Partita Custom Design Jewelry — Local services in San Francisco

The staff of this store comes off very friendly and helpful, but they do not have their client's best interest at heart. I find it especially terrible when people who are looking to make one of the biggest, most significant purchases of their life are price gouged and given the run-around. Their goldsmith-designer Calvin Lee wholly took advantage of my fiance and me. My fiance went to them based on their good reviews and showed Mr. Lee multiple photos of the ring style I wanted- he confirmed that they could do what he asked- which was an oval sapphire with a micro-pave band. The price they quoted him was ASTRONOMICAL for the band- $4500 (not including the stone!) and they only did the micro-pave on the top and side, saying that to do it on the bottom as well would be over another thousand dollars. That is absurd- an average micro-pave band costs about a 1/3 of that. He didn't know this and was already paying an extreme amount for the band. While there, he also dropped off what he thought was a broken Frederique Constant watch. The watch was in perfect order, except for what he thought was a broken "second" hand. They inspected it, told him they needed to send it off to get a replacement part and charged him $175 for it. When he first picked the ring up, he had to go back to have them remove clamp marks from the ring that he left while making it- messy and careless. After my proposal, the ring itself was too big. He called and asked about getting it re-sized and was told it would be free. We called and asked if we could bring it in, and they said to come in, and it could probably be done same day. When we got there, they said actually the jeweler who could do it was out of town. I don't know why they couldn't have told us that when we called. My fiance had to go back another day where he was told actually it would cost $100 to resize the ring. Fine- but not sure why we were told something different. The jeweler told my fiance there were two ways to resize the ring, but the easiest was to put another ring inside the ring- again my fiance being someone who is looking for expert advice from a professional jeweler, put his trust in this person. When we received the ring back, not only did it look bulky, totally ruining the delicate design I wanted, but the craftsmanship was poor. It was clearly a rush job, and the ring put inside had a dent in it and was crooked! I told my fiance I wanted it removed and resized properly, and he went back to the jeweler who told him that actually he couldn't do that without re-melting the ring and re-doing it for another $2,000!!!!!!!!!!! Which would have made the entire band cost $6500 (again, not including the stone) WITHOUT even diamonds all the way around!!! Oh and that watch? It turns out, after they had replaced the part in the watch, we find out that "seconds" hand that wasn't working, was actually a "week" hand and had been working the entire time- which the jeweler only explained AFTER we had paid for it to be "fixed" needlessly. Since then I have gotten opinions from other jewelers who cannot believe we were quoted and spent this much. This ring is the most important piece of jewelry my fiance has ever purchased and the most important thing I've ever received, and I am so disappointed that they have so little regard for people spending their hard earned money with them for such a special moment in their client's lives. Poor craftsmanship, poor advice, and terrible prices- a jeweler should EXPECT to have to resize a SURPRISE ring and have a better game plan. I now have to pay someone else to remove the ring inside and re-size this correctly, because I no longer trust them even to touch my ring, so there are now other costs added to this...

I don't normally leave reviews, particularly for services rendered, but my experience at Partita was extremely frustrating.

I dropped in to have a Junghans crystal replacement, in which they fulfilled in about an hour. They were welcoming and ensured a fair price.

When I came back, the service was completed - they put on the sapphire glass, but there was a notable speck of dust (which had to be removed, jeopardizing the watch to more dust when reopened) and they damaged the dial/gasket at the bottom.

Calvin came out and apologized honestly about his mistake, but as anyone can imagine bringing their timepieces to a trusted dealer, I expected a near perfect service.

He did knock off $50 off the service, but my watch is ruined unless I send it off to Junghans for a repair that was caused by him.

Please do yourself a favor and email Junghans directly - ship it to an actual service dealer or overseas. This was not acceptable...

I cannot say enough about Partita. I bought my wife's engagement ring from them, which was amazing and custom made. They also made our wedding rings. I also bought my wife a birthday gift necklace with our daughter's birth stone in the pendant. They created a beautiful pendant/disc for the stone to be held in. The jewelry decided the stone needed to be held in 24 karat gold, not 18 karat. But, they did not charge me extra because they are true craftsman. And, the stone, a garnet, is not that popular. Regardless, they ordered a variety of garnets for me to look at to chose the stone I liked best. They are not cheap like some dime a dozen strip mall jeweler but you see the difference. You get what...