Happy spring!
Now it is time for me to start talking about topics and getting into some actual information!
If you are anything like me, and you read magazines like Vogue and InStyle, you have seen some fairly amazing prices quoted beside apparel, accessories and jewelry. I often see prices listed as ‘deals’ that make my hair stand on end. How can they say that $1,000.00 for a gold filled bracelet is a ‘deal’?!
Well, the answer is complicated.
First, what does gold filled mean? There is a good write-up on eBay that says: “When deciding on a gold jewelry item there are always many different terms that come up. The most popular are Solid Gold, Gold Filled, and Gold Plated. It is important to know the differences between Gold Filled jewelry and Gold Plated jewelry when making your choice. Solid gold is of course an exquisite piece of jewelry. Gold filled is the next level and is an amazing, quality alternative to solid gold. Gold plating is the lower level and these items tend to tarnish and can often times turn the skin green.”
The write-up linked above is a good place to start when trying to decide the value of an item and will explain the government regulations about gold content.
So, now we have established that gold filled can be pretty nice, but is it worth hundreds of dollars? Not by itself probably. So now we need to assess what else the piece is made of…
- Is it stone? and if it is stone, how rare or costly is the material?
- Is the stone faceted? or merely tumbled.
- Is there glass or plastic in the piece? and if so, is it hand-made? or is it factory made?
- Is there other metal in the piece, and if so is that metal expensive? (example sterling silver)
- Is the piece one of a limited edition?
- Is the artist well known?
- Is the piece numbered or marked in some way that makes it unique?
These are all standard ways in which art work of all kinds may be distinguished and separated from other works, making some more valuable than others.
For the sake of argument, let’s say we are looking at a bracelet. This bracelet is made from gold filled wire, beads and findings and it has glass beads or embellishments. The glass beads are not unusual, and appear to be made from a mold on close examination*. There is no signature or edition number on the piece. The bracelet is from a line by a designer you have not heard of and is being sold in a high end department store, priced at $700.00.
Is it worth it? Well, the short answer is probably no. You would probably never get $700 back for the bracelet were you to choose to sell it. It does not have any inherant value of its own based on the materials and lack of markings.
The long answer is maybe. If you love it, and you feel you will wear it for many years and get a great deal of joy and satisfaction from it, then it may be worth the price to you. So long as you realize that the only resale value would be for the aesthetics of the piece, or possibly for a collector of pieces from the specific designer or period of time when it was made. And there is no guarantee that the period or designer you see today will be of any interest to anyone tomorrow.
So, in the final analisys, if you love it and you won’t be using your rent money to buy it – go ahead and buy it. Wear it and enjoy it. But if you are trying to buy jewelry that will retain a portion of its purchase value based on the materials – this is not your bracelet. You would do better to look into buying a solid gold chain that will at least retain the value of it’s weight in gold.
One final note about resale: you get very little when you attempt to resell gold and silver. Even most stones are not able to be sold for anything like what you pay for them. The markup on a lot of jewelry (particularly 14 Kt gold) is very, very high. Most smaller stores cannot compete with the prices offered by large chain stores on diamonds and gold. And, even at those big chains, those wonderful sales they offer never involve pieces of great value. Sale items tend to be made from inferior stones, and are often made from very light weight gold chain or stock.
Best bet – buy jewelry you love because you love it. Wear your jewelry whenever you feel like it, then give it to someone you love when you are ready to upgrade or move on to a new style or material. Don’t think of it as an investment, think of it as fun!
