Well, it’s happened. For the first time in history gold has reached $3,000 per troy ounce, and silver in supply houses has been selling for over $36 per troy ounce for some time now.
For perspective, when I was first learning metalsmithing the official price of gold was fixed at $36 an ounce, and silver was a couple of dollars an ounce.
Despite the dramatic rise in raw materials jewelry prices in our small corner of the market have gone up a bit, but have remained stubbornly stable, and tremendously undervalued in comparison to replacement cost. In spite of this — amazingly — the market doesn’t seem to have caught on yet. At all.
Lots of reasons for this I think. A major factor being that the market has transitioned from mostly new goods sold in brick and mortar stores with mostly knowledgeable vendors, to a largely internet based resale market place driven by opportunistic resellers who know little to nothing about what they’re selling, with business models predicated on quickly flipping goods at relatively low margins to “stay competitive” with peers who also know nothing about what they’re selling.
Inevitably I think, they’re going to figure out that the scrap value of much of what they’re selling is higher than they price they paid for it, and that rather than investing time and money in internet sales, they can turn a profit by simply reselling the merchandise to precious metal recyclers.
Sooner or later the public is bound to catch on, and when this happens, I believe we’ll see the market shift fairly quickly from an oversupply of legacy goods, to an undersupply with market prices driven by scarcity.
This is a pretty savvy group of enthusiasts, craftspeople, and collectors, and I’m very interested to hear your thoughts.
I sincerely hope that they don’t all scrap stuff! I know, I took some broken bits and pieces of miscellaneous things that I had stuck in a box over the years. The Gold buyer had two pieces on his bookshelf that I was literally drooling over! They were both old. Their Turquoise Slab I should say not tab necklace was massive, and the squash blossom was all silver and fabulous! I really wanted that squash blossom and he would not even discuss it. So I just drooled over it while he calculated everything. I’m holding on to silver because I think that that is going to skyrocket eventually. I expect they’re going to be using it in manufacturing.
When you think of how much jewelers pay for sterling sheet metal and then add the time, the overhead costs, etc….so much NA jewelry is undervalued. Question…do you know anything about three smokes trading co? I have some earrings with that hallmark and I can find jewelry on sale with this hallmark, but I can’t find much about the shop. Is it still in existence? When did it open? Thanks, Mike.
I love silver - both collect old & rare coins but also store money in bullion precious metals.
I do understand the seller perspective on silver price and value but hope prices are not skyrocketing before I was able to purchase some cool NA stuff in April to June.
Everyone should own some gold and silver for investment. At least 10% of all investments, better more. So why not buy cool NA jewelery that you can use every day and which carries value
That just made me laugh! I’ve always told my husband that my jewelry buying was for my “retirement fund “. I don’t think he thought it was too funny. I have always put away silver coins (when you manage to find them) and when I was still working I was buying silver bars and rounds. I even got some nice silver dollars in a jewelry trade with a local friend.
I will try some coin roll hunting when I arrive in CA. Let’s hope there is some cool old stuff in them. It’s getting tougher to find valuable coins in them but I wanna try. For fun.
Yes, I finally finished up some that I was doing. I got interrupted and stuck them away and forgot about them. Finally finished them a few weeks ago. This wasn’t a silver lot. It was pennies and I was looking for the ones made in 2020 2021 with the West Point Hallmark. That was right before I quit working and I did manage to find quite a few when they would bring new rolls of quarters from the bank. My boss used to rag me about looking through rolls of quarters instead of working. I was always hoping to find an old silver coin, or perhaps even a small gold coin in the pennies.
Your hubby can’t complain too much. I’ve seen some of your beautiful pieces that you got for a steal. You probably did better than the stock market on some of them.
Well…certainly food for thought. I think we’d better buy what we can now before the sellers figure this out, because eventually they will, and the know-nothings who are only looking to make a buck and know or care nothing about the history or artistic value of those pieces will scrap it without a care to what they’re destroying.
The internet has been both a blessing and a curse to buying and selling. Certainly for the informed buyer who knows what they’re looking at and what its value is, there is quite an opportunity to pick up good finds at a lower price than if they were dealing with a knowledgeable seller. Sellers have quite literally the world as their audience with plenty of buyers. But likewise, a wealth of information, both correct and incorrect, very clearly leads to disaster for both parties when items are misidentified and wrongly valued. Access to the internet does not make anyone an expert and makes the true expert’s job a lot harder. And if you are a artist or seller who expects to get a fair price for the sweat, materials, time, or knowledge represented in the thing you’re selling, you will likely get a lot of pushback from some buyers thinking you’re trying to “rip them off” since they saw it cheaper from some rando who thinks the know way more than they actually do.
Thank you, that is predominantly what I purchased. I did get a little carried away once or twice and ordered the Indian chief and something else. I haven’t ordered any in so long that I don’t remember exactly what I have. I do know that I had to keep rearranging to get it all fit in the lock box at the bank. I had to take it there because my jewelry wouldn’t fit in the safe. Lol.
I’ve always told my husband that my jewelry buying was for my “retirement fund “. I don’t think he thought it was too funny. I have always put away silver coins (when you manage to find them) and when I was still working I was buying silver bars and rounds. I even got some nice silver dollars in a jewelry trade with a local friend.
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