“Baby on the way must go asap,” reads an ad on the Nashville, Tenn., Craigslist.com site, offering up a 2-carat diamond wedding ring set that the owner had been using as a cocktail ring.

“A divorce for me … means cheap jewelry for you,” another ad promises, offering up a wedding ring set for $700.

Short on cash or looking for a bit of extra security, people have flocked to Nashville Coin & Currency in Brentwood, Tenn., with old wedding bands in hand. Sometimes they’re unwanted reminders of a marriage gone bad; sometimes they’re unused family heirlooms. Sometimes, heartbreakingly, they’re cherished rings offered up by people desperate for money.

“I’ve seen some who had to sell (a wedding ring) to pay the light bill, but that’s not the predominant thing,” said Nashville Coin & Currency owner Mike Mouret, whose business is tucked discreetly into a bland building in an office park — anonymous camouflage for affluent customers looking to sell their jewelry.

One recent day, Mouret said, he had three divorced women in his waiting room, all looking to sell wedding rings, laughing and comparing settings.

Unlike consignment shops or pawnshops, Mouret has no interest in reselling the rings he buys. He’s purely interested in the precious metals — and, as would-be sellers learn, there’s not that much gold in a wedding band.

The real value of a wedding or engagement ring is in the diamond, and that’s where shops like Nashville Diamond Bankers come in. The bigger and brighter the diamond, the better. The shop’s display shelves glitter with Rolex watches, estate jewelry and a dazzling selection of someone else’s wedding and engagement rings.

“People hate to sell Grandma’s wedding ring, but they don’t mind selling their mother-in-law’s,” said owner Rick Moore, who is doing a lot of business these days with out-of-work contractors and affluent families who need extra cash for their kid who enrolled in that Ivy League school.

“If you’ve got a kid in college and tuition’s due, it’s much better to sell a piece of jewelry than try to sell off some stock,” Moore said. “You can always buy another piece.”

On the Craigslist wedding ring page, Kathryn Snell has no qualms about offering her $13,000, 2-carat platinum wedding ring set to anyone willing to meet her $6,000 asking price.

“I’m simply a woman who had a very short-lived marriage and prefers this gorgeous ring on someone who will enjoy it, rather than let it sit in a jewelry box unused,” she wrote in her detailed ad.

So far, the ad hasn’t brought any offers, but she’s in no hurry. She’s in a new relationship now, and the ring was just a last little reminder of an unhappy chapter in her life.

“Right now, as we all know, the economy isn’t doing very well,” she said. “It’s better to sell it than just leave it sitting in a drawer.”

We recommend:

CraigsList.org
Ebay.com / Ebay.ca
Kijiji.com / Kijiji.ca

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1. Engagement and Wedding Ring Trends: Don’t Break The Budget
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3. Expert Wedding Guide To Diamond Shopping