I agree with you completely, auctions are great place to look if you like antiques, I do and that was where I started too, you can find amazing things at really good prices, then those will most definitely hold their value, antiques actually go up in price, or, well, not only antiques but certain preowned items and then you already buy them well below retail if you are lucky or otherwise don't buy. There are other ways to save to get diamonds at really good prices, to cut out the middle men and find sources where you can buy them at close to wholesale prices. Then, if you were to go for designer things, yes a Panthere bracelet is my HG, well, those would hold their value really well. So choose carefully and do your research, everything, even real estate can be bad investment if one does not do research. Then we can all choose what we want to spend our money on. I do understand somewhat that men feel pressured that they have to buy an engagement ring, however, the history of it goes back far beyond De Beers and the idea of engagement rings was that if a man decides to not marry their fiancee the lady does not stay without anything and historically it had some validity.