Retail Values
Important information for our valued customers

The Retail Values listed on our site are the prices for the same or similar items that you could expect to pay at a local retail jeweler. The Retail Values listed on our website have been conservatively determined by comparison shopping at mall jewelers, free-standing jewelry stores, and specialty and boutique jewelers. Some of these jewelers were willing to discount their prices and some were not. Larger discounts were generally offered on mass-produced, less expensive items and little or no discount was offered on most of the higher quality, one-of-a-kind styles.

The most interesting observation from our comparison shopping is that we found that most jewelers do not have the style of jewelry, the sizes of center stones, the quality of stones, and the extensive selection that you will find at Our website.

Because many of our items are not found at retail, we used the pricing practices of the retailer jewelers to calculate an estimated Retail Value for these items. For example, in our extensive search, we found very few sapphire rings with center stones over 2 carats in size. But by comparing stone quality and size, and accounting for metal and diamond prices, we were able to accurately estimate the Retail Value of our sapphire rings with center stones over 2 carats.

If you are a savvy internet shopper, you probably have noticed a handful of sites which have seriously inflated Retail Values. We have been very careful not to do this!

We do not want you to be concerned that our prices are so much lower than retail. We sell the same or better quality jewelry than your local retailer, but are able to sell at reduced prices for a variety of reasons. We do not have the same overhead as brick and mortar jewelers, nor do we spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on advertising like many internet jewelers. Many successful sites spend in excess of 50% of their income on advertising. At M&H Gems, we spend under 2%! We rely on word of mouth and free rankings and are able to keep our prices very low! And enough cannot be said about our intelligent and experienced buyers who know how to find the most beautiful, high quality gemstones, the nicest diamonds and the most unique styles at the absolute best prices. In fact, when we attend trade shows, we regularly see wholesalers selling similar styles to other jewelers at higher prices than our prices.