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Haven't made this thread in some time, so let me introduce myself. My name is Raz, and I've been a jeweler at a small jewelry store outside of Boston for a little over 7 years. During this time my typical tasks have varied between being a bench jeweler/repairman, buying and selling precious metal, diamonds and gemstones, custom design in both metal and wax, watch reconditioning, repair and tuning, then nonsense that comes with running a store, such dealing with people who spent 3 grand on fake jewelry and buying stuff that turns out to be stolen. Short of traveling the country with a sack full of giant diamonds, I've done or dabbled in most of what there is to be done when you call yourself a jeweler. So I guess I'll start with the gist of what I know. Metal This is shiny hard stuff. Most of what fine jewelry is made of is relegated to Silver, Gold and Platinum. Other metals are used time to time buy they're not really part of the norm. Silver is, well, silver in color. It's cheap, running about $17 an ounce on today's trading market. It's a far step up from the cheap base metals used to make costume jewelry, but nothing super expensive is made from it. Meaning that it ends up easy to work with, is cheap enough to make some funky pieces with, and won't turn your skin green like Brass or Copper. Silver jewelry is always made in Sterling silver, which is a term denoting that it's 92.5% Silver, 7.5% copper. That little bit of copper or other metal mixed in goes a long way in making it harder and less brittle, also it helps it hold a shine a bit more. Still, silver tarnishes, turning from a bright white, to a hazy, white, eventually to a dull brown over the course of 6-12 months. Fun fact: If you're wearing silver and it turns black, you sweat has traces of sulfur. Gold is the big daddy of the jewelry industry. It runs about $1,200 as of this post, which is near the highest it's ever been. Compare that to $280 in 2001 or $600 in mid 2007, if you'd invested in gold 10 years ago you'd be doing pretty well right now. In jewelry, gold purity is measured by Karat, which is a number out of 24. I'm not sure why it's based around the number 24, but just divide a gold's karat by 24 and you'll have the percentage of it's purity. Most gold jewelry (Near 80%) is made from 14k(arat) gold, which is 58% pure. The other 42% is base metals, usually brass or copper. You can mix in Zinc, steel, silver, palladium, or a host of other metals to change it's color, giving you White, Pink or Green gold. Still, as long as it's the same karat, or same amount of pure gold in it, it's worth the same amount. 14k White and 14K yellow gold are worth as much as each other. Then there are less common alloys. Irish gold is 9k, usually only used to make Irish wedding bands (Claddaugh rings), 10K is used to make most cheap jewelry, the kind Kays or Zales sells in rings for $50. 18K is a higher purity and cost, usually made into very well made pieces, and is used more often in Europe than America. They like nice things I guess. Portuguese gold is 19k, then as you go east, places like India prefer 21,22 or 24k jewelry. The difference in karats is a bit more than cost. Gold in inherently a soft metal, so the more you alloy it, the lower the karat gets, but the harder the metal is. Then again, as it gets harder, it also gets brittle, or more likely to break cleanly. 10K gold is harder to scratch or bend, but will break if you smack it into something hard enough. 18k will bend and scratch, but is soft enough to bend without too much hassle. High karat gold like 22 and 24 you can often bend by hand, which makes them too soft to be taken seriously for jewelrymaking in the west, though in places like China, they'd rather not buy gold that's almost half copper. It's a culture thing I suppose. Platinum is the serious stuff. At $1700 an ounce it'd better be. It's always super white, is usually alloyed to be 90-95% pure, and is almost twice as dense as gold. What that means is that for any ring in 14k gold, the same ring in Plat will weigh more and be 80% more pure precious metal, meaning it'll cost 2-3 times as much. Meanwhile it's soft, not unlike high karat gold, doesn't hold a great shine when polished, and has a super high melting point, which makes it a bitch to work on. Still when you're putting some massive rock in a ring, this is what the ladies are told they want. It's also used in industrial applications because it doesn't react to acids or volatile chemicals, but that hardly makes a difference to us. Just helps make it more expensive I suppose. Stones With precious gemstones, everything sort of falls into 3 Categories, Diamonds, Precious, and semi-precious stones. Yes Diamonds are precious but they are pushed aside here because they're in their own little world. Diamonds: These are white and small and expensive. People in Africa have a great time digging them out of the ground just for fun, then they're handed out fairly to everyone (None of this sentence is true). They range from tiny stones that I can buy for $0.20 (And stores sell for $30) to normal stones that cost $2,000 to retardedly big ones that you'll never be good enough to look at no matter how successful you become. Now when it comes to Diamonds, there are 4 things to consider; The size, the clarity (How much poo poo is floating around inside it), the color (White is nice, yellow is mellow, brown flush it down), and the cut (Shape, Like circles and squares and triangles and stuff.) What I'll do here is get you familiar with these 4 things, then I I'll explain how to put it all together and you'll be a diamond expert. Yes it's that easy. Carat: Notice how it's spelled with a C instead of Karat, like gold. That's because they're not the same. Still, it's confusing. Let's just try to get that out of the way. A diamonds size is measured by Carat weight. Yes size is measured by weight, because diamonds are all equally dense. Two equally cut diamonds of the same size will always be the same weight. Now, like pennies in a dollar (Or pence in England, pesos in Mexico, Beaver pelts in Canada) A carat is split into 100 points (pts). 