We recently purchased our wedding rings from Sinclair Jewellers and chose it partially because, as…read moreyou can see, they have been an established jewellers for an extremely long time. If you go inside, you can tell just how old this place is from all the original fixtures and fittings such as dark wooden panelling, painted gold lettering and a cast iron spiral staircase. Also, as we live close to Wimbledon it was more convenient to go there rather than trek back and forth to somewhere like Hatton Garden half a dozen times.
The man that owns the place is a very suave guy and knows his stuff. My ring was fairly straightforward; a couple of visits and a fitting later and it was all done. My fiancé's, however, needed a little more work as he needed a plus size ring to fit his finger and it was a custom design that he'd seen on the internet and wanted to replicate. The owner said that normally he'd have to order in a white gold ring wide enough for the job but we were in luck as it just so happened that another customer had ordered something similar and then changed their mind. He told us he'd give us a good price for it, (seeing as how we paid quite a lot for my ring as it was platinum) and claimed that he would not make very much profit from it. However, my fiancé snuck a peek at the original invoice for the ring when the guy wasn't looking and it seems that he would make quite a significant profit, even at the price he quoted us!
After we'd given Sinclair Jewellers a printout of the ring design that my fiance wanted, we were told to come back in 3 weeks for a fitting to check they'd got it to the right size before the enamel detail could be done. After 3 weeks, we went back to the jewellers only to find out that the owner had left the country suddenly, leaving his wife in charge who had absolutely no idea what was supposed to be done and the ring was left completely untouched. She was very apologetic and told us to come back next weekend when the ring would be completed.
The jeweller they have working for them, Luke, is a true master of his craft. The next time we came back, he had made the ring the correct size, shaped the edges accordingly and did the enamelled inlay around the band absolutely perfectly. The completed ring looked even better than in the picture we printed out. He also shaped the edges of my ring so that it lays perfectly flat against my engagement ring. I seriously can't describe how wonderful this man is at his job.
When the rings were completed, they got sent away to the hand engraver to get our names engraved into each of them. We returned a week later to pick them up and were very impressed! The writing on each one is absolutely exquisite and I have a very hard time believing that someone did that by hand! The rings are absolutely flawless.
Can't comment too much on price as these things rise and fall with the price of gold and platinum. What with the value of these two metals being at an all-time high right now, yes, our rings were pricey but I personally think that they're worth every penny and if you're going to be wearing them every day for the rest of your life then you really need to be prepared to spend a little cash on them!
So, where does Sinclair Jewellers loose stars? Obviously, leaving the work undone for 3 weeks and not informing the customer or the person you're leaving in charge in your absence is a big no-no and looses them one star. I keep thinking that if we had been getting married a lot sooner than we actually are and needed the rings for a strict deadline then that would have added a lot of unnecessary stress to the situation.
Sinclair looses another star because of the antiquated organisational system, which matches perfectly with the antiquated surroundings of the shop but does not help to provide a fast and efficient service. When you need work doing on a piece of jewellery at Sinclair's, the item goes into a little brown envelope with your name on it (and instructions for what needs to be done) and you get given a little pink laundry ticket type thingy. On any subsequent visits, you hand over your little pink ticket and then they have to rifle through boxes upon boxes of little brown envelopes trying to find your one. It's VERY slow - on every single one of our visits there, we've endured very long waits just for them to find our envelope.
So, in summary, Sinclair Jewellers whilst not the most organised of establishments do absolutely stunning work and have staff who are both knowledgeable and capable in all areas of jewellery making and repairs. I'm glad we got our rings from here and I'm very happy with the result.
