GMA Asks: Buy Your Diamond at Tiffany or Costco?

Staff -- JCK Online, 1/1/2006 2:00:00 AM

With downscale Costco now selling high-end jewelry, GoodMorningAmerica Weekend Edition recently asked: Should viewers buy a diamond there? And how does it compare with shopping at the most famous upscale name for diamonds, Tiffany?

The show purchased one diamond ring at Tiffany & Co. for $16,600 and another at Costco for $6,600.

At Costco—where the show said “nobody thinks of diamonds”—the employee who managed the jewelry department also sold big-screen TVs and computers. There were only 25 rings to choose from. “The Costco experience was less romantic” than that of Tiffany’s, the show said. Still, it said, “diamonds were catching on” at the discount retailer.

GoodMorningAmerica brought diamonds to appraiser Martin Fuller, who said the show “got exactly what [the stores] said you were getting.”

The Tiffany was an F-color round of just over a carat in a Tiffany setting. The show paid $16,600. Fuller said the same grade diamond would cost an average of $10,500 at a no-name store, plus the cost of the setting. But he said the price was worth it for the “extra” associated with the Tiffany brand name.

“Anything that has developed a reputation that Tiffany has developed, they’ve earned it over the years for quality control,” Fuller said. “You can go there [and] you don’t have to think twice about your purchase. And you pay for that.”

At Costco, GoodMorningAmerica bought a similar stone, an H-color round, weighing just over a carat. It costs $6,600—$10,000 less than Tiffany’s. Fuller valued the stone at $8,000 without the setting.

“It’s a little bit of a surprise,” he said. “It’s a beautiful stone. You wouldn’t normally consider a fine diamond to be found in a general store like Costco, but I’m pleasantly surprised.”