50 points is a half carat, 33pts is a third, 2 pts is a 50th, 175pts is a carat and three quarters, that sort of thing. The price of a diamond goes up exponentially as the size goes up. To give you an idea, 2 half carat stones are not equal in value to a 1 carat stone. You'd need 3 or 4 to get the same money. A ring with 1 carat in 1pt stones will be worth a small percentage of a single 1 carat stone. Clarity: This is what's inside the diamond. A good diamond looks like a piece of clear window glass (But you know, shaped like a diamond instead of like a window). It's clear inside with no blemishes. Typically, this isn't what you see. You put one of those tiny magnifiers up to your eye (Called a loupe, pronounced loop) like in the movies and look inside the stone. You'll see little bits inside that look like salt and pepper floating around. These are white and black carbon spots, and are in almost all diamonds. The more you have in the stone, the more they interfere with light going in and coming out, the less brilliant the stone will be, the less it's worth. Cut: This is how the stones cut, but it means two things. First is the shape, if it's a round, square, pear shaped, rectangular, triangle. Once you've called it a specific shape, it pertains to how close to that shapes specifications it is. For example, a square diamond (Typically referred to as "Princess Cut", though it's just a square) could be 3.1mm on the top and bottom side, and 3.3mm on the left and right sides. It won't look uneven, but it will hurt it's value. But as far as shapes go, the main things to consider are if you like it, if it has value now, and if it will hold it's value. Today's round diamonds, referred to as the Modern Brilliant, is regarded as the best way to cut a diamond. The cut maximizes brilliance, doesn't create dark spots in the stone and minimizes waste when cutting. Whenever you cut a diamond, if it's not a round modern brilliant, it's a "fancy cut", which is a way of saying that diamond shapes come in 2 categories, rounds, and everything else. The reason being that 30 years ago, a Marquise cut diamond, whose shape resembles a football, was super popular. They fetched a premium over round stones at retail because they were what every woman wanted. 10 years later, everyone had them, they were out of fashion and the Pear shape (like a teardrop) was in. Nowadays the princess cut is popular, wildly so, but if history is any example there'll be a new fad before long. Pears and marquis diamonds I can almost give away they're so cheap nowadays, whereas I can actually get decent money for a princess cut, especially something like one that's exactly a carat, set in white gold. Expect the popular style to change within the next few years, as these things usually get set off by some pop sensation getting married or cheated on and receiving some ridiculous million dollar stone that everyone suddenly wants to emulate. Not that the retail jewelry industry doesn't help new things catch on as much as it can. Color: If you're colorblind this will not matter to you, otherwise this is way simpler than other factors. Diamond color is graded on a alphabetical scale, only it starts at D for a perfectly white diamond, and trails down the numbers the darker and more yellow it gets. Typically D, E or F grade diamonds are extremely white. G is good, but once you hit H or I, you begin to see a slight tinge of yellow. J and K is even Yellower, and once you hit M and beyond, you're looking at a nasty, almost beige diamond. Then you have specialized colors like Canary diamonds which are blindingly bright yellow, or blue, pink, or whatever else diamonds. You will almost never see these as they are mega rare and cost more than your house. What you will see is the crap runoff of terrible diamond mining. Brown, amber, black, sickly looking stones referred to as "Chocolate", "Cognac", "Champagne" diamonds. These are just nasty diamonds that are set in mass produced rings and named after things that women typically like. It makes me sad to think about how often it works. If I had a nickle for every time some woman tried to sell me a "Chocolate" diamond that she paid out the wazoo for, only to find out it's worth 10% of that in the real world. Colored Stones This includes all the colored stuff you may be familiar with. Rubies and Emeralds and stuff. It basically runs in 3 categories; Precious(Expensive), Semiprecious(less so), and very-semiprecious (cheap). There are literally hundreds of stones to list, but I'll give you a rundown of the most popular. Precious; Sapphire/Ruby - These are the most common colored stones. Sapphire is most commonly blue (Except at the mall where cheap blue sapphires look almost black), but their mineral makeup can stay the same and come in over 50 colors, aside from red. When a sapphire is red, it's a ruby. They're super hard to scratch, and can be worked with pretty easily. Emerald - Almost always green, and way softer than most stones. I typically break one of these every 5th time I try to set one, as they're so soft and hard to work with. Tanzanite - Deep Purple, these gained some popularity and value when the people who're mining them announced that once they mined them form a small area, that'd be it forever. The announcement that they've run out will probably never come until they absolutely stop selling. Alexandrite - The color changing stone. This cost more than anything, including diamond, by a longshot. It starts at about $16,000 a carat for smaller stones, so don't worry because you'll never see one. Black Diamond - Same mineral as Diamond, with a slightly different composition so that instead of being clear, it's such a dark green that it looks black. These can range in all sort of prices since there's no real set market prices, usually stores just make it up as they go along. Semi-Precious; Opal - Creamy white with flecks of blue, green and red. The more color and flare in it, the more valuable it is. Peridot - Light green Garnet - Dark red Topaz - Yellow, purple, rainbow, brown, but most commonly it's a clear light blue. Citrine - A light orangish yellow. Like a pumpkin or a schoolbus. Amethyst - Purple All of these are very common in jewelry, usually without much flaw inside the stone, and market price on any size or quality is usually between $1 and $6 a carat. Cheap stuff until you have alot of it. Very Semi-precious; Onyx - A flat black slab Jade - Green glassy stuff from china. Come in 3 forms, Nephrite, Jadeite and Jade glass. Nephrite is expensive and not very common, Jadeite is what 90% of jade jewelry is made of, and Jade glass is when they grind up jade, mix it with glass and make cheap bracelets with it. It's inexpensive enough that they can make entire walls out of it for banks in Hong Kong. Amber - Dried tree resin, like in Jurassic Park. It's worth more if there's a bug floating in it, also like in Jurassic park. Now, forget all that stuff about diamond quality. Once you find out the size and shape of a colored stone you like, 90% of the value in relation to those is strictly in the color. If you want a nice blue, 1ct round sapphire, don't bother looking into it with a loupe. Eyeball it, and ask yourself if you like the color. That's all there is too it. Don't be talked into paying more for Ceylon or Burmese or Sri Lankan sapphires if you don't genuinely like the look any more. Buying I can't tell you everything you