Guides
Third-generation jewellers: the story behind Amada Diamonds
Quick answer
Three generations, one trade
Most jewellery businesses tell you they are family-run. Fewer will tell you what the family actually did.
Ours has been in diamonds for three generations. The vision for what became this business belonged to Prakashkaka, as we all still call him — the generation before the one running it now — who understood something about the London diamond trade that took another twenty years to become obvious: that the distance between the people who handle stones and the people who wear them is almost entirely artificial, and almost entirely expensive.
In 2005, Rutul Shah acted on it and founded BuyFineDiamonds.
Twenty years online
Selling diamonds on the internet in 2005 was not the obvious business it looks like now. The trade ran on relationships, back offices and appointments. Putting certified stones online, with the grades published and the prices visible, was closer to heresy than strategy.
It worked because the argument underneath it was sound. If the report is independent and the number is on the page, a buyer in Leeds can check a stone as well as a dealer in Hatton Garden can. Everything else the middle of the market was charging for was access, and access was exactly what the internet removed.
Twenty years later BuyFineDiamonds is one of the biggest names in the London diamond trade, and the family is still in the same quarter it started in.
More than fifty thousand pieces
Across two decades and both sides of the business, more than fifty thousand pieces have left our benches. Engagement rings, mostly — but also eternity bands bought ten years late, pendants bought by people for themselves with no occasion attached, and a great many things that were replaced after being lost on a beach.
That number is worth more than any adjective we could put next to it. Fifty thousand pieces is fifty thousand chances to get sizing, setting and delivery wrong, and a business that survives that has fixed most of the things that go wrong at least once.
Why Amada exists
BuyFineDiamonds was built for the trade. It works brilliantly if you already know what a VS1 is, what a good oval looks like at 2 carats, and what you should be paying for either.
Amada is the retail house of that same business, and it exists for everyone else.
The goal is not to be the cheap option. We would rather not be described that way at all. The goal is that nobody has to overpay for the piece that marks a moment in their life — that the ring for the proposal, the band for the wedding, the pendant for a birth or a birthday or nothing in particular, is all reachable without either compromising on what you actually wanted or paying four margins for the privilege.
Which is also why the range is deliberately wide rather than deliberately curated. Engagement rings, wedding bands, fine jewellery, gemstone pieces, and a ready-to-ship shelf for when the date has already been set. One house that can cover the whole of a life, rather than one that has decided which parts of it are worth stocking.
What that changes in practice
| Typical retail path | How we work | |
|---|---|---|
| Stone availability | Whatever the supplier catalogue holds | Over 2,000 stones in London, access to 20,000+ |
| Price | Multiple hands between grower and counter | Shorter path: stone, metal and work |
| Making | Varies by jeweller | Finished in Hatton Garden, London hallmarked |
| Answering questions | Depends on the supplier chain | We can speak to sourcing, metal and finish |
The detail behind the first row is in our stock page. The second row has its own page too — how our pricing works. And the making is covered in made in Hatton Garden.
Where to find us
Showroom: 34 Greville Street, EC1N 8TB. Workshop and offices: Unit 8, 88–90 Hatton Garden, EC1N 8PN. Same quarter, three generations in.
Come in, or do it on video if you are not in London. Either way you will be talking to someone who can answer where the stone came from. Book a time.