Would You Want To Know Your Engagement Ring Was Bought At 70% Off?

Image courtesy of Kavita Kumar

This weekend, the Macy’s store in downtown Minneapolis closed for the last time. Yet one of the clearance items shared by a local reporter visiting the store caught our eye. A shelf of engagement rings marked 70% off made us wonder: Would most people want to know if their engagement ring had been one of the last jewelry counter dregs at a store-closing sale?

Minneapolis Star-Tribune retail reporter Kavita Kumar stopped by the Macy’s at the end of last week, and noted the display case of marked-down wedding jewelry.

Consumerist readers tend to be more bargain-savvy than most, but just about everyone has at least one or two things they will splurge on. So we wanted to know whether or not you’d want to learn that your engagement ring was purchased at a deep discount.

The store had been open in that spot since 1902, first as the flagship Dayton’s store, then a century later acquired by Marshall Field’s, and finally as a Macy’s store since 2006.

The former department store chain Dayton’s is sort of the grandparent of Target: the discount store brand grew out of the department store chain. For people who lived or who have lived in the area, the store itself holds memories of shopping trips and milestones for local people.

Perhaps that’s the best argument for being open about the ring’s origin with your partner and anyone who asks where it came from: It would be a piece of local history, and you’d be buying an overpriced shiny object that’s less overpriced.

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