need to know about buying jewelry. There are so many scenarios and variants that we'd be here till the end of time. What I can do right now is give you some tips. My first, last and most important tip when buying jewelry is this; Never, ever buy jewelry in the mall. This is the golden rule of the jewelry industry, the universal understanding that everyone in the world hates mall jewelry stores. They mass produce jewelry pieces by the tens of thousands, utilize terrible, 1pt diamonds in 10k gold, and sell it a a 3-500% premium over what a typical jewelry store would charge. If you walk into a Kays or Zales and see a diamond ring for $1,000, you can probably walk into any honest store and have that ring made to the same exact specifications for arounf $300. Selling gold for 4 times the market rate, tricking people with credit lines and flat out lying about materials has never been past them with the horror stories I've heard. Then there's things like Tiffany & Co, David Yurman and Cartier. They typically sell jewelry made from Silver, gold, or silver with a tiny dab of gold on it for 20 times the cost of materials. Here you're mostly paying for the name. a $200 Tiffany ring in sterling has $5 worth of silver in it, and in any other store would retail for $10, but you're paying $190 for the privilege of a ring that has their name on it. Buy it if you like it, just do some research and know what you want before you get it, because you won't get much when you go to sell it. If you can buy things like these used, you can save a bundle, but there are so many fake tiffany and cartier pieces out there I wouldn't recommend it. After that, there are the department store specials. Coach bracelets, D&G rings, gucci watches, etc. I deal with gold and silver in my regular day, and I don't know who or what Dolce and Gabana are. Not many people do. This doesn't keep people from trying to scrap out their designer watch for it's metal, not understanding that they paid for a name, and a $6 japanese movement in a brass and plated watch won't resell, even if they did pay $800 for it in Macy's. The last pitfall is buying jewelry online. There are some good deals out there, and things like eBay are getting so competitive that there are some awesome deals to be had, but for christ sake stay safe. Don't buy from sites you've never heard of, don't bid on it if it ships from china from someone with 8 feedback, and for the hell of it, let's just say stay off of craigslist. Besides the abundance of inventory, the main reason there's such a supply of jewelry for sale online is that it's so criminally easy to sell people brass and glass disguised as diamond rings that people usually know better than to try buying that way. I usually recommend that if you don't see what you want from a reputable site for a decent price, get a real good idea of what you like, and take it to a local jeweler to have them make it for you. If it's not cheaper, it won't be much more, and you'll have a way, way smaller chance of getting ripped off. Selling Like the commercial with MC Hammer says, selling gold is an awesome way to get quick money. Unlike what it says, if you send it away in the mail, you're an idiot. But say you've got a bracelet, watch, chain, ring, etc that you want to sell. Here are some basic tips. You can always, always get more money selling it privately. Be it diamond studs or a plated watch, if you clean it up and ask around people you know, friends or friends of friends or family, you'll get far beyond what you'd get in any jewelry store, pawn shop, gold party, trade show or mail in special. As an example, say you have a gold mens bracelet, no stones in it. Market value on the gold in it is $100. TV Mailer will give you $20, a pawn shop will give you 50 (On a load, which you can buy back later), a non-pawning jewelry store will give you 60-70, a trade show or gold party might give you 70 or anywhere less. But being that much in gold, it's probably safe to say it retails for 200-250, so if you can sell it to someone you know for $150, everyone would win. Ebay and craigslist can work for selling gold, but Craigslist can be robbery central if you're in a bad area, and eBay is so competitive people will try to buy it for $101, hoping gold goes up $10 and they make a dollar scrapping it. Before you sell gold, you should know what it's worth. Here I can try to explain how you figure that out. All stores that buy gold buy it by weight. Factor their refiners percentage, the market price, the purity of the gold, and their profit margin and you'll find what they pay any chump on the street. It breaks down like this. Take the spot price on gold, it's about $1150 an ounce right now, but you can get a current accurate quote at kitco.com, multiply that by... The purity of the gold. Separate the pieces you have by karat, then multiply the percentage of pure gold (14K is .56, 10k is .39, 18K is .72), scrap gold is always tallied a half karat under it's scientific purity because of dirt or low karat solder in the piece, or casters use 13.5 karat gold to save money. Times their refiners fee. Use 95% (.95), since no serious store sells their gold for less than 95% of the market price. They might tell you they have their own refiner, or there are assaying charges, or currency trade fees, or gold conversion factors, but that's all bullshit. If they say they sell it for 80% so they'll but it at 50, they're lying. Then multiply by the weight in either grams or pennyweights, however they prefer to weigh it... Then divide by how many (Either grams or pennyweights) are in an ounce, 31.1 or 20, respectively. So, working in grams, here's an example. (Spot price on gold) X (Purity of gold) X (Refiners percentage) X (Gram Weight) / (31.1 grams to an ounce) So say you have a 20 gram 14K chain. The formula would be" $1150 X .56 X .95 X 20 / 31.1 = $393 That's every penny the jewelry store or pawn shop would get for it. They want to but it from you for $200, as it sounds like a nice round number, and make a decent profit. However, if you knew this going in, you could say "Hi, this is my chain, 14K, 20 grams. It scraps for about 390, is there any way you can do 350 for it?" They'll probably try to talk you down a bit, but if you can hold tight and collect more than 300, you'd be getting over 75%. More than any other chump on the street is going to get walking in without a clue about what they have. When there are stones involved, it's way more complicated. Here are some rules that seem to stick around my area, but your results may vary. Small diamonds, under 10 points each, are rarely paid for. Some people weigh up the gold and just pay that, some throw in a dollar a point or a few dollars a stone. Bigger diamonds, 10-50 points, you can get an idea of by multiplying their point weight by a tenth of it. 20X2, 45X4.5, that sort of thing will give you a general idea of what to ask for. Factor a bit lower if they're junky stones or higher if they're really nice. Larger than that is serious diamond territory, like $500 and up. Any diamonds that big should come with a written appraisal, of which you can usually shoot for 25% of what's written. Appraisals are inflated for insurance, and usually run double what the stone really costs, which is double what any jewelry would want to pay for it. Colored stones are also tricky, but not too much so. Anything semiprecious rarely fetches any money unless it's a real art piece in a good quality gold. A blue topaz in 10k gold won't bring another dollar. Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire are on a case by case basis since there are good ones and truly awful ones, the same size of either could bring you a hundred dollars or nothing at all. No matter what you have, be it gold or platinum or stones or copper, the golden rule of selling is to shop around. If selling a ring you paid $400, get a price from every store within 10 miles and you'll probably hear prices ranging from $35 to 200. Watches are a bit of a dead item, especially womens watches. Sometimes guys will buy and wear a used watch, women are typically a bit more fussy and want a brand new one. Most stores don't even buy watches unless they're a better name. Movado, rado, tag heuer, rolex, breitling, that sort of thing. And consider from the stores perspective, before they buy a citizen or fossil from you for $50, can they sell it for $100, or would that customer rather spend a bit more and get a brand new one in the box with a warranty? When buying a watch, I generally recommend Bulova, Seiko or Citizen watches. Anything less is sure to have a typical cheap japanese movement, good for a few years but probably won't last, and anything more expensive you're probably paying alot for a name on a watch that does no more than tell time. When buying a better watch, buying one used can save a ton of money though. For instance, mens Movado watches typically are all stainless, have a good swiss movement, and retail anywhere for $1,000 to $1,250. When I buy one, I recondition it till it looks as good as it did they day it was new, and put it out for sale with a box and some movado paperwork for $200-$300. Sometimes 20% of retail, and even then they sit there for years. Depending on whether you're buying or selling, or what taste you have in watches there are hundreds of scenarios, buy typically all you can do is buy a watch you like the look of, or if selling it, do it privately to maximize what you'll get for it. Links http://www.pricescope.com/ - I don't use it much, but it was sent to me a while ago and seems like it's full of some pretty good information about buying diamonds. Probably the best part is you can put in specs for a stone and instantly get a ballpark wholesale price. http://www.kitco.com/market - The current metal market prices in US denomination by ounce. Wow I've got 2 whole links? Oh goodness my brain trailed off and I typed so much I forgot where I was. I suppose at this point you can fire away and I'll see if I can shed light on your questions.
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Jul 26, 2010 00:55
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 09:23 |
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 Wow. Is there any way to buy stones wholesale without that massive markup?
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Jul 26, 2010 02:46
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Do you source your diamonds (and other stones) from a transparent and ethical supplier?
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Jul 26, 2010 02:48
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Fantastic OP, this thread deserves to get some recognition. 1) What do you think of online places with a fairly solid rep, like bluenile? 2) Is there any way to really makes sure a diamond is conflict free?
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Jul 26, 2010 03:14
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The question of diamond source always comes up, and it's tricky so I'll see how lightly I can tread. "Transparent and ethical supplier" there aren't any. There are diamond dealers, large and small, who sell diamonds and not once a year give thought to conflict, and there are people who sell "conflict free" diamonds almost exclusively to the public. An indeterminable yet large percentage of diamonds have been set and reset and cut and recut for a hundred years now as they float through 10 ring settings and studs, and once they're cut they're almost 99% untraceable. Determining if a stone is conflict free is no easier if the stone is in a 100 year old setting or one made yesterday. The only way of knowing is if it's certified conflict free, which has no insanely strict certification process, as people sell 100 stones with the same stone's paperwork, or make their own and outright lie. That said, I'm no expert on that scene. Hell, I've had Blood Diamond at the bottom of my netflix queue since it came out. I'd say almost all of my (>1.5CT) diamond needs are met through the door of my store, buying from the public. My large stone needs are met through either 3 dealers in Boston or 2 dealers in NY, and I'm guessing if I asked about conflict I'd be the first person to do so this month. The difference in price and lack of assurance disbands any hype from the public, and dealer-to-dealer wouldn't fetch a premium going either way. Personally I think the best thing to come from the Conflict Free movement is that a handful of mines and mining territories are actually conflict free now. I probably think that cause it's the only factor I've seen measured in any respect. Now, to be quite honest, I know very little about Blue Nile. Their diamond prices don't sound ridiculous, but if this is typical of their markup on settings I'd stay away. Anyone on earth can have that cast or pulled from a catalog for less than half that.
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Jul 26, 2010 04:42
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printf posted:Wow. Is there any way to buy stones wholesale without that massive markup? At small independent jewelers, first do your research, then tell them what you're looking for and what you're willing to spend. Infact, tell them 20% less than you're willing to spend, just incase they had any prices they could push down. Then sit down and see what they have in your quality and price range and go from there. If it's something you can buy off a website for, say 4 grand, and a store tells you they have nothing like that for less than 6, that's a clear sign to try the next place.
