Sell a Diamond in NYC — Certified or Not

Most people who sell us a diamond have never done it before, and a lot of them arrive convinced they’re about to get taken advantage of. Fair enough — the diamond trade has earned that reputation. So we do it the opposite way: the stone stays on the counter where you can see it, we say out loud what we’re looking at through the loupe, and you hear the reasoning behind the number before the number ever comes up.

If you walk out without selling, that’s a completely normal outcome and it costs you nothing. Plenty of people come in just to find out what they actually have.

Engagement rings. Covered in depth on our engagement ring page. The single most common piece that comes through the door. No explanation required, and nobody here is going to ask for one.

Loose diamonds. Easier to grade accurately than set stones, since nothing is hidden underneath a setting.

Inherited and estate jewelry. Older cuts — European, Old Mine, transitional — are graded differently than modern brilliants, and we price them on their own terms.

Diamond tennis bracelets, studs, and pendants. Valued on total carat weight plus the quality of the individual stones, not just the piece overall.

Branded pieces. Tiffany, Cartier, Van Cleef and similar houses carry a premium above stone value when the piece is genuine. Original boxes and papers help but aren’t required.

Damaged or dated settings. A chipped setting or an out-of-style mount doesn’t hurt the diamond itself. The stone is usually where most of the value sits.

Diamonds don’t have a spot price the way gold and silver do. Two stones of the same carat weight can be worth wildly different amounts, so every piece has to be looked at on its own.

Carat weight matters, but not on a straight line — value climbs sharply at the round numbers buyers ask for, so a stone just under 1.00ct is worth noticeably less than one just over.

Cut is the one most people underestimate. A well-cut stone returns light far better than a poorly cut one of identical weight and color, and that difference is visible across the counter.

Color and clarity set the grade range. We’ll show you what we’re seeing under magnification rather than just naming a letter and expecting you to take our word for it.

Natural or lab-grown changes the answer completely. Lab-grown stones resell for a fraction of a comparable natural diamond, and we test rather than assume — sometimes that means telling someone their stone isn’t what they were originally told it was.

The setting gets valued separately, on its gold or platinum content, then added to the stone value.

Mail-in diamond buyers advertise heavily and the pitch sounds easy. The part that gets left out is that you ship your ring to someone you’ve never met, wait, and then receive an offer once they already have the stone in hand. If the number comes back lower than you expected, your leverage at that point is essentially zero.

Selling in person removes that entire problem. You keep your ring the whole time, you watch the evaluation happen, and you can end the conversation and walk out with it at any point. If we’re not the right buyer for your piece, we’ll tell you that too.

We’re a licensed NYC dealer — DCA #2070477 — and we’ve been on Avenue A doing this for years.

We’re at 39 Avenue A, between 2nd and 3rd Street in the East Village. The F train to 2nd Avenue and the 6 to Astor Place both put you a short walk away, and the L at 1st Avenue is close as well.

People come to us from the Lower East Side, Alphabet City, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Chinatown, and across Manhattan — along with Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. If you’re used to the Diamond District on 47th Street, the difference here is that you’re dealing with one shop and one offer instead of walking a block of competing booths.

Hours: Sunday 12:30–6 PM · Monday–Thursday 12:30–6:30 PM · Friday 12:30–4 PM · Saturday closed. Walk-ins welcome.

Not sure it’s worth the trip? Text a photo to 917-608-8939 and we’ll give you a rough read before you come in.