Good morning ladies and gentlemen I was wondering if I can get some help please? I am looking at buying a new chain at some stage preferably white gold. To hold as an investment and I was wondering if it would go up much in value if I had some diamonds set into it? either when I bought it or down the track? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for your time
Not a typical stacking strategy at all mate. Are you new to the idea of stacking? If so suggest you spend a good bit of time roaming the forum discussion. If you know your way around the space already I suppose jewellery is a valid specialised form of PM investment but there are a lot more variables that make it difficult to re-sell for the premiums (IMO) And diamonds.. holy moly not many of us would go near them
G'day @Heyman_526 and welcome to the forum. Firstly, buying any sort of jewelry brand new at retail prices and expecting it to be a good investment is a no-no, as you could be losing up to 50% or more of its value by just walking out of the store door. If you must purchase new jewelry then do it for the love of it and not for any perceived monetary value gain over time, that way you will not be disappointed. I have purchased quite a bit of gold and diamond jewelry for my wife and daughter over the years, but it has always been on the secondary auction market at prices around the spot melt value of the precious metal content, with the diamonds thrown in for good measure. This is the way to go if you wish to actually make some sort of an investment return on your gold and diamond chain.
It will certainly go up in value in relation to the quantity of .9999 gold (pure gold) in the chain when the spot price of gold goes up. White gold is not pure gold it is an alloy, i.e. gold mixed with something else to make it white. In my thinking, as an investment, the chain is only "worth its weight in gold" plus the perceived value you or someone else places on it. Diamonds might or mightn't matter. The only jewelry I stack for investment is jewelry I have purchased here on SS but then only after considering the spot for gold content, the premium (cost above spot value) and whether I can sell it at a later date at the same price or better. I recently purchased a 9ct gold ring here on SS. It was set with 5 small stones. The stones didn't matter and probably weren't worth much anyway but it was pretty and I figured it was a good place to put some money away for a rainy day. I can probably sell it for the purchase price somewhere down the line and maybe sell it for more dependent upon spot and how much someone else likes it and is willing to pay for it.
Thank you all for your suggestions I am still learning I'll have a good look around. Where abouts can I buy jewelry at an online auction? Secondly how do I know if the piece is genuine metal? Whether its gold, silver or whatever? I am very new to this I haven't bought any personal jewelry at this stage, so it's probably better if I buy something small. Enjoy it for a while and then consider cashing out when it goes up in value and I'll go by something better. Thank you for your time cheers
I have no idea about how auctions work. The differences between numismatics, jewellery & bullion as heartastack mentioned is important to know about. The value of jewellery and numismatics can be rather arbitrary, it's very much going to be in the eye of the beholder. Jewellery & numismatics should fetch at least somewhere near the spot / scrap price, but unless one knows one's market it may be difficult to get more than that for it. For example, these pretty limited edition silver coins being sold for a couple of times the going rate of the mass market "bullion" like Canadian Maples or similar may be very difficult to resell at those same prices. It may be possible but the "value" of such coins will be very arbitrary. Genuine historic coins on the other hand will be a safer investment despite the premium they will cost. But also keep in mind that in a bad market the best one can hope for is the scrap value. With bullion you should be looking at getting the spot / scrap price so that's a low risk investment imo. Obviously timing is a factor when buying, when one buys at a time of high prices there could be a slump and then you're in negative territory again for a while, waiting for the spot price to go up so you're at least breaking even. If it were me, especially when starting out, I'd stick to standard, high circulation number 1 Oz coins, and preferably gold. Why 1 Oz gold coins? Lots of reasons. Because they are relatively easy to shift, both physically (transport) and in the market. Ever try to carry a Silver Monsterbox?? lol The high circulation bullion 1 Oz gold coins eg. Canadian Maples, Krugerrands, Nuggets, Eagles etc are well known and recognised, an important factor when selling. Gold coins are universally accepted, an important factor when selling. Exotic stuff like Platinum, Rhodium or Palladium will be much more difficult to shift. 1 Oz gold coins may be less likely, or at least more difficult to be faked compared to gold bars. Why do I say that? The counterfeiters used to concentrate more on bars (as opposed to bothering with coins) because these were higher value items and easier to fake. That situation may be changing or different today so always keep that in mind. Counterfeiting methods include but are not limited to: Bars made from tungsten cores, then covered with gold. This is difficult to detect unless using ultrasound or drilling out the core. Coins - this will probably take the form of some kind of plating, silver or gold, over a core of some other material, perhaps tungsten. Tbh I don't really know much about fake coins. Detection and checking methods One way to check for anomalies is to look at the object dimensions and then to compare it to its weight using an accurate scale. It's difficult to get the weight of a fake gold coin or bar just right. But be careful here because tungsten comes close. There are chemical tests which can be done but the problem here is that if the surface is gold, then the chemical test isn't going to reveal much of anything. You could drill the bar or coin to verify what lies lurking underneath but who wants to do that? You could use ultrasound to check the density of the material, but having access to this equipment and knowing how to operate it is tricky. Silver makes a beautiful ringing sound when struck. You can ping a 1Oz coin up into the air off your fingernails and it will literally go "piiiinnnnng", just like in the saloon in the old Westerns. A fake silver coin is unlikely to share this characteristic. A test I use for (pure) gold and silver 1 oz coins that I think is reasonable, makes use of a neodymium magnet. Get a small, powerful round neodymium magnet. It has to be a neodymium or similar magnet. Regular magnets are too weak for this test. The first thing to note is that the magnet will not stick to the pure silver or gold coin, because they are not magnetic, but wait.... there's more. Hold the coin at a 45 degree angle on a desk. Place the magnet at the top end of the coin and let it slide down the surface. If the coin is made from pure gold or silver, the neodymium magnet will generate eddy currents inside the coin. Those eddy currents will interact with the magnet and will brake (as in delay) the magnet's descent down the slope of the coin. Repeat the same test on a typical non-magnetic surface and you'll notice the magnet will simply fly down the slope at high speed. Thus... when you see that magnet slowly sliding down the silver or gold coin, it is likely that the coin is indeed genuine. Obviously perform other checks as well, check the dimensions, check the weight etc. It is much easier to fake one characteristic of a gold or silver coin vs convincingly faking all of their characteristics. So the more tests one runs and the more tests the coin passes, the more likely it is to be genuine. PS: This magnet test won't work on a South African Gold Krugerrand. The reason for this is that the Krugerrand has a small amount of copper mixed in which will weaken the eddy current effect.
Diamonds... essentially worthless, lol But having said that they are pretty awesome in industrial tools. I once had the privilege of watching an experienced safe cracker drill through a carbon steel plate with a diamond drill bit to open up a safe for which access had been lost. That day involved what must have been around 6 or 7 hours of sustained low speed drilling.
If you're thinking of buying on sites like ebay or gumtree, don't bother, as there's a very high possibility it'll be fake, for both jewellery and bullion.
My son buys and sells on Ebay full time and jewelry too. He tests everything and has gotten a few that weren't any good, plated or whatever. It's not a big deal to get a refund on Ebay and its rare to need one once you find some honest sellers. Same as with bullion. He does very well buying and selling jewelry and you can pick it up cheap at times. Personally I stick with stacking bullion but theres money to be made in the jewelry market for sure. He doesnt buy it for investment, only to buy and sell and maybe keep a piece for himself once in awhile. Any jewelry you get for melt value could be considered an investment but otherwise it carries high premiums. All depends on what you want to do with it I guess.
I think he uses the scratch and acid test the most. It turns different colors for different purities.
