Where to get an old ring?

March 3, 2007 3:57 PM

Where can I find estate/antique jewelry in the Triangle area?

My friend is coming into town (Chapel Hill) to seek my help in picking out an engagement ring for his girlfriend. I have been put in charge of finding places to take him. He wants to look at vintage/estate/antique rings and my google-fu isn't too stong on this one, nor is my yellow-pages-fu, or my craigslist-fu. I would prefer actual stores and not online stores or online listings.
Also, seeing as how I hate driving, I would like for these places to at least try and be limited to Chapel Hill/Carrboro, Pittsboro (which we are definitely going to hit up--I'm thinking with all the antique stores down there this would be a good idea, right?), Hillsborough, and the lower end of Durham (I get lost in north Durham).
Also I hate driving to Raleigh. But if there is somewhere in Raleigh that we absolutley have to go to because there is a huge selection with reasonable pricing, then by all means, let me know.
Also keep in mind that this is going to be about a $4,000 kind of buy not a $100,000 kind of buy, so don't send me to an auction house or something.
Thanks in advance for the help-

posted by greta simone to Shopping (3 answers total)

While I don't have a specific recommendation for you in your area, I want to recommend that you don't discount a small or estate auction house. I've often seen high quality estate jewelry go for amazingly low prices at smaller auction houses. If you can find one or two, it might be worth your while to add them to your list of places to check out.
posted by ScottUltra at 4:26 PM on March 3, 2007

Not in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, but I had luck a couple of years ago at Elaine Miller in Raleigh's North Hills area.
posted by weezetr at 5:34 AM on March 4, 2007

Grimball Jewelers, next to the Chapel Hill Whole Foods store, deals in estate jewelry. You might want to call first to make sure they have some engagement rings in stock, but I've liked their stuff when I've seen it.

Also, there's a jewelry store in University Mall that a) does custom work (I think a lot of stores will), and b) is a co-op owned by (I think six) jewelry artists. This is real jewelry, not "craft" jewelry, and it's fairly different from what you see in other stores. Might be worth a look. I think it's called Gold Works or something similar.
posted by amtho at 8:11 AM on March 4, 2007