Then you put that bigger box in a bigger box. Then you put all of that in a suitcase. Just kidding, you just put the small container in a box, tape on the label and send it off! If that sounds stressful to you, have no fear, they insure every ring fully through Lloyd’s of London.
The ring goes to the Worthy facilities to be authenticated and prepared for auction. They may need to send your diamond to GIA for certification. GIA diamonds do better in auction and they have to be unmounted for this process. They asked permission to unmount my diamond and if a deal wasn’t reached, they would remount it free of charge and ship it back to me exactly as it was.
The diamond was then cleaned, photographed and a 360 degree video was made.
Once the grading came back, I was called to talk numbers. We decided on a reserve price of $17,205. I had to take a little time to process this since I was not prepared for it to be that much lower than the appraisal. Remember, the appraisal number and the number you can actually sell for are very very different. I called her back after my deliberation, approved the reserve price and it moved very quickly after that. The reserve price means the highest bid has to meet or exceed that figure for the deal to go through.
You can follow along with your auction in real time, but I chose to just chill and not obsessively watch the bids come in.
When the auction was done I was so happy to hear that I got over $20,000 for the diamond!
A few days later it was deposited into my bank account and a chapter of my life felt fully closed.
I loved the no pressure vibe, if you don’t like the estimated amount they think it can sell for, then you just say never mind and they ship the ring back to you. If you don’t get the reserve price you set, you can send it to auction again or get the ring back. There is truly nothing to lose.
