Black Friday lab diamond deals: real price drop, or the same struck-through price?

Every Friendly Diamonds listing we read shows two numbers under each stone: a struck-through figure and the price you pay. On the cheapest 2.00 carat round, F VS2 Ideal, they were $1,079 and $755⁴. The product page added a countdown reading "0d 0h 0m 0s" and a "$324 Saved!" line, the difference between the two numbers⁸. The plainest setting showed the same pattern: $720 struck through, $430 to pay, countdown at zero⁹.

The jeweler's coupons page describes the reductions behind these labels as "Always on, automatically applied at checkout - no code required"¹. We cannot see whether the struck-through figure was ever charged, and we make no claim about it. A reduction the seller itself calls always-on is, for comparison purposes, the regular price. The FTC's Guides Against Deceptive Pricing say a former price supports a comparison only if it was "offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time"; otherwise "the 'reduced' price is, in reality, probably just the seller's regular price"¹⁸. That is guidance to advertisers, not a ruling on any jeweler, and a reason to compare the paid price with a dated read rather than with the strike-through.

The cheapest stone also changes with the hour. Earlier on October 7 our 1 carat page recorded $388 for a 1.07 ct D VS1; by the evening the cheapest of the first 60 listings was a different stone, a 1.10 ct F VVS1 at $376². The 1.5 carat band moved the same way, $527 to $515, because a different stone sat at the bottom of the list, not because a price was cut³. Compare a weight band and grade, not a single stone.

Black Friday falls on Friday, November 27, 2026. The shipping policy says made-to-order items are "dispatched within 2 to 3 weeks from the order date" and then travel as "2 business-day shipments"¹³. From November 27 with the full three weeks, the ring is dispatched December 18 and delivered Tuesday, December 22, which is why our holiday proposal timeline names Black Friday the last order date for a made-to-order ring. A loose stone, dispatched "within 2 to 10 days," leaves more room¹³.

If a Black Friday price is genuinely lower and the ring is needed by Christmas, order that day and skip the engraving. If the price has not moved against the table above, ordering earlier buys the slack the timeline lacks. Returns run 30 days from delivery with free US return shipping¹², so an order delivered December 22 can be returned until about January 21, 2027 by our arithmetic. That covers a no; it is not price protection if the stone is cheaper in January.