And they wouldn't let me weigh any of their bracelets. Is that normal practice? They were having a 50% off sale, so it got me wondering, can I walk out of here with some gold at or below spot? I don't know if there's been threads on this previously but most of the gold jewellery in than store (that I was interested in) was 9ct, which I believe is slightly over 1/3 pure (please correct me if I'm wrong). If you've ever tried, it's terribly hard to guage how heavy the bracelets are and therefore work out the gold content / melt value of each piece. I was thinking about going back with some 1/2oz, 1oz and 2oz coins to use in a left hand / right hand sort of way. Blergh... Opinions? Experiences?
What kind of reasoning did they use when they refused you the chance to weigh the bracelets? ... or was it just a flat out NO?
You want find anything under spot at a jewellers,at a pawnbrokers maybe I did the same ,they had a 60% of sale I asked the sales girl to weigh a silver necklace just under 2oz =$240 That worked out @ $4gm Pre sale price would have been $10gm I can go to a manufacturing jeweller & pay retail $4.50 a gram for the work + the price of the silver Gold is the same $4.50 a gram to work it + the price of the metal
Was this with your own scales ? I never really bother with jewellery as a lot of it can be filled anyway, so I found out.
I can't quite remember what she said but it was pretty cheesy. Something like "Head office no longer allow it". "Why" "They used to let us but not anymore" Lol... Pretty pathetic hey? They totally tried to convince me that I was a really amazing deal too.
No the girl pulled them out of the draw,I had time to kill & was wandering the same thing as OP It was fun walking into a jewellrs with my boat anchor & lean over the counter & have a 10oz silver chain pop out of my shirt The look on theyre eyes was priceless
Yep, same sort of thing happened to us, bought a 9ct chain necklace 50% off, asked if I could weigh it, lady said the scales were broken. Weighed it at home and worked out we were paying about 100% over spot, which is acceptable to me for new jewellery. I always work on the premise with gold jewellery that if you halve the original retail price then halve it again (ie /4) that's what it's value in actual gold is. Only ever buy gold jewellery when 50% off - happy to pay 2x spot. So if you see a piece at 50% off and manage to weigh it before buying and find out its discount price is 3x spot then you're getting ripped off. These figures are only for average pieces, not custom made works of art.
So cheesy that they don't let you weigh it imo. For example, how do they know what is and what isn't acceptable to me? Maybe 100% over spot WOULD have been an acceptable premium? They could have sold a $1400 bracelet on the spot. Massive fail on their part tbh.
Jewellers mark gold up by about 600% so even 50% off sale you will still pay 200% or so above spot price. I've heard stories of Cash Converters having sales and people bought gold items 95% to the spot price. That is the best i've heard from my experience
That's why it's important to make sure you can weigh the item or have some understanding at least of it's spot value and only buy when the 50% off sales are on. I have no hesitation in paying double the spot price for new gold jewellery if I'm looking for a gift, as long as I have an idea of it's actual gold worth. There are legitimate 50% sales out there at times. As far as paying 95% above spot for 2nd hand gold - no way - having done that a couple of times I can say through experience, gold jewellery, especially chains and necklaces get brittle and break, and in the end are worthless to repair and you end up selling it for as close to spot as possible (or worse if you have a gold party or visit a gold kiosk). It probably happens to gold bands as well - my original wedding ring required repairing 3 times in the first 10 years (it was a jeweller designed twisted white/yellow/rose band - after it was repaired each time it became more fragile). It was a beautiful piece (for a bloke's ring) but poorly designed as far as longevity was concerned. Used gold jewellery (and I'm talking mainly chains) are only good for melting, unless you can get it as close to spot as possible and then you might get a few years of wear out of it if you're lucky. Furthermore fellas, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to buy a piece of gold jewellery for your lady - blokes should limit jewellery to a wedding ring IMO, if you're not married well bad luck - and it is probably going to be worn every day, then 9kt is the most sensible purchase. It looks good, is reasonably priced, and will last - maybe even longer than your relationship.
PLEASE tell me, where does one get a 10oz silver chain? My largest one is 165 grams, but the largest I've seen for sale is 243g, (but it was $1149.95, and I'm not paying $800+ premium)
Look at this monster. 505 gram sterling chain necklace. Specifically says it's too heavy for a woman. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Heavy-Me...S_Fine_Necklaces_Pendants&hash=item3362e02497
Overpriced or underpriced the whole notion is irrelevant. Prices are what people are willing to pay. If someone wants to pay $1000 to eat an IPAD let them and I say power to the manufacturer. There is a lot of R&D work in it and you have to be rewarded, else you wouldn't bother. If margins were to high competitors would come in and sell a similar product for less. No-one is forcing you to purchase said goods. The issues i have with higher prices are largely wholesale products where a large business can get a monopoly on products and largely charge what they want. (coles and woolies for example). You say jewelry is not expensive, and to be fair, it is not in terms of input costs. But paying someone to chop firewood all day for $200 is probably not expensive either in terms of input costs and energy. Is it worth it? well that is a relative term and if you can buy a tonne of chopped timber for $90 then why would you pay twice as much? My point is the price of anything is what someone else is willing to pay. Always. Only when this is disturbed by monopolositic companies that are enabled by government to control a market does this fail.
A friend of mine was a precious metals dealer selling to jewellers. He told me that the typical mark-up of a jeweller is about 500% - yup that's 5 times the value !! Some jewellers the mark-up was 700%. So, when you see a sale offering 50% off remember the metal price is still well over twice it's weight in gold. That's not so bad for high quality beautifully made pieces, but if concerned about the melt value then now you know. As for 9ct that's 9/24 fine gold i.e. 37.5% only so 10g weight contains only 3.75g gold.
Not the pieces I've bought at 50% off - only paid twice the weight in gold. Takes a bit of legwork though.
Since I began taking my stacking seriously (read: not as a bit of fun) I have never bought Jewellery at markups. I have only bought jewellery in the following ways: Estate/Jewellers liquidation auctions - usually around spot, I auto-buy anything under spot Buy pre-alloyed metals from a supplier such as AJS (Australian Jewellers Supplies) and have pieces cast and engraved for me personally. In fact, the ONLY two things I have bought in the last 12 months that haven't been spot based have been a $10 sterling ring for the missus (to shut her up at the auction) and a new clasp for my bracelet (pretty costly at $650 including work)
the mark up on jewellery is 320 % so when they are haveing a 50% off sale they are still making 160% and thats above whole sale .
Coz Jewelery is not generic like computer hardware Also, haven't you heard? If you pay more for a piece of Jewelery it looks better
