Not a ringing endorsement.

The other day we took a trip to the Big Mall because Tim's hard drive conked out. Luckily, he had everything except iTunes backed up, but it still meant 2+ hours of driving and a sorely tempting trip to the mall for a shallow-pocketed shopaholic (that would be me).

Of course, I'm remarkably good at finding things to do in a mall even when I don't have money to spend. Some people call this window shopping - I prefer "simulated buying" (like filling up online "shopping carts" and closing Safari before I get my wallet out).

That's not me, though I know the exposed midriff had you confused. source

While we waited for his computer, I had the brilliant idea of stopping by a jeweler to check his ring size and suss out what a good width might be. Since my ring is handmade and pretty unique, I'd like to find something for Tim that's equally offbeat (Etsy to the rescue, yet again!), and we're not likely to find that at this mall. Still, since there's no shortage of jewelers at the Carousel Center, I figured we should just find one that didn't look too busy and have him try on a few rings.

We went into a chain jewelry store that didn't have any customers at the moment, and I told the woman outright that we were having a ring custom-made and that he just wanted to try on a few for reference. I realize this might seem really obnoxious, but she wasn't busy (it was a weekday afternoon), and if it were me, I'd rather know from the get-go that the customer wasn't planning to buy. Tim put on about 8 different rings and had the same range of responses to the widths of all of them: "........................." or [shrug] or :::sideways glance at me:::. Not exactly helpful. I kept prodding, saying things like, "Well, you could get

that width but not as bulky," and "Which fit feels the best?" just trying to gauge *any* kind of reaction. Nothing. And he and I could both see the saleswoman's annoyance that she wasn't going to make a sale.

source

Tim has never worn a ring before, and he's concerned about it fitting badly and feeling weird and/or too heavy. The tricky part is that he wants it to look very irregular and handmade, so it might be hard to find something comfortable that has those characteristics. The rings he likes look like these, but in matte yellow gold and [I would imagine] about 5-6 mm wide:

sources: ring 1, ring 2

I think it would be good to ask the designer (we're honing in on one - more soon) to make the ring as thin as possible, with the inside being polished smooth and the outside texture taking care of making it look "substantial." The woman at the jewelry store warned that anything besides a comfort-fit band would create a callous, which freaked Tim out. Hmm. Now, I have a very, very faint callous from the irregular silver ring I wore for 10 years, and my engagement ring (definitely not comfort fit!) hasn't caused any problems so far. He'll probably have to take his ring off when he plays most of his instruments, anyway, so although it should be comfortable enough to play once in awhile, that's likely not too much of an issue. (N.B.: This resulted in a Wendy-instigated bickering session about how I think he'll leave it in his jeans pocket and put it through the wash.)

Do you have other ideas of how we can find Tim the perfect (not-too-expensive) ring that will satisfy all our criteria?