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Jul 26, 2010 04:51
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I own a jewelry company, and it seems that it is quite a bit different from the store that Raz runs. I specialize in the things that may later wind up at Sothebys or in a museum. I deal with customers scattered around the USA, and I work solely via email and new customers must be referred by someone I know and trust. Since I come from a totally different background as Raz I'm going to chime in a bit just to give another perspective on some things. Monkey Lincoln posted:Irish gold is 9k, usually only used to make Irish wedding bands (Claddaugh rings), 10K is used to make most cheap jewelry 9k is very common in the UK. It is used for almost everything since that market doesn't use 10k and dislikes 14k. Monkey Lincoln posted:Marquise, pears, etc Monkey Lincoln posted:Then you have specialized colors... sickly looking stones referred to as "Chocolate", "Cognac", "Champagne" diamonds. This one belongs to a friend of mine; it's a beautiful brownish yellowish orangish diamond. I'd call it the color of a vintage Calvados.  Monkey Lincoln posted:Alexandrite - It starts at about $16,000 a carat for smaller stones, so don't worry because you'll never see one. Monkey Lincoln posted:Jade - Green glassy stuff from china. Come in 3 forms, Nephrite, Jadeite and Jade glass. Nephrite is expensive and not very common, Jadeite is what 90% of jade jewelry is made of, and Jade glass is when they grind up jade, mix it with glass and make cheap bracelets with it. Jadeite is much more valuable than Nephrite. The real distinction is between A-Jade and B-Jade. A-Jade is natural, and B-Jade is acid bleached and impregnated with polymers to artificially enhance the aesthetic. A-Jade of fine fine quality is often priced comparably with ruby. Monkey Lincoln posted:Eyeball it, and ask yourself if you like the color. That's all there is too it. Don't be talked into paying more for Ceylon or Burmese or Sri Lankan sapphires if you don't genuinely like the look any more. Sapphire value is significantly dependent on color, origin, and level of treatment. Many jewelers sell heated sapphire, lead crystal filled sapphire, and beryllium diffused sapphire as "natural untreated stones." You really have to do your homework, or deal with someone who does the homework. Even Blue Nile was sued for selling treated gemstones and failing to disclose the fact. Monkey Lincoln posted:The last pitfall is buying jewelry online. PriceScope isn't a neutral diamond resource. The "helpful friends" in their forums pay for the privilege of posting their suggestions. It is a business that exists to push new diamond buyers towards preferred vendors. I dislike their business model as it seems disingenuous.
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Jul 26, 2010 06:07
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printf posted:Wow. Is there any way to buy stones wholesale without that massive markup? It's kind of a fun academic question - but how much markup would you be happy paying?
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Jul 26, 2010 06:11
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JohnnyRnR posted:I own a jewelry company, and it seems that it is quite a bit different from the store that Raz runs. I specialize in the things that may later wind up at Sothebys or in a museum. Do you make or design new jewelry? Can you post some pieces that you are particularly proud of?
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Jul 26, 2010 07:07
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How did you get into this? Did you attend school or some sort of formal training or merely picked it up bit by bit?
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Jul 26, 2010 07:47
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Aside from not tarnishing, is there an actual advantage to platinum over silver that justifies the markup (aside from rarity, obviously)? It seems to hold lustre worse than silver, from personal experience.
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Jul 26, 2010 08:08
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So what would be the best way to get the most value when shopping for an engagement ring? I have a friend who bought a ring from one of those aforementioned "mall jewelry stores" and paid a hilarious amount. Would it be buying the stone/setting separately? Stone online, setting somewhere else?
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Jul 26, 2010 09:23
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It's more gemstones than jewelry but I'll ask, where's a good place to order loose gems from? It's something I think would be fun to collect and I'm not interested in the high-dollar stuff. There's a channel called jewelryTV that sells big kits of them and I'm looking for something like that. A couple of years ago I tried to order one from them and they hosed up the billing in all kinds of special ways so I'm never going to bother with them again.
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Jul 26, 2010 10:52
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Very interesting OP! Where's the best place to buy a simple necklace chain for a charm for her?
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Jul 26, 2010 11:34
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Sounds like you do things differently Johnny, so another set of eyes always helps. Yeah, I deal more in brick and mortar works. People come off the street with what they need, and I'm pretty sure nothing we make will end up in a museum.tirinal posted:Aside from not tarnishing, is there an actual advantage to platinum over silver that justifies the markup (aside from rarity, obviously)? It seems to hold luster worse than silver, from personal experience. Platinum is hard to work on, softer than gold and doesn't hold a really good polish. Silver is easy to work on and takes a good polish, but is also soft and tarnishes every few months or so. Typically when people want a white metal I recommend 14K white, much harder, easy to work on, tarnishes every year or so and polishes up great. I think most of the advantage of platinum is solely in the stigma that it's the most expensive metal that jewelry is made from. The Affair posted:How did you get into this? Did you attend school or some sort of formal training or merely picked it up bit by bit? Residency Evil posted:So what would be the best way to get the most value when shopping for an engagement ring? I have a friend who bought a ring from one of those aforementioned "mall jewelry stores" and paid a hilarious amount. Would it be buying the stone/setting separately? Stone online, setting somewhere else? Buying something that's already put together usually saves a few dollars, but not a ton. When you find a place or two you like, it'll just be a matter of how they operate. All my engagement rings that are on display to the public are put together already, whereas another store I work with always has the rings and stones separated. Find the kind of stone you want, see what local jewelers want for them, see what you can find online and go from there. Lincoln`s Wax posted:It's more gemstones than jewelry but I'll ask, where's a good place to order loose gems from? It's something I think would be fun to collect and I'm not interested in the high-dollar stuff. There's a channel called jewelryTV that sells big kits of them and I'm looking for something like that. A couple of years ago I tried to order one from them and they hosed up the billing in all kinds of special ways so I'm never going to bother with them again. Like larger, semiprecious stones? I don't know where you'd buy them to collect, last time I did anything like that I put together 300 carats of topaz, citrine, peridot and synth class ring stones for a customer and he used them to line his aquarium. If there's a jewelers findings and gems supplier near you try poking around (If it's not for dealers only) Kritzkrieg Kop posted:Very interesting OP!
