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Overall Score:2 | | ||||
Price:1 | | Selection:2 | | Customer Service: 3 | |
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Disclaimer: Hannoush Jewelers has a confusing company structure. The different locations have different owners and may operate differently. They do have some sort of shared relationship, but we don’t know how that relationship affects the overall experience. We have only reviewed Hannoush Jewelers in Massachusets as noted below.
This has been quite a trip for Annie and myself. In many ways it’s been refreshing. While we feel that physical stores can never compete with reputable online retailers from a price perspective, we have been pleasantly surprised with the offerings.
From the time we reached Washington D.C. and headed up to Boston, we have been thoroughly impressed with the quality of the diamonds being offered at the shops we’ve been too. Virtually every diamond we’ve seen has had GIA diamond grading report and hasn’t had any major issues.
That feel good experience ended abruptly when we got to Hannoush Jewelers. Being honest, there was nothing good about the experience. We visited Hannoush Jewelers at the Westgate Mall in Brockton, Massachusetts. There isn’t much to say about the appearance of the store except that it was typical of any jeweler that would be in a Westgate Mall. Nothing noteworthy.
Nothing noteworthy, at least, until we started to look at the diamond rings. First off the diamonds had EGL certificates which, as you can read here, are a big no-no.
The Product
So what did we end up looking at? The diamonds we looked at were, in our opinion, unimpressive to say the least. The first diamond was a 1.42ct “E color, SI2 clarity” round diamond in a white gold setting for $15,950. I put the quality claims in quotes because I seriously doubt that diamond was even close to SI2 (or E color for that matter).
This is why we believe reputable jewelers only offer diamonds with GIA certification. This grading entity has an objective assessment process that’s designed to provide you, as a diamond buyer, with complete, accurate information about diamond cut, clarity, color and carat weight. You can learn more about the GIA’s process and the steps that are involved in ensuring diamond certificates are consistent here.
Why you should trust us
To help you with the diamond buying process we lean on our expertise and experience. The author of this article, our CEO, Mike Fried has over 20 years of experience in the diamond industry. Mike started from the bottom, sorting and evaluating hundreds of thousands of diamonds to learn every facet (pun intended) of diamond quality and value. Mike followed that up by spending years buying and selling diamonds on the wholesale market as well as selling tens of millions of dollars worth of diamonds to diamond retailers.
As we’ve mentioned before, we (and others in the diamond industry) find the information provided on EGL certificates misleading at best, with frequently inflated color and clarity grades. If I had to estimate, I would say the “E color, SI2 clarity” diamond we looked at was closer to a G color and I1 clarity (in GIA terms).
Moving on, the second diamond was a 2.09ct “IJ color, VS1 clarity” round diamond for $8,895. The diamond looked brown to us, but the salesperson couldn’t find the certification for the diamond.
We will leave it out of our comparison because we weren’t able to find out enough about it.
Deal Alert: Get 25% off engagement ring settings at Blue Nile! (valid until May 6th)
The Comparison
Obviously, there is no way for me to compare the 2.09ct as I have no idea what it was. So we’ll have to focus on the 1.42ct E SI2. The reality, as we see it, is that the diamond is very overpriced when compared with the competition. I won’t link to it here as we do not like driving any traffic to any company that uses certification like EGL, but I was able to find plenty of diamonds with those exact same specifications for $7,000-8,000.
In fact, you can get a far better diamond for half the price. Here is an actual D SI2 diamond certified by GIA with a reputable certificate from Blue Nile. This is a this similar setting and it’s still half the price.
And what if the diamond is really a G I1 in quality (far more likely than it being an E SI2)? In that case, the price is even more unreasonably high in our opinion. Let’s compare it to an I1 clarity diamond from James Allen.
This is a 1.50ct G color, I1 clarity round diamond from James Allen with a GIA certificate for $7,180. If you add in a solitaire setting to it, it will still be 53% cheaper than the ring from Hannoush.
Do I recommend any of these diamonds as alternatives? No, I do not. They are similar to the diamond that we saw at Hannoush Jewelers and we want to compare apples to apples.
If I were recommending a diamond, I would chose something like this stunning 1.41ct G color, VS2 clarity superbly cut diamond from James Allen for $10,520. If you pair it up with this ring, you will be getting a stunning engagement ring for 33% less than the ring from Hannoush Jewelers.
Bottom Line Recommendation
I would not recommend purchasing from Hannoush Jewelers. In our opinion, the quality was very low and the premiums were incredibly high. The only companies that I know who regularly charge such high premiums are places like Tiffany & Co. You are far better off getting a superior engagement ring for a fraction of the price from a reputable online retailer like Blue Nile or James Allen.
What we love about them:
- No questions asked returns within 30 days of shipment. James Allen will send you a paid shipping label to return the ring.
- Lifetime Warranty
- Free International Shipping
- Free prong tightening, repolishing, rhodium plating and cleaning every 6 months
- Provide insurance appraisals
- One free resizing within 60 days of purchase
- Free ring inscriptions
- Best-in-class high quality imagery of all diamonds in stock
- 24/7 Customer Service
- Best-in-class packaging
What we love about them:
- No questions asked returns within 30 days of shipment. Blue Nile will send you a paid shipping label to return the ring.
- Lifetime Warranty
- Free Shipping
- Free prong tightening, repolishing, rhodium plating and cleaning every 6 months
- Provide insurance appraisal
- One free resizing within the first year of purchase
- High quality images of about half of their diamonds
- 24/7 Customer Service
- 100% credit towards future upgrades (must be at least double in value)
- Best in class fulfillment
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