It takes many years of experience in trading sterling silver jewelry to tell whether a piece of jewelry is of high quality or not. Especially when you are buying wholesale silver jewelry, a minor difference in the quality might affect your business reputation in the long run. This article summarizes the basic metrics for anyone who is beginning to trade silver jewelry to gauge the quality of silver jewelry.
Finishing
Most of the sterling silver jewelry has some sort of plating because silver itself turns yellow over time. There are several ways of finishing a piece of silver jewelry and they will affect the cost of the jewelry substantially.
High polished sterling silver jewelry has no plating on the jewelry at all and is particularly popular with engravable items or for people who are allergic to certain metals such as nickel. The jewelry is polished by machine without additional raw material cost.
Some silver jewelry has a black antique look to cater to certain consumers. These items are processed by putting the jewelry into chemical solution to oxide the silver before polishing and the pricing is similar to that of high polished ones.
Another common way of finishing sterling silver jewelry is nickel plating. Although nickel plating is illegal in some countries, most of the Italian silver jewelry sold in the market today is plated with nickel. However, since nickel is not considered as precious metal, the price is usually not affected by the cost of plating.
The most expensive way of finishing sterling silver jewelry is using Rhodium. Rhodium is a precious metal that is even more expensive than silver. Therefore, silver jewelry with Rhodium plating is usually at least five cent more expensive per gram. Since Rhodium has the property of being highly tarnish resistant and very expensive at the same time, some manufacturers would coat the sterling silver jewelry with a thin layer of copper before plating the Rhodium to reduce the cost. It might be a good idea to ask the vendors if the Rhodium is plated directly or not because some people have skin type that would turn the copper underneath green.
Stone cutting
Sterling silver jewelry usually has natural or synthetic stones set on it. The cutting of the stones, even with the same size, might affect the cost. For instance, the synthetic diamond cubic zirconia stones would cost more if they are in princess cut as suppose to round brilliant cut. Furthermore, emerald cut and baguette cut stones are even more expensive than princess cut ones.
Stone setting
1. The way that stones are set on a piece of jewelry also affects the cost. Many pendant and bracelet styles employ an economical setting method called wax setting. The stones are not really set one by one on the jewelry. Rather, they are fixed on the mold before the jewelry is cast out from the melted silver and come out of the mold together with the silver. This lowers the cost of the silver jewelry significantly. However, the quality of the setting is not consistent and the heat of the silver in liquid form might affect the quality of the stones.
Besides wax setting, there are several hand-setting methods that are widely adopted. The most common one is prong setting, where the stones are held in place by three to eight prongs, depending on the style. More advanced settings include channel setting, bezel setting, pave setting and invisible setting. Understanding the labor costs involved in different kinds of settings is one of the keys to getting merchandize with the best prices.
Stamping and Casting
Another categorization for sterling silver jewelry is the way they manufacture the metal part. To save cost, some jewelry is made by stamping and cutting the needed shapes out from a large sheet of silver and than bend it into the desired shapes. On the other hand, a more traditional way of producing sterling silver jewelry is to cast the metal out of a mold, which is more labor intensive and hence more costly due to the polishing and filing required afterwards. The way the jewelry is made affects the durability a great deal and hence the success of your business.
Greg Peterson got his MBA from MIT business school and is now working as marketing manager for jewelry businesses featuring wholesale silver hip hop jewelry.
Have you seen similar silver jewelry sold at price difference of two to three times from different retailers? Have you ever wondered how retailers mark up the jewelry after they get them from the venders? Here we will show you the wholesale trading secrets of sterling silver jewelry.
Price per gram
The most important piece of information for determining the price of a piece of sterling silver jewelry is the price per gram of the silver. This is the fundamental raw material cost of a piece of sterling silver jewelry due to the fact that silver is considered a precious metal. For instance, the price for silver is $9.5 per ounce, the price per gram is determined by dividing the price per ounce by 31.5, which is 30 cents. Therefore, the cost for the raw material for a 5 gram wedding band ring is roughly $1.5. Some might wonder why people would pay $30 for a silver wedding ring when the silver only cost $1.5. The followings will explain the difference.
