ask Dave West: The Jewelry Expert

Buying Gold and the Price of Gold

"Hi,

Is there a possibility of fall in gold prices due to the financial crisis in U.S?..."

This comment, recently posted, is a question that is popping up with frequency given the current economic conditions and I, like many, would just love to have a crystal ball about now.

There are those in the radio ads that have been saying that gold is going to continue to rise and may go as high as twice it’s current value – but they are also selling gold as an investment tool and it’s in their best interest to predict a upward trend. Who knows - they may be right. I have also seen predictions of the exact opposite –gold’s price will moderate and fall a bit, maybe even crash. I have even seen rumors on the web that gold’s price is being artificially manipulated. Like I said – who knows?

Demand for gold jewelry is most certainly down and like oil one would think that the price would drop as demand drops; and it did a little bit at the end of last year, but now it is creeping back up again. An economist, banker, financial adviser or currency expert are all much more qualified to make a prediction than I am – but my gut feeling (nothing more) is that the price of gold is going to stay around $800 to $1000 an ounce for quite a while.

Which brings me to the second frequent question – do you buy gold? I would think that just about everybody has seen the "cash for gold" ads on TV – buying and selling of scrap gold are big business.

If you are contemplating selling your old and broken gold jewelry here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Remember you are selling your old or broken gold jewelry for its scrap value. You will be paid based on the amount of pure gold the buyer estimates your jewelry has. If you have a 14k gold bracelet that weighs ¼ of an ounce only roughly half that ¼ ounce is gold. You will not be paid based on the beauty, craftsmanship, original value or personal value of your jewelry; only its gold content. Selling or brokering your jewelry as a piece to be worn and enjoyed is an entirely different subject.

Educate yourself and ask questions – knowing the gold content of the different gold alloys will go along way in avoiding being taken advantage of. Knowing the difference and how to convert between grams (Metric) and pennyweights (English) is also important. Some jewelers and people in the industry use grams only, but others, like me, are old school and use pennyweights.

Shop around, just like you would for anything else. The price paid for scrap gold will very greatly. Don’t be swayed by the claims or hype of some – the only thing that matters is the bottom line – how much are they actually going to pay.

If you are in the market for jewelry and you have broken or old jewelry you are not wearing it may be worth looking into trading it in against your purchase – many stores, mine included offer a premium on scrap gold when the customer is buying new jewelry

David West Nytch, CGA  www.westandcompany.com

Gold and Platinum Prices

The recent and dramatic price increases in both the gold and platinum has not, as yet, been fully felt by the consumer as retailers and manufactures both work through older inventory purchased at lower market prices.

With the coming of the New Year, however, the full effect of higher precious metals prices will begin to be felt as retailers replace inventory.

With the increased pressure on both manufactures and retailers to keep the cost of fine jewelry as low as possible there is going to be an even greater temptation for some to lower the quality and amount of materials and workmanship even further in an attempt to appear like a “great buy” is being offered.

It is more important than ever that the customer do their research and be aware of the quality of what they are purchasing. I hate nothing more than having to tell a customer that their “deal” is in reality money poorly spent.

Because fine jewelry often does not have a brand name and because very subtle differences, not apparent to the untrained eye, can mean huge differences in value; fine jewelry has been a playground for those who wish too deceive for years.

Here are a few tips that I hope will be of help.

• Be extremely wary of any discount above 20% , any claim of selling “wholesale” or any sales pitch claiming the item is worth substantially more than you are asked to pay – it’s not.

• Question the perception that jewelry is somehow a better buy in the NY Diamond district, the internet, the Caribbean, etc. - its not.

• Ask what the return and service policies are BEFORE you buy. NEVER buy form a company that will not offer a return policy or service their product.

• Unless it is a jeweler you know and trust – always pay with a credit card.

• Shop only at reputable stores with a trained and knowledgeable staff.

• Compare similar jewelry in different price points and ask questions about the difference in value.

• NEVER buy from a pushy salesperson or presentation.

• No matter how matter how good the deal sounds always remember this old saying –

   You get what you pay for.

Until next time - that is how I see the world of jewelry from Rochester NY

David West Nytch CGA  www.westandcompany.com
 

Palladium: The Other White Metal

Over the past few years the demand for fine jewelry in white precious metals continues to rise. Traditionally the customer has had two choices; Platinum or White Gold. While the demand for platinum jewelry remains strong, it can be price prohibitive with a current cost hovering around $1200.00 an ounce.

