Buying a Class Ring!

So.  Elf is a high school sophomore and it's time to buy a class ring.  The folks at Josten's sent  home packet complete with ring sizers and glossy brochures and stuff like that.  The deal we've had with our children is that we will pay for the most basic model and if they want something different, they can pay whatever difference in cost there would be.

Wittenberg, class of 1992!

Ehm... prices even on the basic stuff have more than doubled since we bought rings for Patrick and G.  We're talking rings that are made out of stuff no more precious than an aluminum can and a bit of glass going for $250.  If you want the most basic model in 14K gold, we're talking over $1500 with tax.

Here's a link to a high school ring website so you can see what's out there.  For privacy purposes, I'm not linking my son's public high school.  This is the high school I attended about 100 years ago.  Anyway, go "build" a ring and have fun on the website.  Actually, I have two class rings from Josten's and they're still great years and years later.  I spent $550 on this one from Wittenberg University.  My mother about fainted when she saw what I paid for it.  Today, a ring with those customizations is closer to $2,000 - something I certainly can't afford today.  The kids should have hit me up when I was in college.

Elf took a look at Patrick's basic model high school ring and decided silver wasn't really worth the extra $130 it would take to upgrade.  Just to compare things, we decided to go look at Wal-Mart and Elf wound up getting a ring from them with an engraving for about half the cost.  I hope it winds up looking nice and that Elf is happy with it.