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Jul 26, 2010 15:04
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JohnnyRnR posted:It's kind of a fun academic question - but how much markup would you be happy paying? Well as little as possible without having to go to Antwerp. Is there some channel that only jewelry stores can access?
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Jul 26, 2010 19:25
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I'm curious...I have a wedding/engagement ring and some other odds and ends jewelry. i went to a couple of pawn shops and they offered me next to nothing for the ring...i have it on craigslist but have already been fielding all sorts of scammers with no real hits...is there another way to make money or am i basically poo poo out of luck on really getting anything for the ring? these are the specs of the ring The engagement ring part is 1/2 carat diamond 14k white gold size 10. The center stone is a princess cut with four round diamonds on each side that gradually get smaller. The band is 14kw .24ct tw band. There are 10 diamonds that go across the band. they are also soldered (sp?) together....
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Jul 26, 2010 19:54
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printf posted:Well as little as possible without having to go to Antwerp. Is there some channel that only jewelry stores can access? Yes, but the problem exists that you don't have a relationship with gemstone dealers. In a word, you don't know who you can trust to be honest, and the dealers don't know if they can trust you to pay them. Every jeweler has customers who try to sidestep him to save money, but most who get access to wholesale markets almost always lose a lot of money. I can give examples if you're curious. No one can deny that jewelry markups are high, but only because there is a significant amount of infrastructure, capital, insurance, and time invested in being a dealer or retailer. When I got into the business I assumed that selling diamonds would be a simple thing of sending packages out via FedEx, but it turned out to be much more involved than I ever expected. One thing to remember is that retail markups do vary widely. Some stores have high costs so they have to have customers paying higher prices. You'll pay more for a diamond in the NYC diamond district than you will in rural America (or online) because the NYC guys have higher rent to pay. There are some situations where diamonds and gems are brokered for flat rate commissions, but that is a different situation from a retail relationship. If you were buying a very large diamond (or a large collection of small stones) it isn't uncommon for us to work on a single digit commission rate. One common situation is where a customer will write a check once a year to top up an account for their year's purchases. Because I don't have to put up any of my own money while building things for them, and because these customers buy quite a few nice pieces every year, I can work on a very (very) low markup.
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Jul 26, 2010 20:16
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JohnnyRnR posted:I can give examples if you're curious. I'd be interested in knowing it turned out.
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Jul 26, 2010 20:30
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Sweet CupnCakes posted:I'm curious...I have a wedding/engagement ring and some other odds and ends jewelry. i went to a couple of pawn shops and they offered me next to nothing for the ring...i have it on craigslist but have already been fielding all sorts of scammers with no real hits...is there another way to make money or am i basically poo poo out of luck on really getting anything for the ring? It's all relative. Maybe I could make you a pretty strong offer, and depending on what you spent it might still be something you'd consider next to nothing. A half carat princess cut is something I'd want to buy from the public for anywhere from 150 to 300 depending on the quality. I'd place an average commercial-quality stone at something I'd pay $250 for and probably want to sell for 450-550 on a good day. The smaller stones never bring much, so 4 on each side and another 10 on the band, all 2.5 point stones, might bring $10-40 depending on the shop. Throw in 2-4 grams of 14k and you're looking at an offer of 300-360 tops anywhere you go, with most pawn shops probably wanting to take it for 180-220. Now, not knowing what you paid, I'd assume it's a safe bet you'd want to get back at least half of what you paid for the ring. Normally what I tell people is to sell it privately, friends, friends of friends, relatives, neighbors, ebay, something like that. The problem with an engagement ring is they have to know the story, because if it was from a bad breakup, nobody is going to want to wear someone elses bad luck. If you can't get rid of it privately for that reason, you might be stuck doing the footwork, asking jewelry stores for 400 and counting their low offer with something closer to 350. If you have to take less, to put it quite frankly, consider it tuition for a lesson learned.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:17
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I've always wanted a Rolex since I was a kid. I'm 32 years old now and figure that I might just be ready to move up from the Seikos that I currently own. I don't care if they're overhyped and I'm just paying for the name, I want one. That being said, I'm nobody's fool. What's the most inexpensive plain Rolex that's available and what's a reasonable cost for something like that? I don't want diamonds or gold or tourbillons or any funky collectors editions as I'm not really that flashy of a dude, I just want something like an Air King because that's what I think a watch should look like and they're solid, quality watches. Also, as long as it's in good shape I don't mind buying used one single bit and as a matter of fact think vintage watches are just as cool, if not cooler than new. Help me navigate the Rolex world with some smarts.
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Jul 26, 2010 22:28
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A lightly used Stainless Datejust is probably the way to go. Depending on the wear, age and style you can probably pick one up for $1,200-1,800. It's a classic model, and if you wanna spend a bit more you can probably find it with a stainlss & 18K strap or an aftermarket gold bezel. Just make sure if you're buying it from a store or dealer, they open it so you can see the movement is stamped with the word "Rolex" and a bit more info. If you find one that's pretty beat up but the strap isn't stretched too far, a jeweler should be able to recondition it for short money, 40-100 usually. Polish the shiny parts, re-frost the frosted parts, clean the band and possibly polish the crystal, all that. Just keep in mind when buying one that they don't usually keep great time and fixing them costs a ton, like with any luxury item that wears over time. Monkey Lincoln fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Jul 26, 2010 |
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Jul 26, 2010 23:00
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Excellent OP! Very interesting. I was wondering if I could get some hot insider information on ametrine.