Labor cost
To turn raw material into finished goods, it involves a great deal of processing cost. The metal itself has to be melted, molded and cast, polished and assembled. Most of the times, silver jewelry is accented with various stones, the costs for setting the stones are also a major part of the total cost for jewelry, especially for jewelry that requires high level of craftsmanship.
Other materials
Also, the costs for any additional material are added to the jewelry. For instance, a pair silver pearl dangle earrings that has two cultural fresh water pearls with rhodium finish should cost double the price of the silver to make because of the cost of the pearl and rhodium. Note that rhodium is even more expensive than silver itself and it is high tarnish resistant.
Shipping cost
Many styles of jewelry are imported from other countries because of difference in availability of raw materials such as stones and also the specialties in making some particular styles. Hence the shipping cost of transporting is also part of the cost. Usually, for imported sterling silver jewelry, the shipping cost can amount to 10% of what it costs to make the jewelry themselves.
Custom Duties
For the same reasons, imported jewelry incurs duties at the custom. This is a cost that normal consumers are not aware of but it can also increase the price of sterling silver jewelry for 5% to 10%.
Price fluctuations
Some sterling silver jewelry trader, especially wholesaler would associate the price of the jewelry with the current silver price. Therefore, the price of a piece of sterling silver jewelry might be different from month to month, and even day to day in the case of wholesale.
Business Overhead
Just like any other business, the sales have to cover also the overhead of running the business. Normal overhead costs are employees’ salaries, rent, utilities and breakage.
Profit
Of course, the price you pay includes the profit for the sellers.
By knowing the above facts, you can make much more informed decisions when buying wholesale sterling silver jewelry and most importantly, avoid scams. There are occasions when people make fake silver jewelry and sell them at a very low price. If you know how to determine the cost of a piece of silver jewelry, you won’t buy into deals where they offer you a price that is lower than the normal cost of real sterling silver jewelry.
Greg Peterson got his MBA from MIT business school and is now working as marketing manager for jewelry distributors featuring wholesale sterling silver jewelry and wholesale hip hop jewelry featuring cubic zirconia stones.
While many coins are desired by coin collectors there is a group of people who concentrate on collecting silver dollars. As these silver dollars are not that plentiful the choices that are made should be ones where the coin is known to increase in value with the passage of time. Unlike other coins silver dollar values can be found on the internet as well as from coin dealers.
Since there are not many of these silver dollars to be found you may want to research the ones that are known to give good value for money. You can choose the ones like the Morgan silver dollars or the Peace silver dollar as being silver dollars that you should think about adding to your collection. The silver dollar values for these are currently known and documented on the internet.
For example the Morgan silver dollar values are shown to increase for all of the versions. These types of silver dollars are considered by coin collectors to be investments for the future. Therefore the wise coin collector will look to see the silver dollar values for each of these to see which ones they want to buy.
As was stated earlier the other silver dollar that many coin collectors are interested in is that of the Peace silver dollar. This silver dollar came into production after 1918. This time was right after the World War I ended. As not many of these Peace silver dollars were minted they are considered as being rare. Therefore you can expect the silver dollar values for these coins to be expensive.
Out of the Peace silver dollars the ones that were minted at the Philadelphia mint are considered to be even more valuable than the other Peace dollars. The Peace silver dollar values for the 1928 coin are significantly higher in price. To gain a clear idea of the various values that are given for silver dollars you should look for information that deals with this issue. The information will help you when you take your silver coins to be appraised at coin dealers.
These silver dollar values can rise and fall without much warning, therefore if you are thinking of selling your silver dollars you should first choose a period of time when the values are known to be steadily climbing. With the few silver dollars out in the market you will need to choose the ones that will give you a good investment if you are looking to have your coin collection increase in value.
Muna wa Wanjiru is a web administrator and has been researching and reporting on internet marketing for years. For more information on silver dollar values, visit his site at silver dollar
Jewelry has always been an object of immense fascination for women. The quest for newness in jewelry is one that has been ongoing for ages together as craftsmen strive to create innovations in design, material and styles to satisfy the embellishment needs of women and decorate their beauty.