White gold has become the popular alternative. Although white gold is priced more agreeably, it has several drawbacks. First and foremost, white gold is not truly white; it has a slight yellow tint. Plating a white gold ring with rhodium (a relative of Platinum) has been the technique used to make the jewelry appear white. The problem is that the plating wears off in a short period of time, which often leads to customer complaints that their jewelry is changing color. White gold is also not hypoallergenic like platinum.

The jewelry industry has been experimenting with several alternative white precious metal alloys, none of which in my opinion have been all that desirable, until now. Palladium is a precious metal, and a member of the same group of metals as platinum and rhodium. Palladium’s history is tightly linked to that of platinum, as they are found together.

The metals were first worked by South American Indians over 1000 years ago. The Europeans discovered the unique properties of platinum after the Spanish conquest. In 1751 Platinum was first recognized as a new element. It was not until 1804 however, that palladium was separated from platinum.    

       

The use of palladium was limited until the 1970s when its properties became in demand for catalytic converters. Palladium was used in jewelry during WWII when platinum was declared a strategic metal in 1939 and its use was reserved to the military. Because the demand by consumers for white metal jewelry was high both white gold and palladium became popular substitutes.

New 950 palladium alloys have been developed that are true white, hypoallergenic, reasonably priced and have many of platinum’s characteristics.

Like gold and silver and platinum, a palladium alloy’s quality is stated as its fineness. The fineness of a palladium alloy is the amount of pure palladium parts out of a thousand total parts. An example would be a piece of jewelry stamped 950 PD would be 950 parts pure palladium and 5 parts other metals for a total of 1000 parts.

We are very excited to be, for the last year and half, one of the few retailers nationally to be offering 950 Palladium as an alternative to platinum in all of our Signature Series designs and custom work.

Till next time that is how I see the world of jewelry from Rochester, NY

 

David West Nytch CGA  www.westandcompany.com

Shopping

With the holiday rush I’ve been being a little inconsistent with my posting. Now that everything is back to normal, at least for a week or two, it is time to get back on track with my Top Ten Tips to buying jewelry with a post about Shopping.

Shopping for jewelry is a unique experience; every diamond or colored gem is an individual and with a few exceptions two similar looking pieces of jewelry, from two different stores, are rarely of identical quality. This gives shopping for jewelry a special challenge and comparison shopping, like one would do for many products, is entirely different for jewelry.

In my earlier posts on Education and Questions I stressed the need to familiarize yourself with the type of jewelry or gemstone you are interested in and to ask lots of questions, not only as a tool to help expand your knowledge, but also as a way of determining the level of professionalism and knowledge of a store and its staff. Now it is time to go shopping.

The first step I recommend is to shop a variety of stores and get a feel for the differing qualities and prices. Customers often tell me that they would not know what to look for or be able to tell the differences in quality. Rest assured that with some time and effort you will be able to spot a really fine piece of jewelry over a merely mediocre or poor quality one.

Always keep in mind that all jewelers are not created equal! Anybody can open a jewelry store and call themselves a jeweler. It is sad to say but the industry I love is filled with incompetents, those who are ethically challenged, and far too many who have no love of jewelry and are just out for a quick buck. This is why asking questions are so important. A few good questions will quickly separate the wheat from chaff.

Be straight with the jeweler. Tell them exactly what you are looking for and what your needs are. I often encounter customers who are hesitant to tell me what they are really looking for and what is truly on their mind. I often suspect this tendency has to do with the fear that if too much information is revealed the customer will not get the best deal or that somehow they will be manipulated. This is certainly understandable given the bad behavior of many sales people and the deceptive nature of many sales pitches. The problem, however, is that a good jeweler will not be able to help you find the perfect piece without accurate information. The reality is that no matter how much research you do, no matter how many questions you ask, you still are going to have to rely on a knowledgeable, ethical professional to get the very best jewelry for your hard earned dollar.

In the end, you are shopping for a jeweler as much as you are shopping for jewelry. A good jeweler will help you find, or as we often do, create that very perfect piece of jewelry that exceeds your every expectation. A good jeweler will, more times than not, be able to do this for roughly the price of the over hyped and merely mediocre.