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Jul 27, 2010 00:13
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Monkey Lincoln posted:Just keep in mind when buying one that they don't usually keep great time and fixing them costs a ton, like with any luxury item that wears over time. Fixing them being expensive was a given, since you want to take them to someone who knows what they're doing, not the dude at the Dakota watch kiosk at the mall, but they don't keep great time? Seriously? A $1800 watch that can't tell time?
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Jul 27, 2010 00:15
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What's the deal with so-called "Fool's Gold"? I remember, ages and ages ago (probably around 20 years if not more) being a kid in a jewelry shop of some sort that had a huge (size of a cinder/breeze block) chunk of it on one of those lighted display stands (The kind that has about $20 worth of parts in it yet costs $400 if you want one for your awesome thing). I assumed since it was "Fool's Gold" that it was more-or-less worthless, but the jeweler told me it was worth quite a bit of money. Does it have legitimate uses in the jewelery trade? Also, my favorite part of Ask/Tell threads are the wacky stories. What's the worst case you've seen of disparity between customer belief and actual value? i.e. someone has a Rolex he wants to sell for $1,000 or whatever, and once you look at it you find out it's the sort of fake you buy from a man with a binder on the streets of New York City for $40, and you'd give him $10 for it. That sort of thing.
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Jul 27, 2010 00:17
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That's a bit of what I love about them, considering I don't wear one and never would. A typical rolex repair involves me bringing it to my watch repair guy... Me: This rolex isn't keeping good time. Him: Of course not it's a rolex. Then we share a hearty laugh and have buttsex or whatever. The thing about Rolexes are they're all Rolex made. Some are all swiss parts and labor, some are assembled in south america, but it's all rolex parts. Besides them raising their own prices every year, a big part of why Rolexs have a high value is that any watch you buy has pieces and parts form all over. Movado buys their capacitors and springs from an outside company, their hands from another, some of their gears from another, then engineers and assembles it all themselves. So does Tag Heuer and Rado and Fossil and Bulova and Lucien Picard and Piaget (Everyone else basically). Whether they're assembled of 51% swiss parts in China or actually hand made in Geneva, all watch companies buy their watch parts from other companies, except for Rolex. Hell, 50% of japanese, chinese and some watches labelled Swiss you'll find have "Miyota Watch Co" stamped on the movement. Personally I think Miyota makes the best movements available, typical over under is +/- 15 seconds a month for them or any other decent brand. A good friend of mine loves his, considering the trouble it's given him. I think I've had to open it twice myself to adjust it, and sent it to my watch guy twice for repair. It used to lose an hour a week either way, now it's fast about 10 minutes a month. He knew that when he got it, cause he bought it to wear and gets his time from his cell phone.
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Jul 27, 2010 00:29
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Red_October_7000 posted:What's the deal with so-called "Fool's Gold"? I remember, ages and ages ago (probably around 20 years if not more) being a kid in a jewelry shop of some sort that had a huge (size of a cinder/breeze block) chunk of it on one of those lighted display stands (The kind that has about $20 worth of parts in it yet costs $400 if you want one for your awesome thing). I assumed since it was "Fool's Gold" that it was more-or-less worthless, but the jeweler told me it was worth quite a bit of money. Does it have legitimate uses in the jewelery trade? Typical "Fools Gold" is pyrite, a mineral that in any professional opinion looks absolutely nothing like gold, save for it's yellow, untarnishing color. I suppose a big enough piece would cost something, like the pieces in the glass case at the museum gift shop, but it has no real industrial uses that I've ever known about. I typically see a piece once a year, I tell the customer to give it to a little kid and make their day. As sure I am that funny things have happened to me, there aren't many great stories. I've seen people pay $6,000 for rings at Zales and Macy's that I had exact duplicates of on sale for $300, I've had a guy threaten my life in so many words because I wouldn't buy a box of beanie babies (in 2009), I've had a guy pleading with me to buy his 6 year old Dell laptop hat he swore was worth a grand, only to smash it in the parking lot for fun when I turned it down, and I've had all sorts of scenarios involving kids stealing from their parents in creative ways, all really thinking they wouldn't get caught. If I remember any good war stories I'll jot them down and post them.
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Jul 27, 2010 00:35
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Alright, good to know. It's not turning me off either, I was just curious. I can handle adjusting my watch every now and then, I just don't want it losing like an hour a day or something. But in the interest of a compelling thread and all, what's the best luxury watch in terms of quality in your opinion?
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Jul 27, 2010 00:38
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So say I wanted a ring with one diamond in the center flanked by two sapphires. When ring shopping I should mainly focus on the stones, correct? The setting is something that I could pretty much get anywhere? When shop by price should I be looking for someone to sell me the stones for as little as possible (and get them set elsewhere), or the ring for as little as possible?
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Jul 27, 2010 00:49
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Dienes posted:Excellent OP! Very interesting. The only advice I can offer you on ametrine is that the majority that you see is absolutely fake. Like, this is in no way a natural stone. I would guess it is either synthetic quartz that has been color treated. The vast majority of ametrine that you find on eBay is synthetic or chemically adjusted to change its color. One tip is that the color change is often very abrupt in synthetic pieces. But when you get a big natural stone it is absolutely stunning. This is a 100 carat fantasy cut piece that we are going to mount in a tiara someday. Notice how the purple creeps in from the points of the triangle. Color change in natural ametrine is very gentle. There are exceptions, but not many. 
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Jul 27, 2010 00:58
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Residency Evil posted:So say I wanted a ring with one diamond in the center flanked by two sapphires. When ring shopping I should mainly focus on the stones, correct? The setting is something that I could pretty much get anywhere? It would be much easier (and cheaper) for you to find an existing ring design and let your jeweler fill it with stones. If you buy the stones separately you may not be able to find an off the rack ring that can take that combination of stones which would necessitate a custom mounting.