Jewelry was originally made using precious metals and rare gems. This attribute made people yearn to possess such masterpieces that were rare and unique. Jewelry’s worth was based on the metal, the stones used and the craftsmanship. These factors made jewelry an unattainable aspiration to many and a luxury that only the elite could afford. In recent years there has been a paradigm shift. The use of sterling silver has made jewelry a dream come true to those who have been just gaping at the windows of jewelry shops. Silver has been used as a metal for jewelry for long, but silver as such is too soft a metal, and pure silver is seldom used for making jewelry. Sterling silver, however, is a harder alloy lending itself for exquisite craftsmanship.
Sterling silver is 92.5 percent of silver and the remaining an alloy that is predominantly copper. Sterling silver offers just the right material properties like malleability and flexural strength and allows itself to be crafted into intricate designs. Another great advantage is that sterling silver can be gold plated or plated with rhodium to make it look like platinum, giving it the appearance of one of the most expensive metals at the price of silver. One more unbeatable feature about sterling silver is that the metal can be given an antique finish to add a touch of nostalgia and a classic look to jewelry.
Sterling silver jewelry has now swept the market and one can find an endless collection of beautifully crafted rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, pedants and jewelry sets. Among the most popular of choices is the cubic zirconia studded sterling silver jewelry. Cubic Zirconia or CZ as it is popularly known, so closely resembles a diamond that only the well trained eye can tell the difference between the two. The combination of platinum like sterling silver finished jewelry studded with flawless diamond CZ is truly ethereal and regal.
Though sterling silver came as a cost effective replacement for expensive jewelry, it has found the rich, the elite and the celebrities too building up huge and varied collections of sterling silver jewelry, which otherwise would have not been possible. Today, sterling silver jewelry designs are celebrity inspired and designer inspired. There is not a single intricate craftsmanship that is not possible to imitate with this wonderful metal. Sterling silver jewelry can now be shopped with just the click of a mouse and right from the comforts of one’s home. There are many jewelry sites that offer wide collection of unique jewelry at rates that are down to earth.
Gregory Krakovsky is a sterling silver jewelry expert. On his website www.bluewella.com you can find all sorts of sterling silver products.
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Silver is a rather interesting material. The reason that it is interesting is primarily that if you are interested in obtaining silver, you have to pay a lot of money for it. But on closer inspection, what is it exactly that makes silver so valuable? A lot of people will tell you it is because silver is rare and while the rarity certainly come into it, what you are going to find more so than that is the reason that silver is so expensive is because it is in such high demand. When a lot of people want something and are willing to buy it no matter what, people have a bit more leeway to set the prices for it as high as they can. In other words, silver is a material that really can run an economy.
The primary way that silver runs economies is in being purchased through jewelry, so if another type of jewelry were to become more popular than silver, then the running of the economy would be switched from silver jewelry over to that new type of jewelry. But what we are finding from statistical studies is that there already is a type of jewelry that has started to replace silver jewelry in the market. This type of jewelry is a lot more durable and a lot easier to maintain than silver jewelry and just happens to be quite a bit cheaper. It is known as stainless steel jewelry and it really has become the new silver in today’s world.
Stainless steel jewelry’s rise to fame and popularity is not really surprising; primarily because of the price difference between stainless steel jewelry and a lot of the other jewelry types that are sold in dominant market share positions today. Stainless steel jewelry is cheaper than gold jewelry and it is most definitely cheaper than silver jewelry, so what you are going to find ultimately is that the stainless steel jewelry has become so popular first and foremost because it presents a cheaper alternative to materials that are already set in the market such as gold and silver.
More so than that however, what makes stainless steel jewelry the new silver is that it appears to have impacted society in the same way that silver jewelry did when it was originally introduced. It used to be that a piece of silver jewelry was gawked over the whole evening by friends and relatives, but now what people are finding is that their stainless steel jewelry pieces are starting to receive the same attention! For example, a relative might be so surprised that the jewelry piece is actually made of stainless steel that they need to examine it further. People have encountered this at parties when they wear stainless steel jewelry and the end result appears to be that having stainless steel jewelry is now a status symbol; just like silver has been all along.
Whether stainless steel jewelry replaces silver is definitely to be debated, but the indications is definitely that the replacement scenario is a strong possibility; something that would make stainless steel jewelry the new silver.
925silver4u.com has a vast selection of wholesale silver and stainless steel jewelry available. As the distributor and manufacturer, 925silver4u.com is sure to provide you with the best possible silver jewelry.