Just when you think the Trumps can't seem any tackier...

[highplainsdem]

This is old news, though I didn't hear about it at the time because I always used to try to avoid reading or hearing anything about Trump and his family.

This is from a March 22 NYT article on Vaness and Trump Jr divorcing:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/style/vanessa-trump-divorce.html

The couple made headlines with their engagement in 2004. The younger Mr. Trump proposed with a $100,000 ring that he got for free by agreeing to stage his proposal before paparazzi at the Short Hills Mall where the jeweler of the ring, Bailey Banks & Biddle, was located. The move frustrated his father, who complained about it on “Larry King Live.” (The publicity ploy ultimately didn’t work. By 2009, Bailey Banks & Biddle was in bankruptcy and the Short Hills location was closed.)

In case you're wondering whether Trump took his son to task for treating his engagement like a scene in a reality TV show, with the ring as payment, here's the excerpt from the 2006 NYT article the excerpt above linked to:

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/arts/21iht-trump.3611735.html

On Nov. 12, 2005, they married at Mar- a-Lago, the family's club in Florida. (Donald Trump Sr. had taken his son to task on "Larry King Live" for accepting a free engagement ring from a jeweler at a mall in New Jersey in exchange for publicly announcing his engagement there. "You have a name that is hot as a pistol, you have to be very careful with things like this," the elder Trump told King.)

So Trump was just worried that might have hurt the value of the "hot" Trump brand. Don't know whether he would have thought it would have been okay if the ring had been more expensive, or if he worried accepting the ring hurt Don Jr's chances to make more money off the Trump name elsewhere.

Either way, his complaint wasn't about the sheer tackiness and greed shown by accepting a free ring in exchange for turning a proposal into a jewelry store ad.



Editing to add that Trump apparently was suggesting his son should have gotten a more expensive ring from the deal.

Here's a 2005 NYT article with Trump claiming he got his 15-carat engagement ring for Melania for much less than the $1.5 million full price:

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/fashion/weddings/at-celebrity-nuptials-to-die-for-vendors-give-themselves.html

It seems only fitting that Donald J. Trump, a man eager to affix his name to every conceivable monument, has become a monument to whom others desperately hope to affix theirs. On Jan. 22, Mr. Trump is to marry Melania Knauss, a fashion model, and jewelers, florists, chefs and caterers are angling to get a piece of the nuptial action, even if it means cutting into their profits.

Graff, the diamond sellers, made national news by chipping in a 15-carat, $1.5 million engagement ring. (It was not free, as reported, but half that price.)

"Only a fool would say, 'No thank you, I want to pay a million dollars more for a diamond,"' Mr. Trump said proudly.

But the jeweler said earlier this year that Trump had been lying about that discount:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/373018-billionaire-jeweler-trumps-claim-that-he-got-a-million-dollar

A billionaire jewelry exec says President Trump’s claim that Graff Diamonds gave him a $1 million discount on his wife’s engagement ring is false.

Days before his lavish 2005 wedding to Melania Knauss, Trump told The New York Times that Graff had given him the 15-carat emerald cut D-flawless diamond engagement ring for a huge discount.

“Only a fool would say, ‘No thank you, I want to pay a million dollars more for a diamond,’" Trump told The Times.

But late last month, Laurence Graff, the chairman of Graff Diamonds, told Forbes in an email that Trump was “a pleasure to do business with” but that he was given “no favors” when he bought the ring.

“We don’t sell items for publicity value,” Graff Chief Financial Officer Nicholas Paine said. Both officials declined to specify the price of the ring, but the Times reported it retailed for $1.5 million.

“He paid for [the ring] in full, and he paid immediately,” Forbes reported.

[riversedge]

1. The Trump brank is the brand of the Stinking Sewer

[MaryMagdaline]

2. Gross. Do these people ever pay for anything?

Can't imagine how I would feel if my fiancée got a free ring as a promotional stunt.

[brewens]

3. Don't really wealthy people get a ring with an investment quality stone? The kind most people

don't even get to look at. Your usual ring, even rings that are quite expensive to most of us, is junk and can't be resold for anything close to the purchase price. You'd think Uday could spring for the big boy ring if the Trumps were really worth as much as they claim.

[highplainsdem]

6. Yes. You'd expect the diamond to be worth at least hundreds of thousands.

[smirkymonkey]

4. You would think Vanessa would have been tipped off by that move at what

a raging cheapskate Jr. is. He's a disgusting grifter, just like the rest of his vulgar family.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Grifters got to Grift.

[lame54]

7. She sold out worse...

She said yes