Baak Gallery

The BAAK Gallery sold us a poorly crafted engagement ring. My fiance bought the band from the gallery and the center diamond from AnaKaterina, the jewelry setter who works upstairs for the BAAK. She custom set the center diamond into the band. When my fiance picked up the ring, he had no idea that he was purchasing a poorly crafted ring from truly dishonorable people. A side diamond fell out only 3 weeks after we purchased the ring. BAAK blamed us and charged us for the repair, claiming I impacted it roughly. Unconvinced, we had another local jeweler examine the ring and he said the design was flawed and we would continue to have problems with it. He said that since only two prongs held in each of the side diamonds, if I even so much as bumped one prong, the diamond was at risk of falling out. That sucked, but it was our engagement ring and had a lot of sentimental value to us, so I continued to wear it. Sure enough, another diamond fell out a couple months later. We hadn?t even gotten married yet! We tried to return the ring but the BAAK Gallery won't give us our money back, claiming the problems with the ring are not their fault. In an outrageously unprofessional letter, the owner of the BAAK wrote us saying the ring is ?not to be worn while taking showers, washing dishes, doing house chores or performing similar manual work,? because it might ?get in contact with hard surfaces.? They never told us this when we bought it, otherwise why the hell would we buy an engagement ring to hold a $10K center diamond that I'd have to take off every time I ever did anything with my hands?! I?m a teacher. The last thing I want to do is worry about taking my extremely valuable ring on and off and storing it safely when I?m not wearing it. An engagement ring is supposed to be worn for life. There are hard surfaces everywhere you go. Am I supposed to live in a world of pillows? I could go on about how criminally the BAAK Gallery has treated us, but I?ll spare you. We are now filing a lawsuit against them. Stay away from the BAAK Gallery if you want jewelry that you can wear outside of your bedroom. Oh wait, there are hard surfaces in there too. Rotten people. more

An unpretentious little gallery in the heart of Harvard Sq. with unusual offerings and a staff that seems genuinely happy to help but also let you browse without pressure. Nice pieces at reasonable prices, esp. for the Square. Pros: Helpful and creative staff with eyes/insight of artists more

I had a couple of difficult demands when my fiance and I started shopping for engagement rings last year. One was that I wanted a non-conflict diamond and the other was that I wanted a cushion cut diamond in an antique-like setting. We went to *all* the area stores (Alpha Omega, Shreve Crump & Lowe, the diamond district downtown, etc.), but just couldn't find what we were looking for and the quality that we wanted. Finally, by chance, we happened to stumble into Baak Gallery where Katarina greeted us and told me that she had a large selection of Canadia cushion cut diamonds (as well as many other cuts) and could custom make a ring to our design. From there on out, we had the most marvelous time - we immediately found a beautiful cushion cut stone and then Katarina helped us with the drawing and designing of the ring which only took one other visit by me to finalize. We were anxious about what the end result would be, but the ring came out *exactly* how I envisioned it and the workmanship was amazing and detailed and exquisitely fine (it's platinum with lots of pave diamonds all around so the workmanship was key). I don't know the exact price, but my fiance tells me that of all the places we visited, Katarina gave him the best deal for the product that we ended up with. I highly highly recommend Baak Gallery for not only the large selection of Canadian non-conflict diamonds, but also the customer service (Katarina is the best), quality, and pricing. Pros: largest selection of Canadian non-conflict diamonds anywhere in Boston (and the U.S. actually), great workmanship, great pricing Cons: none! more

Beautiful pieces created by artists and designers make this boutique stand out among other run-of-the-mill jewelry stores. Also, the prices are very reasonable. more