Isadoras Antique Jewelry — Local services in Seattle

My long time partner proposed to me in January 2018 with a beautiful vintage diamond ring. He knows I love antiques so he made the right choice when he decided to go with a ring from Isadora's. A few weeks after he proposed, I decided to pop into Isadora's just to look around and thank the ladies for helping him out. To my surprise, when I said that he had just proposed a few weeks prior, they remembered my fiance and knew who I was because they recalled his proposal plans he had shared with them. I thought that was very sweet and showed that they were attentive and really listened. After having the ring for about 4 months, one of the diamonds did fall out of its setting HOWEVER I luckily found the diamond and immediately brought the diamond and the ring into Isadora's. I love antiques and vintage items and I understand that a ring made around 1901 will potentially have this type of thing happen so I was not upset, I was very happy I was lucky enough to find the diamond for replacement. The ladies at Isadora's were swift in taking the ring & diamond and sending it off for resetting. My fiance returned a week later to pick it up and he was not happy with the fact that the new prong was noticeably larger than the others (this was a given as the others were older), so the ladies at Isadora's agreed to send it back out to the jeweler again for some size reduction of the new prong. We returned again in another week to see the results and it did look better and smaller but the ring was no longer uniform. The gal who wored with us (I believe Elizabeth) could tell I wasn't in love with the fact that it wasn't completely uniform and offered to have ALL of the prongs redone to secure the settings free of charge. This was a hard decision to make because I wanted to keep the ring as original as posssible but I also wanted to feel secure that it would hold strong for as long as possible so I agreed to have them all reset. I picked it up in another week and it looks AMAZING! I am so in love with this ring and I am incredibly satisfied with the service we received from Isadora's. They went above and beyond to make sure we were fully satisfied and never got frustrated with how picky we were at times. They could have easily said "well you purchased the ring a while ago and we re not obligated to repair it" but instead, they helped us with no hesitation and really wanted to make sure we were happy. I think it is crucial to understand that if you are going to purchase/own a piece of vintage jewelry, it may not be "perfect" and will require TLC. But that is what makes it so special and beautiful. If you're looking for a cookie cutter, generic, machine manufactured ring go to Zales. If you want unique, hand-made pieces with admirable features and a story behind them, go...

First, let me start by saying something nice about Isadora’s. They have amazing, beautiful jewelry. This is what led me to bring them by 3+ carat diamond 30’s vintage ring to them when I decided to sell it. I thought it would be a great fit. However, the business model at Isadora’s is not based on giving a fair deal to the seller. I was ready for a 50% commission based on phone conversations with Elizabeth. However, when I arrived with the ring I was greeted Laura, who was initially pleasant. Things changed when it came time to deal, though. The stratightforward 50% commission was not on the table, replaced by I don’t know what. As far as I could tell, I was offered the privilege of selling my ring there and they would decide what to pay with seller having no visibility to final sale price? I had an older appraisal so naturally a new one was recommended/mandated. However, an appraisal has at best a loose correlation to the selling price, so I asked them to take care of the appraisal if it was important to them or at least take the cost out of the final value rather than charging me up front. I can sell a car without paying a third party to tell me the value, so I’m not sure why it takes a separate, paid evaluation to determine the value. Interestingly, Laura was absolutely certain of the maximum value of the ring, (she has 27 years experience!) but could not be persuaded to share an estimate of the rings value. To paraphrase the conversation - “Your ring isn’t worth what you think it is, but I can’t tell you anything about it’s value”. I felt very much like she was withholding information. Ultimately, I was apparently too difficult to work with and Laura decided not to carry my ring. To be fair, there is no obligation on either of our parts. I just felt very strange about how I was treated. I think part of the problem may have been that I rode my bicycle there and wasn’t looking like their kind of people. Parking and driving in downtown seattle is tough, so I thought biking would be good. Appearances do matter in a jewelry shop ,though. Again, to be fair, I don’t think this is terribly different from other jewelry shops. All shops pay extremely low prices for their product, so even low expectations are a bit much if you are the seller. I don’t like being treated like a second class citizen, though. I think this is the famous “Seattle freeze” I’ve heard about. One star would be spiteful, and three would be too much, so I’ll go with two. TLDR: If you're a jewlery buyer, you'll love this place. If you're a jewelry seller, you're out of luck no matter where you go, maybe a little more so...

Beautiful pieces, but this place is shady. I went on their website and saw an offer to receive a 15% off code if I entered my email to sign up. So I did that and got a code. I took a picture of the code as displayed on the website to save it (this would be important later).

Three days later, after I’d made up my mind to purchase a pretty significant piece of jewelry, I tried to check out using the code and was told it was invalid. I reached out to their customer support (and included the exact code I was provided in my message) and was told that they never offered a 15% off code, and they instead offered me a 10% off code for their summer sale. As the item I was looking at is quite expensive, this would’ve made a material difference. So I wrote back saying I’d have to reconsider the purchase and that I was disappointed because when the 15% off code was provided to me, there was no disclaimer that it would expired or I’d have to use it within a certain period of time. I received a response from Isadoras where they said I was wrong because they’ve never offered a 15% off code, that they don’t know where I would’ve gotten that from and basically implying that I was lying about getting it from their website, and to please “let them know how I could’ve gotten it” because they’ve never offered it.

Luckily, I did take a photo of the code which clearly shows I’d gotten it from their website and I sent it to them. They finally admitted that it was their code, but said it was an honest mistake because it’s a “new customer” code and not their summer sale code. Mind you, I’d included the exact code in question when I first reached out to them, so what they’re saying is they didn’t recognize their code that they put on their website??? And this is a generic code (think something like shop name + amount discounted), not some complicated auto generated discount code. And what about their whole spiel about how they NEVER offered 15% off? Clearly that’s not true, since they eventually admitted that it’s a new customer code. Then they tried to blame the “misunderstanding” on their tech support team (????)

Needless to say, I won’t be purchasing my piece from Isadoras. Trust is so important especially when it comes to purchasing antique jewelry, where you have to be able to trust the dealer or shop that they’re not misrepresenting what they’re selling. My whole interaction with them has made me feel like they’re deceptive on some level. Had I not take a photo of the 15% off code from their website, they never would’ve admitted that they were...