The relationship has gone south, but the bling remains, albeit tarnished by complex feelings unique but oh-so-common to most break ups. The question almost every one who gets divorced or breaks off an engagement now faces is,“What do I do with the ring?”   

“We sell a lot of divorced rings,” said Gloria Lieberman, vice president of the fine jewelry department for Boston-based Skinner auctioneers and appraisers. “In most cases, it’s the woman selling the ring, and she is going through a lot of anger and hurt, and the first thing to take the hit is the ring. I tell people to wait a little bit. Things done in anger aren’t the most prudent. The worst thing they can do is sell it to the first person they see. Let’s think about this. The ring represents a lot of things, but it could also represent some money.”   

“They usually are very sad and upset,” agreed Alex Harris, chairman of A. Harris Jewelers, an estate and antique jewelry dealer based in both London and New York, which also purchases what Lieberman calls divorced rings. “But while we do feel sorry for them, we are professionals and  we can’t give extra money just because we feel sorry for them.”    

While waiting and letting the dust clear is the best advice that experts in the jewelry business agree on, it’s often not a possibility when you need cash quick. “The worst thing the wife can do with her ring is give to her lawyer as a retainer,” said Eric Freedman, president of Huntington, N.Y.-based Freedman Jewelers and one of 400 certified gemologists in the country.

“The lawyer is going to give her pennies on the dollar. This practice is a lot more common than people think. If you’re the stay-at-home wife and your husband has been in control of the money. He closes bank account and clears out the credit card and asks for a divorce. Where are you going to get the money to retain a lawyer? You look at your finger, but that is the worst thing you can do.”    

Freedman agrees with other jewelers when he says the best first step is to shop your ring around to several jewelers to get an idea of what cash you can get for the ring.   

“Take it to six jewelers and get their offers. Now you have a starting point. You want to find jewelers who have in their stores what you are trying to sell, especially if it is unique and the stone is big. If you just have a one carat diamond, every jewelry store on the planet has that. Then go to another jeweler, and another. And when they ask, 'How much do you want?' start upping the price,” said Freedman, 61, whose family has been in the jewelry business since the mid-1800s.

“Don’t just go to the guy you’ve been doing business with for 20 years. Go out of town. Find some high end jewelers–someone who can afford to pay you right then and there. For instance, if you came to me with a five carat diamond, I could write you a check for it right on the spot.”   

Finding comparative values will not only give you information, it will also bolster your confidence about what your ring is worth in the current market right now. In addition to shopping it around, Lieberman also suggests you get as much paperwork as possible to help substantiate that value and give the jewelers some sense of history and its original purchase price.   

“Do you have a bill of sale? An old appraisal of the ring? A certificate, like a GIA certificate? Was the ring ever included on your insurance policy? Gather all the documentation to corroborate what you have and get a handle on it so you have more knowledge about its value,” said Lieberman, 62, whose auction house, Skinner, offers both online and live auctions for its fine jewelry. “If you need to get one more opinion, you can always go to someone who buys strictly diamonds and see what the cash offer is. The idea is to get the best idea on what the value of your ring is right now.”   

After you gather your paperwork and get a solid idea of what you can get for your ring on the street, Alex Harris suggests you also get an appraisal from an auction house. “Go to one of the auction houses, like Christy’s or Southeby’s. They will give you an accurate, independent appraisal. Once you’ve been to an auction house, you will have an idea of the fair market value and they will give you an evaluation on the piece. Once you have a guide, it can make you more comfortable and at ease because it is always very fair and not just based on what they want to pay.”   

But fair, unfortunately, doesn’t translate into getting back what you paid for the ring. Which doesn’t lessen the sting for jilted fiances and divorced spouses who find themselves not only dealing with the mish-mash of raw emotions following a break up, but the bare truth that they aren’t going to get a windfall. Just how much you will get depend on a variety of factors. But estimates range anywhere from 35 percent to 80 percent.