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Jul 27, 2010 01:09
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Cluricaun posted:But in the interest of a compelling thread and all, what's the best luxury watch in terms of quality in your opinion? Residency Evil posted:So say I wanted a ring with one diamond in the center flanked by two sapphires. When ring shopping I should mainly focus on the stones, correct? The setting is something that I could pretty much get anywhere? When shop by price should I be looking for someone to sell me the stones for as little as possible (and get them set elsewhere), or the ring for as little as possible? Edit: ^drat you beat me. Also drat you deal in high end stuff. I bet you make the same money selling one piece that I make all december.
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Jul 27, 2010 01:13
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It depends on the piece, honestly. I've also been known to lose a lot of money. ;-) I once had a big fancy sapphire deal go south that cost me $15,000. That was an unhappy month! I still handle engagement rings and all the usual jewelry on a special request basis, but I'm trying to build a business concentrating on fancy pieces.
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Jul 27, 2010 01:32
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Monkey Lincoln posted:Personally I think Miyota makes the best movements available, typical over under is +/- 15 seconds a month for them or any other decent brand. You're confusing mechanical with quartz movements. A quartz movement is good for +/- 1 second a day (you'll find them in the free watch that came with your cereal box), the good thermo-compensated ones are like +/- a couple seconds a YEAR (you'll find them on like $5000 Breitlings). An average Swiss mechanical movement like the ETA 2824 (found in $300+ Swiss mechanical watches) is good for +/- 15 seconds A DAY. The highest grade mechanical movements are rated CHRONOMETER by the COSC, an independent group that tests watch movements for something like 15 straight days. The requirement is +6 to -4 seconds a day, with minimal positional variation. Each chronometer movement was tested and has a unique chronomter serial number and certificate. Rolex watches are certified chronomters, and generally run a couple of seconds fast or slow a day. A couple seconds fast or slow might sound terrible, but it's not that bad. Because mechanical watches run at different rates depending on position. You can experiment by leaving the watch in a different position overnight, and it will cancel out any gain / loss experienced during the day. My $500 Swiss mechanical watch (non-chronomter) gets like +3 seconds a week because of this. Also there's this thing called regulation. You can adjust the rate of a mechanical watch to get as close to zero as possible. Higher end movements are more stable, they'll have a steady error rate, so regulation can bring that error rate down to zero. Lower-end movements have more variation in rate, so even if the average rate is brought down to zero, you'll still have some variation based on position. Basically, precision is more important than accuracy when looking at a watch. The thing is, mechanical movements need to be serviced generally every 5 years. They need to be disassembled, cleaned, reassembled, and oiled. Odds are the dead banker who bought that gold Rolex 30 years ago didn't know a thing about watches other than Rolex "is the best according to what my Men's magazine says". In short, don't just make your watch pretty on the outside. Get it serviced for real and it'll keep time well. Edit: Also, "Swiss Made" means that 51% of the VALUE of the watch has to come from Switzerland, the movement has to be made in Switzerland, and that the encasing and major assembly processes are Swiss. Not that it has a couple of Swiss screws, and the rest is made in a sweatshop in Thailand. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jul 27, 2010 |
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Jul 27, 2010 01:35
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I'm planning on buying a Rolex Yachtmaster. You've already giving your opinion on Rolexs timekeeping, but I don't care for that, I just want an expensive watch to show off at the club. What buying price would you consider for this? http://www.watchfinder.co.uk/Rolex/Yachtmaster-Watches/16623-m10576-watch.aspx Also what resale value do you think I could get 2 years down the line when the look needs an upgrade?
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Jul 27, 2010 03:43
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I have a few pieces of appraised emeralds that I'm not sure what to do with (I live in Ontario, Canada) I have 3 green stones that are appraised at $1,005. I have some blue stones that are valued at about $1,500 And some red ones appraised at $4,000 I tried taking them around town to see if I could sell them but none of the jewelery stores knew what to do with them. And the pawn shops around here would probably give me like $50 each or something... I tried eBay and such, but they brought in no bids. What can I do with these? I'd like to just have money instead.
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Jul 27, 2010 03:43
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Lucidphoole posted:I'm planning on buying a Rolex Yachtmaster. Don't buy a Yachtmaster. It's hideous and stupid. You'll "impress" all the wrong people, and the ones in the know will think you're a gigantic twat. If it must be a Rolex, get a Submariner or the GMT IIc, to show that you actually have some class to go along with your fat wallet. If you want something expensive and classy, get a Patek Phillipe. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Jul 27, 2010 |
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Jul 27, 2010 03:58
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Don't buy a Yachtmaster. It's hideous and stupid. You'll "impress" all the wrong people, and the ones in the know will think you're a gigantic twat. If it must be a Rolex, get a Submariner or the GMT IIc, to show that you actually have some class to go along with your fat wallet. Reminds me of the old joke about the whorehouse madam in Vietnam who calls the American military base to send some MPs to come collect a fighter pilot who's drunken and making a scene. The reply comes from the base: "OK, sure. Wait, how do you know he's a fighter pilot?" She responds "Great big watch, little tiny dick, try to pay with charge card!"
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Jul 27, 2010 04:14
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Lucidphoole posted:What buying price would you consider for this? That I'm not sure about, but listen to that other guy. A stainless & 18K submariner or sea-dweller would run you 3000-4000, and resell for not much less than that.
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Jul 27, 2010 05:21
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What kind of education do you need to be a jeweler? Also the fact emeralds are apparently hard to work with make me sad. I like them so much 
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Jul 27, 2010 05:29
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