Engagement ring settings & styles explained

One stone, held by claws, a bezel or a rub-over collet. Because there is nothing else to look at, everything depends on the proportion of the head and the height the stone sits at. Antique solitaires often sit lower than modern ones, which makes them easier to live with under gloves and sleeves.

Suits: anyone who wants the stone itself to be the whole design, and anyone who expects to stack a wedding band flush against it.

A ring of small stones around the center. Jewelers have used the device since the Georgian period, long before the word 'halo' was applied to it, because it makes a modest center read larger and gives the ring a soft, lit outline in low light.

Suits: a smaller center stone you want to look generous, and anyone drawn to Edwardian and Art Deco outlines.

A larger center with a stone on each shoulder, sometimes matched, sometimes deliberately contrasting: two diamonds beside a sapphire, or two calibre-cut sapphires beside a diamond. Finding an antique trilogy with genuinely matched old cut side stones is harder than it looks, because the stones had to be cut for each other by hand.

Suits: people who want width across the finger without extra height, and anyone who likes the past-present-future reading of it.

Many small stones grouped into a single flowering head, so the ring reads as one large shape from a distance. Victorian and Edwardian clusters were the ordinary engagement ring of their day, which is why so many survive.

Suits: buyers who want presence and pattern rather than one big stone, and anyone shopping in a tighter budget band who still wants real period work.

Two stones set side by side, curving past each other along the shank. The French name is literal: you and me. Often the two stones are deliberately different, a diamond with a sapphire or an emerald, and occasionally two different cuts of the same stone.

Suits: anyone who wants a ring that is obviously about two people, and anyone tired of symmetrical designs.

A line of stones running across the front of the ring, or all the way around it. Five-stone rings sit flat and stack beautifully; full eternity bands cannot usually be resized, because cutting the band destroys the setting, so buying in the right size matters more here than anywhere else.

Suits: anyone who prefers a band to a raised head, and anyone who works with their hands.

The center stone turned on its side so its long axis runs across the finger. It is uncommon in period jewelry and it changes the whole feel of an elongated cut, making it look wider and more modern than the same stone set north-south.

Suits: oval, emerald and marquise cuts, and anyone who wants something quietly unusual.

Height is the practical variable. A tall claw-set solitaire catches on knitwear; a bezel, a cluster or a flat five-stone rarely does. Millegrain edges soften with wear and can be re-cut, engraving cannot always be restored, and pavé set with tiny grains needs a check every few years.

Whatever the style, ask about the shank. Wear concentrates at the bottom of the band, and a shank that has worn thin will need rebuilding sooner rather than later. We check that before listing and say what we found.