77 Diamonds

77 Diamonds runs its Zurich operation the way most serious diamond dealers on this street do: no shopfront to wander into, just a satellite office at Bahnhofstrasse 10 that you book ahead of time. The building is called Haus Gryffenberg, and it is worth knowing that more than one appointment-only jeweller keeps an office at that same street number, so when you book, confirm you are buzzing in for 77 Diamonds specifically rather than a neighbour with an identical address. The company itself is bigger than this one office suggests. It was founded in London in 2005 by Tobias Kormind, started as an online-first diamond retailer, and has since opened showrooms across Europe, with Zurich as one of three Swiss locations alongside Basel and Geneva. For a newcomer to the city, that history matters less than the practical result: a fully English website, checkout, and customer service line built for a company that never assumed its customers would be local.

What you get

The core of the business is loose, certified diamonds rather than finished jewellery off a shelf. You can browse round, oval, emerald, pear, radiant, cushion, princess, marquise, heart and asscher cuts online before you ever set foot in the showroom, then bring your shortlist to the appointment and see the actual stones side by side. 77 Diamonds says every one of the roughly 1.8 million diamonds in its catalogue carries independent grading rather than an in-house certificate, and it explicitly refuses to self-certify, which is the right instinct for a dealer whose whole pitch rests on paperwork. The site does not name a single grading lab on the page that makes this promise, so if a specific lab (GIA or otherwise) matters to you, ask for it in writing before you commit rather than assuming.

Beyond loose stones, the Zurich showroom covers engagement rings built around a diamond, gemstone or coloured diamond of your choosing, wedding and eternity bands, and a bespoke design service that starts from a sketch. There is also a faster "ready to wear" line for anyone who cannot wait for a custom build, though the site never states an actual production time for either route, so treat any date you are given verbally as an estimate until it is confirmed in writing.

What stands out for an international buyer

This is where 77 Diamonds separates itself from a lot of Bahnhofstrasse competition: the terms that matter to someone who might leave Switzerland in a few years, or who bought their ring while living abroad, are published rather than left to a phone call. Orders ship via FedEx from Frankfurt, fully insured and at no charge, in packaging discreet enough that nobody can tell what is inside from the outside, which matters if you are collecting a proposal ring at a shared address. You are charged VAT at your local Swiss rate at checkout, and because the company is EU-registered, it states you will not be charged separate import duties on top once the order ships. That is a genuinely useful thing to have in writing before you buy, since duty confusion is one of the more common headaches for anyone ordering fine jewellery across a border.

Returns get the same clarity: 30 days for a full refund, with damaged or engraved pieces excluded, and a refund that typically lands within 10 working days but can take up to 30 depending on how you paid. Ring sizing is complimentary within 60 days of receiving the piece, though full-set eternity rings cannot be resized and would need to be exchanged instead. Every purchase also carries a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects, covering repairs where the fault is in how the piece was made rather than ordinary wear. None of this is unusual for a company operating at this scale, but having it written down, in English, on the site you are already reading, saves an expat buyer the awkwardness of asking a stranger in German about a refund window three weeks after a big purchase.

How the Zurich showroom is organised

The Zurich office keeps fairly conventional hours for an appointment business: Monday to Friday 10:00 to 18:30, Saturday 10:00 to 17:00, closed Sundays and bank holidays, with wheelchair access available. Every appointment includes a complimentary ring sizing on the spot, or you can request a free sizer be posted to you beforehand if you would rather arrive knowing your size. If you would prefer to skip a delivery window entirely, you can also choose to collect a finished order directly from the showroom instead of having it shipped.

How it compares to Basel and Geneva

Because 77 Diamonds treats each Swiss city as its own office rather than a single flagship with branches, the Basel and Geneva showrooms are not simply the same catalogue in a different postcode. Basel's is inside the Grosspeter Tower, a 22-story building completed in 2017 that mixes commercial and residential space, open Tuesday to Friday 09:30 to 18:30 and Saturday 10:00 to 17:00, closed Mondays. According to trade press coverage from October 2025, that Basel location was the company's 14th showroom worldwide and its third in Switzerland when it opened on September 30 that year, following a Paris opening earlier the same summer. Geneva runs from an office on Rue de la Corraterie, open Tuesday to Saturday 09:30 to 18:30. Each office is staffed and stocked independently, so if you are splitting time between Swiss cities and a particular cut, budget or appointment slot matters, book the Zurich showroom specifically rather than assuming any of the three will have exactly what you saw online.

Who it suits

This is a strong fit for a buyer who wants to compare several certified stones side by side rather than pick from a small in-store selection, and who would rather read the actual return and duty terms than take them on trust from a salesperson. It suits an expat particularly well precisely because nothing about the experience assumes German fluency or long-term residency: the site, the checkout and the published policies are all built for someone who might be shipping a ring home, or shipping themselves home with the ring, within a few years. It is a weaker fit for someone who wants to walk in off Bahnhofstrasse on a Saturday afternoon without planning ahead, since every visit here is by appointment only, and Basel is currently the only Swiss location with any hint of a more casual, drop-in future (Copenhagen, not Basel, is where the company has said it will try that model first).

The verdict

77 Diamonds earns its place in this category on transparency more than on flash. The published VAT, duty, returns and resizing terms are exactly the kind of detail that a Zurich boutique with a shop window rarely bothers to spell out, and that matters more to someone new to Switzerland than a beautiful vitrine does. The one real caveat is that bespoke lead times are not published anywhere on the site, so anyone committing to a custom design should get a firm date in writing at the appointment rather than assuming the ready-to-wear range's faster shipping applies. Book the Zurich office directly, confirm you are in the right suite at Bahnhofstrasse 10, and bring your shortlist of cuts already narrowed down from the website; the appointment itself will move faster for it.