Consumer complains about black tungsten ring.

While doing my daily blog crawl (it is a ritual), I came across a consumer that has an issue with this black tungsten wedding ring. They wrote this in the comment section of the blog post Black Tungsten Rings an Emerging Trend:

I bought the black tungsten LOTR ring from http://ring-ninja.com/lotr.html in June 1009, and the zirconium plating on the exterior is almost entirely gone. The company wants $25 to exchange the ring. How do I go about having the zirconium replated? Do you know about how much it costs?

Honestly, I have never heard of this problem before, so this is a new issue to me. However, all jewelry will show wear and tear over time. I have a pretty nice ESQ stainless steel watch that’s about four years old, and since I wear it every day it has scratches on it. I imagine almost any type of plating, whether it’s zirconium for tungsten or rhodium for white gold, will wear off sooner rather than later. $25 for a new ring sounds like a great deal, so if I was this consumer, then I’d take it. They only paid $59.99 for the original one anyway.

Or this person can just buy a precious metal ring and save himself the need to replace his wedding ring every so often. Platinum is the premium priced metal for wedding rings, but with that premium price comes a naturally white color and the ability to refinish the ring over and over without losing much mass; your platinum wedding ring can be sent in for yearly maintenance if need be. A palladium wedding ring is the better choice over a white gold ring if platinum is not an option due to its price (white gold is not naturally white and the yellow hue shows through eventually).

While I understand the appeal of tungsten wedding rings, in many cases you may also get what you pay for. Something that costs less may wear out quicker over time. And wedding rings, like all pieces of jewelry, need to be maintained. I have noticed that people tend to forget that! If you want a piece of jewelry that lasts for ever, then go with platinum. Yes, you’ll pay more for platinum now, but there’s a lifetime of benefits.

 

Comments

[CAROLFleming]

I took my first loan when I was 25 and that helped my relatives very much. Nevertheless, I need the term loan once more time.

[Tungsten Band]

I've got to say that plating a Tungsten Ring is a bit silly. If you're going for a very scratch resistant metal I'd think that you'd want to go with the natural color instead of the black... I mean, I get that people like the rings for the style/color aspect... but that's just my two cents anyway.

[Tungsten Ring]

The cost of maintaining a precious metal ring is more than the cost of an alternative metal ring like tungsten or titanium, so I guess for some people that want to spend $2000 on a nice size, 8MM+ wide band it's a good choice, and then another $50/year on maintenance (yeah, people don't work for free...) but why would you do that when you can get a Tungsten Ring or something similar? I've had mine for *6* years, looks brand new.

Just saying.