19
Feb

Gold Jewellery – Care Advice

So you’ve been given a beautiful piece of gold jewellery? Here’s how to look after it properly.

Gold is the softest of the precious metals. In fact the greater the purity, the softer it is. Hence the ‘old’ prospector’s biting test – pure gold is marked by a hard nibble! (Not to be advised without a dentist on standby!)

This ’softness’ property is one of the reasons why it became so precious and desirable, to every civilisation. Gold, although rare and difficult to obtain could be easily ‘worked’ – Just one ounce can be beaten out to cover a surface area of over 27 square metres!

In it’s purest form it is too soft to be of any use in the making of Jewellery. The pure gold is alloyed with silver, copper and various other metals in order to render a material hard enough for jewellery. The percentage of pure gold, in a Jewellery alloy is denoted by its carat (k) weight. Pure gold is 24k (ie.100%), the other common alloy carat weights are 22k, 18k, 14k, 10k and 9k. 9k is the hardest alloy. Obviously, this means that 9k will scratch all the softer k weights. This is the reason it’s advisable to always wear items of the same  carat weight, if your jewellery is likely to come into contact (rings etc). Gold is resistant to oxidative corrosion – it won’t tarnish, rust or corrode.

A few ‘golden rules’:

* Remove your gold jewellery when using chemicals and engaging in manual work. Gold will scratch abrade reducing its lustrous appearance.
* Remove your jewellery when swimming – Chlorine will affect its lustre.
* To clean jewellery use warm water and cotton wool. For heavy soiling use a weak solution of warm water and detergent-free soap.
* Gold is softer than sand. Sand will scratch your jewellery. Don’t wear it on the beach!
* Always store your jewellery separately in a soft stable-temperature environment. Ideally, keep your jewellery in the box with which it was supplied.
* To give your jewellery a deep clean it can be immersed in a very weak (just a pinch), sodium bicarbonate/boiling water solution for a few seconds. Carefully dry the jewellery immediately with a soft cotton cloth. (*Do not do this if your jewellery contains gemstones).

White Gold:

White Gold was originally developed in the 1920’s as an alternative to Platinum. It’s not actually another type of gold; there’s no such thing as ‘pure’ white gold, or 24k white. It’s simply an alloy in which the choice of alloyed metals has been made to achieve a ‘white’ or platinum like colour.

Rhodium Coating:

Most white gold jewellery has a thin coating of Rhodium to enhance its ‘whiteness’ and reflective properties. Rhodium is a member of the platinum family of metals and serves as a good protective coating to the jewellery, as well as enhancing the colour. Rhodium is harder than gold and will wear much better as a consequence. However, this rhodium coating will wear through with time, which will expose the alloy underneath. As the white gold alloy will be a darker, less white colour, this wear will be noticeable. It is a simple matter to reapply the rhodium coating; most jewellers make a small charge for this.

Article written by Tim Vogel. To view a fine selection of Jewellery pieces featuring authentic Swarovski crystal components and precious metal fittings, visit us here: http://www.whitewolfjewellery.co.uk

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12
Sep

For those of you who are thinking about selling gold jewelry, it is crucial that you understand fully how to determine the price for gold jewelry.Not only this can help you to tell a good deal from a bad one, it also helps to analyze your competitors and understand the market better before you make any investment.Gold price The most important part of wholesale gold jewelry trading is to understand the breakdown of the cost of a piece of gold jewelry.  Let‘s say the current good price is £500 per ounce.

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Wholesale gold jewelry trading guide for entrepreneurs,

To calculate the cost of gold for a piece of 14 karat gold jewelry that weighs 3 gram without any stones, we first divide the price per ounce by 31.5, to get the price per gram, which is £15.87.  This is the price of pure gold.  To convert this to 14K gold, knowing that there are 24 karats in pure gold, we divide £15.87 by 24 and multiply the result by 14.  The price per gram for 14k gold is roughly £9.26.  Therefore, the total cost of the gold for a 3 gram ring would be £27.78.

Labour Cost

Another major part of the cost for a piece of gold jewelry is the cost for labor, especially for pieces set with precious stones.  Gold jewelry generally requires some filing and polishing after it is cast out of the mold.  The labour cost can sometime be as high as £2 per gram, depending on the origin of the jewelry and the style.  In addition, the cost of setting any stones on a gold jewelry can be over one pound per stone.  Certain advanced setting such as channel set and invisible set cost even more because

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of the high level of craftsmanship required.Markup of Competitors A good way to analyze if a certain style of gold jewelry is profitable and beneficial for a business is to understand your competitors’ prices.  Since you already know how to calculate roughly the cost of a piece of jewelry, and therefore the price that you can get it, buy looking at the markups of your competitors, you may get an idea of how severe the competition is.  For instance, if the competitors are marking up the jewelry three times of the cost, the competitiveness of that style is not really that high.  On the other, if everyone has the same pricing and the markup is 50% above the cost, the style might have already saturated the market.

Volume trading

Another angle of looking at the pricing issue is that when the competitors are marking up at a low margin, the item is probably accepted by a lot of consumers.  The justification behind it is that when the profit per piece is low, and people are trading them actively, there probably is a high demand for it.

In short, the higher the profit margin, the low the volume of sales and the low the profit margin, the higher could be the volume of sales.  Another point that is worth noting is that the volume theory also applies to jewelry vendors.  If you buy in large quantity, pricing should go down automatically.  Therefore, running a successfully business involves getting the balance between all the factors within the resources and infrastructure you have such as employees and capital.

Closeout Jewelry

post-gold-for-cashSince jewelry business is highly time-sensitive, styles that were once popular several months ago may not sell at all couple months later.  Therefore, when buying gold jewelry wholesale, you should estimate the monthly sales and stock according to the sale volume.  For example, you may want to stock a certain style for two months worth of stock and restock it when it runs out in order to minimize the closeout items in the inventory, which is sometimes referred to as inventory shrinkage.

By understanding the market and your competitors before buy wholesale gold jewelry, you can reduce the mistakes during your entrepreneurial endeavor, thus increase the chance of succeeding tremendously.
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