The Golden Ring of Dubai..
I am entering the Where’s Sharon #SouvenirStories contest and figured this was the best place to do so! Sharon asks us to share the story and photo of our our most interesting souvenir experience. Mine is the magical tale of my precious ring from Dubai.
My precious ring of 22K gold hails from the world famous Gold Souk in Dubai, UAE. While visiting Dubai I had two simple and solid desires:
#1 Ride a Camel
#2 Buy a very specific gold ring at the legendary Gold Souk.
From what I understood, the camel mission would be fairly easy… and was!
Watch the camel riding video Here: http://bit.ly/1GT4ICe
As for the ring, I knew I would visit the Gold Souk but I didn’t know how much time I would have there. Further complicating the mission was my extreme pickiness regarding what I was looking for, and my highly specific tastes in jewelry in general. I wasn’t making some crappy souvenir purchase, I was actually going to purchase a piece of fine jewelry for myself for the first time and it was going to be from DUBAI! I had an EXACT ring pictured in my head, fitted to an exact finger, and I had to somehow find this ring at somewhat of a decent price amongst hundreds of little gold shops. This was a solid challenge.
Of course, I researched as much as I could in advance and learned that gold jewelry pricing works like this. They take the daily rate of gold per gram depending on whether it’s 22K or 24K, add in the costs of other stones, craftsmanship, randomness etc, then come up with some non-exact price that you can probably haggle down a non-exact amount. It was all very confusing and even my research could not give me a general idea of what a cocktail ring might cost. I was looking for exact prices on example pieces, rather than math equations based on commodity values and weights, on top of the non- exact practice of craftsmanship. Not to mention currency exchange rates throughout various stages of calculations. So eventually I gave up and just headed over to the UAE to find out.
Upon laying foot in the Gold Souk I was overwhelmed, but I was focused. Some shops sold simple pieces and some were extravagant beyond your wildest dreams. Nothing had price tags. There were no general ideas given. You always had to ask.. But it just so happens that the very first shop I entered had several options of the exact type of ring I was looking for. I was definitely blown away by this, and I became confident that all of these other shops in the Gold Souk must have the same types of rings as well, which would give me lots of options and bartering power.
So I spent several hours ‘comparing’ other shops, and all prices aside I never did find anything even close to this style I wanted. I decided I had somehow magically landed in the right place, right off the bat, and so I returned to that very spot purchase my perfect gold ring.
It’s one thing to go to Dubai and buy a ring, but it’s quite another to fully envision what you want and watch as it appears right in front of you. Maybe Dubai is truly a magical place, or maybe my ‘luck’ simply attests to the powers of manifestation. Either way, I love to wear my Gold Ring of Dubai and remember it’s magical properties!
Just to show you how real my pre-envisioning of this was.. look at two rings I had pinned to my ‘want’ page on Pinterest years before I even knew I’d be going to Dubai.
So there you have it, my Where’s Sharon Souvenir Stories contest entry. Check www.WheresSharon.com to see if I won!
If you want to see the whole Gold Souk buying experience, check it out in my Shopping in Dubai video!
⭐️ Watch The Video ⭐️
I also hope this pricing is of help to somebody trying to get an idea of what jewelry from the Gold Souk in Dubai might cost. This ring was $240 US dollars. Many of the simple gold bangles and earrings were closer to $400 USD. Gold chains varied very much by weight but could be $200-$1,000 USD or more.
Happy gold shopping!
