Diamond buyers in NYC, from 47th Street to all five boroughs

Most people sell a diamond once in their lives. It might be an engagement ring from a marriage that ended, a pair of studs from a grandmother, a loose stone left over from a reset, or a tennis bracelet nobody wears. The buyer on the other side of the counter does this every day. This site exists to close some of that gap: to explain what diamond buyers in NYC look at, how an offer is built, and which New York City rules protect you, and then to put you in touch with an independent buyer when you are ready.

Diamond Buyers NYC is an independent referral service, not a buyer, pawnshop or dealer. When you call or send the form, your details go to an independent buyer in New York, who makes any offer. We do not grade, test, value or buy anything ourselves, and nothing on this site is a price.

If you only read one other page, make it the step-by-step guide to how you sell diamonds in NYC: what to have ready, how many offers to get, and what a licensed buyer must do at the sale.

A grading report is a laboratory’s description of one stone. GIA, which developed the grading system the trade uses, describes a diamond by its four Cs: clarity, color, cut and carat weight. IGI is another laboratory that issues diamond reports. A report does not put a price on the stone, but it answers most of the questions a buyer would otherwise have to answer at the counter, and it lets the buyer check the stone against the paper.

• Carat weight. Measured exactly. A carat is 200 milligrams, and the trade also counts in points, one hundredth of a carat each.
• Color. GIA grades color against a set of masterstones on its D to Z scale.
• Clarity. How many internal and surface marks a grader sees. Flawless, the top grade, means none are visible to a skilled grader under 10x magnification.
• Cut. How well the stone is proportioned and finished, which is much of what makes it bright.
• Natural or laboratory-grown. Under the FTC’s jewelry guides, a lab-grown diamond must be described clearly as laboratory-grown, laboratory-created or similar. It is not a mined diamond, and a report says which one you have.

GIA offers a Report Check on its website where a report number can be looked up, and it is worth doing before you sell. The article on how to check your GIA report walks through it. A stone with no report can still be sold: older stones and the small diamonds in a piece of jewelry often have none. The page on how to sell loose diamonds covers both cases.

The most common surprise in selling a diamond is the distance between what it cost in a store and what a buyer offers. A retail price includes the store’s costs and margin. A buyer pays what the piece is worth to them to resell, reset or melt, so an offer is lower than what was paid in a store. That is true of every buyer, everywhere, and no honest one will tell you otherwise. The guide to diamond resale value goes through what pulls an offer up or down.

A ring or a piece of jewelry is two things at once: the stones and the metal they sit in. The diamonds are judged on the four Cs. The gold or platinum is weighed, and its value starts from its melt value: the weight in troy ounces, times its purity, times the day’s spot price. If you are selling settings, chains or broken pieces as well, the page on how to sell gold in NYC explains karat stamps and troy weight.

New York City regulates the businesses that buy used jewelry and precious metal, and the rules are some of the best protection a seller has. They come from the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), and every licensed buyer in the five boroughs works under them.

• A licence. A business that buys or sells used goods in the city must hold a DCWP Secondhand Dealer General licence. Buying exclusively online is exempt.
• It is on the wall. The licence and DCWP’s complaint sign must be posted where customers can see them, and receipts must show the licence number. You can ask to see it.
• A scale you can read. A buyer of gold, silver, jewelry or other precious metal must have a scale and tell you the troy weight of the metal. The scale must be a type approved by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, reading to 0.01 troy ounce or finer.
• Your ID and signature. You show official photo ID, the buyer records its type and number, and you sign in front of the dealer. A copy of an ID is not enough.
• A record of the sale. The buyer records the item, its marks, the metal and the stones, and your name and address, and keeps that record for three years.
• No minors, and a 15-day hold. Buyers cannot buy from minors, and used items, jewelry included, cannot be resold within 15 days of purchase.

Lending money against jewelry is a different business: it needs a separate DCWP pawnbroker licence. Selling is final; a pawn is a loan. This site is about selling.

New York’s diamond trade sits on West 47th Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue, the Avenue of the Americas. The 47th Street Business Improvement District describes it as the place with the largest concentration of diamond and jewelry related companies and retailers. The trade began around 1790 on Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan, moved to Canal Street and the Bowery in the 1920s, and came to 47th Street after real estate broker Fenimore Goode began building for the diamond trade there in 1923. It grew in the 1940s, when European Jewish refugees, among them diamond merchants and artisans, opened businesses on the block.

For a seller, a block of competing buyers is useful: it makes a second written offer easy to get. The guide to the Diamond District NYC sellers use covers the subway and bus lines, what to bring and how to compare offers there.