The Diamond District NYC: a seller’s guide to West 47th Street

Diamond Buyers NYC is an independent referral service, not a buyer, pawnshop or dealer, and it has no shop on the block. When you call or send the form, your details go to an independent buyer in New York, who makes any offer.

Where the Diamond District is

The district is West 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, the block the 47th Street Business Improvement District (BID) looks after. The BID describes the block as the place with the largest concentration of diamond and jewelry related companies and retailers. That density is the point: on one block you can show the same stone to several buyers in an afternoon.

Getting there by subway and bus

The BID gives these as the nearest lines. Plan your trip from your own stop with the MTA before you go.

Line	Stop
B, D, F or M	47-50 Streets Rockefeller Center
6	51st Street
1	50th Street
N, Q or R	49th Street
M1 to M5 buses	Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue
M50 bus	49th and 50th Streets
M7 bus	Broadway

How the district came to 47th Street

The BID’s history of the district starts much further downtown. New York’s jewelry trade began around 1790 on Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan. In the 1920s jewelers moved to Canal Street and the Bowery. In 1923 a real estate broker named Fenimore Goode began building for the diamond trade on West 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth, and the move uptown grew in the 1940s, when European Jewish refugees, among them diamond merchants and artisans, opened businesses on the block.

The history matters to a seller for one practical reason. The trade gathered on one block, so many businesses that deal in diamonds and jewelry sit a short walk from each other, and a second opinion is never far away.

Before you go: what to bring

A trip to 47th Street goes better with everything in one bag. Buyers can only offer on what they see and what they can check.

• Official photo ID. Every licensed buyer in New York City must see it, record its type and number, and have you sign in front of them. A photocopy is not enough.
• The grading report. If the stone has one from GIA, or from IGI or another laboratory, bring the original. GIA offers a Report Check on its website where the number can be looked up.
• Receipts and appraisals. Helpful background, though an appraisal is not an offer.
• Boxes and papers for a signed piece.
• All the pieces you might sell, so every buyer is offering on the same things.
• A notebook or your phone, to write down each offer, who made it and what it was based on.

How to sell on the block

A block full of buyers is only useful if you use it. The habit that protects a seller most is getting more than one written offer and comparing them on the same description of the stone. Here is a simple way to work the street.

1. Decide before you go whether you are selling or just finding out. Either is fine; say which.
2. At each buyer, describe the piece the same way: what it is, the report number if there is one, and the carat weight.
3. Ask what the offer assumes. For a ring, ask for the diamond and the metal separately.
4. Ask for the offer in writing, with the business’s name and its DCWP licence number on it.
5. Leave with the piece. Nothing obliges you to sell, and a second opinion is a few doors away.
6. Compare the written offers at home, or over a coffee, not at the counter.

Checking a buyer on 47th Street

New York City’s rules apply on 47th Street exactly as they do in every borough. A business that buys used jewelry or precious metal must hold a Secondhand Dealer General licence from the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP). The licence and DCWP’s complaint sign must be posted where customers can see them, and the licence number must appear on receipts and cards. You can ask to see the licence.

If gold, platinum or silver is part of the sale, the buyer must have a scale and tell you the troy weight. The scale must be a type approved by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, read to 0.01 troy ounce or finer, and be marked Class II or III. Watch the weighing, and write the weight down. The page on how to sell gold in NYC explains troy weight and karat.

Selling is not pawning

Some businesses lend money against jewelry. That is a pawn, a loan, and in New York City it needs a separate DCWP pawnbroker licence. If you want the money and do not want the piece back, you are selling. Be clear which one you are being offered.

What buyers on the block look at

Diamond professionals describe stones with the grading system GIA developed in the 1950s, which set out four factors: clarity, color, cut and carat weight. A buyer on 47th Street will think in those terms whether or not your stone has a report.

• Carat weight. A carat is 200 milligrams, one fifth of a gram. A point is one hundredth of a carat, so a 50-point stone is half a carat.
• Color. GIA grades color against masterstones on its D to Z scale.
• Clarity. Flawless, the top grade, means no inclusions or blemishes visible to a skilled grader under 10x magnification.
• Cut. How well the stone is proportioned and finished. Under the FTC’s guides, a diamond called ‘brilliant’ or ‘full cut’ without qualification is a round stone with at least 32 facets plus the table above the girdle and at least 24 below.
• Natural or laboratory-grown. A laboratory-grown diamond must be described clearly as laboratory-grown, laboratory-created or similar under the FTC’s jewelry guides.

If your stone is out of its setting, the page on how to sell loose diamonds covers reports and stones without one. For the whole sale from start to finish, read how to sell diamonds in NYC.

Selling a ring, a stone or a drawer of gold on the block

What you bring to 47th Street changes how the visit goes. A loose stone with a GIA report is the quickest: you can read the report number out, the buyer can look it up, and the conversation is about price. An engagement ring is two valuations, one for the center stone on the four Cs and one for the metal on its weight and purity, so ask each buyer to give you both. A drawer of mixed gold, some of it set with small diamonds, takes longest, because each piece is sorted by karat and weighed.

• A loose stone: bring the report and the stone in a closed box. Read more on how to sell loose diamonds.
• A ring: bring it whole. Do not take the stone out first.
• Gold and diamond jewelry: sort it by karat stamp at home and keep plated pieces apart. The page on how to sell gold in NYC explains the stamps.
• A signed piece: bring the box, the papers and the receipt. For a piece from a maker such as Tiffany & Co. or Cartier, they can matter to a buyer.

Whatever you bring, the rules do not change: your ID is checked and recorded, any metal is weighed on an approved scale with the troy weight told to you, and you decide. If an offer needs thinking about, take the piece home and think about it. The block will still be there.

Why an offer on the block is below the store price

Many sellers walk the block expecting an offer close to what they paid. It does not work that way anywhere. 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. An offer is therefore lower than what was paid in a store. Comparing several offers tells you what the stone is worth to the trade today, which is the number that counts when you sell. The guide to diamond resale value explains what moves that number.

Not coming into Manhattan?

You do not have to walk the block to start. Call the line from anywhere in the five boroughs, describe the diamond, and an independent buyer in New York comes back to you. There are pages for sellers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, and a short article on planning around Diamond District hours.

Questions people ask