The next post in my Top Ten Tips is Discounts and Deals. Until then, that’s how I see the world of jewelry from Rochester, NY 

                           David West Nytch CGA  www.westandcompany.com

Christmas Time

Christmastime in a jewelry store is like no other time of the year. Sure, we do a lot more business and like any other retail store it is a make or break time of year for the company. But there is much more to it than that. There is something almost magical that envelops the store this time of year that is difficult to describe.

The decorations, music, laughter of a customer and sales associate as they chat, the wide-eyed look on a child as her father says, “Now, not a word to Mommy about this,” all just seem to come together in a way that to me is, well, magical.

Around Thanksgiving, for the first time, all the new and exciting jewelry that we started designing, crafting and buying in the heat of summer is all carefully arranged and laid out in the display cases for all to see. All the hard work by myself, my wife Jody and our staff comes together and I often have thought that we are as excited, if not more so, than our customers.

Yvonne DiVita, my blog mentor, was in the store the other day and I was showing her all the new jewelry we had (and as usual getting all worked up about it) when she asked me what I thought was going to be the hot items for Christmas. Now this is always a tough question in early December, you never really know until the 25th what is going to be the most popular jewelry pieces and every year there is at least one surprise that no one saw coming, but there are a few hints and I thought it would make a fun post.

Certainly, the DeBeers Journey jewelry will be a big hit this season, along with diamond line (tennis) bracelets which are making a come back. Demand for colored gem jewelry is also growing again, which to me is great because I love colored gems.

In our store the Warner Brothers Tweety Collection, which is the first ever fine jewelry collection featuring and inspired by the lovable, wide-eyed yellow fashion icon, Tweety. Bright yellow sapphires and sparkling diamonds bring Tweety to life in a fun, fresh and exciting collection of earrings, charms, bracelets and pendants. We are proud to be the exclusive dealers in Western New York.

Our Corsage Collection of custom cut interlocking diamonds is absolutely amazing. Utilizing the finest in precision technology these diamonds are cut to tolerances of one-millionth of and inch. The results are the most brilliant and beautifully crafted invisible set of jewelry I have ever seen.   

Also very popular is a line of hand made gold earrings by a wonderful family of artisans in Vermont. Past, Present and Future Diamond jewelry is still very strong, especially if it has a little twist.

Well, I had some fun making predictions and will let you know what the “surprise” will be for the season.

Till then that’s how I see the world of jewelry for Rochester, NY.  

David West Nytch CGA  www.westandcompany.com        

Questions

Ok, you’ve done some research and learned a bit about the jewelry you are interested in and now you are ready to put that knowledge into action and do some shopping. If knowledge is power (and it is) questions are the source of that power. Asking a lot of questions will build on your knowledge and put you in control of your jewelry purchase instead of just being sold what some jeweler wants to sell you.

A good question has layers of benefits, and can often reveal a lot of information beyond the specific answer. Certainly by asking a lot of questions you will learn something you did not know or you will expand your knowledge of something you already knew.

But there is more to it than that; how your question is answered can tell you a lot about a jeweler’s commitment to helping you find that perfect piece. A few questions will help you determine the level of professionalism and knowledge of a store and its staff. Questions will help you cut through the hype, sales pitches and half truths that plague the jewelry industry. Many of these pitches cannot stand up to even the most casual consumer scrutiny and, of course, they don’t want you asking too many questions.

Not every jeweler you talk to is going to love you asking a lot of questions. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph HOW your question is answered can often be as important as the question itself. Anyone who makes you uncomfortable or seems annoyed that you are asking questions should be avoided. Anyone who acts like your question is foolish or responds with something to the affect of “why would you ask that,” should be avoided. A scripted or rehearsed, “one size fits all” answer should be viewed with suspicion.

A good jeweler will be happy to, and even invite, your questions. I know I do, I love’em!  There is no such thing as too many.

Asking questions is one of the most important tips I can give. I cannot even begin to count the number of bad buying decisions I have seen that would have never happened had the customer asked just a couple more questions.

Keep an eye out for my next Top Ten post - Shopping.

Till then, that’s how I see the world of jewelry from Rochester, NY.

David West Nytch CGA  www.westandcompany.com