LooseOnTheLead
Rough_Rock
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2007
- Messages
- 13
I guess this is more of a rant than anything else.
I'm new at the whole jewelry thing, and I'm frustrated by my inability to know what a given piece is worth.
For example...my fiancée and I attended InterGem last weekend, and, lo and behold, she found a necklace she liked. To put this in perspective, it was the only piece of fine jewelry in the entire show that she really wanted. Naturally, my inclination was to try to get it for her. But...hey, it would be expensive for me, especially since I'd just bought her engagement ring less than two months ago. The "retail" (yeah, whatever) price on the necklace was $6200, and the wholesale (or whatever they called it) price--i.e., the price the exhibitors were quoting as the selling price--was $3100.
Now, please forgive me if my description of the piece is terrible. Again, I'm new at this.
The necklace was in white gold (not sure if 14K or 18K, but that's not important here). The pendant had a 6.5-carat moonstone surrounded by pavé. On the chain were several melee diamonds. According to my fiancée, who had her loupe with her, the diamonds appeared colorless and loupe-clean. (Keep in mind, though, that she's an amateur. She admitted that she probably couldn't tell the difference between a D and an I in a diamond of that size. Or maybe she was being modest. I don't know.) Total carat weight of diamonds was about 1.2. The moonstone was easily the nicest one we saw at the show, although there weren't that many of gem quality. It was fairly transparent, showed nice adularescence, and had a pale blue schiller, with perhaps a bit of yellow.
My fiancée loved the design, which spoke to her in a way that nothing else at the show (or anywhere else so far, for that matter) did. We got the price down to $2700, including tax. Okay...so now what? How the heck do I know if I should be paying that, or half that? Even if I could value the materials accurately, what price do I put on design and workmanship? It's easy to say, well, she likes it, so it's worth the money, but obviously that isn't true at some point--e.g., I would not have considered the piece for $50K. On the down side, there were two things I knew for sure: (1) The exhibitors are capitalists who want to make money. (Nothing wrong with that, of course.) (2) I'm not a good negotiator. So what do I do? Assume that (1) and (2) virtually guarantee that any price I end up with will be overpaying, and therefore I just shouldn't buy the jewelry? Or should I chalk the assumed excess expense up to the cost of a relationship and wedding, and move on?
We didn't buy the necklace on the first day of the show, but we bought it early the next morning on the grounds that she needed something that would go with her wedding dress at the very least, and this necklace was something that would go with almost anything dressy she'd ever wear. Okay, fine...but...I'm still troubled by my vulnerability. Yes, if I'm concerned about what I paid, I could take the thing to get it appraised, but it now that we've bought it together, it has sentimental value that wouldn't show up in any professional appraisal. What I'd like to be able to what to pay for something AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE. Unfortunately, I suspect I will never be able to do that very well with jewelry.
Yep, that was mainly a rant. But if you have any suggestions, I'd like to read them.
For example...my fiancée and I attended InterGem last weekend, and, lo and behold, she found a necklace she liked. To put this in perspective, it was the only piece of fine jewelry in the entire show that she really wanted. Naturally, my inclination was to try to get it for her. But...hey, it would be expensive for me, especially since I'd just bought her engagement ring less than two months ago. The "retail" (yeah, whatever) price on the necklace was $6200, and the wholesale (or whatever they called it) price--i.e., the price the exhibitors were quoting as the selling price--was $3100.
Now, please forgive me if my description of the piece is terrible. Again, I'm new at this.
The necklace was in white gold (not sure if 14K or 18K, but that's not important here). The pendant had a 6.5-carat moonstone surrounded by pavé. On the chain were several melee diamonds. According to my fiancée, who had her loupe with her, the diamonds appeared colorless and loupe-clean. (Keep in mind, though, that she's an amateur. She admitted that she probably couldn't tell the difference between a D and an I in a diamond of that size. Or maybe she was being modest. I don't know.) Total carat weight of diamonds was about 1.2. The moonstone was easily the nicest one we saw at the show, although there weren't that many of gem quality. It was fairly transparent, showed nice adularescence, and had a pale blue schiller, with perhaps a bit of yellow.
My fiancée loved the design, which spoke to her in a way that nothing else at the show (or anywhere else so far, for that matter) did. We got the price down to $2700, including tax. Okay...so now what? How the heck do I know if I should be paying that, or half that? Even if I could value the materials accurately, what price do I put on design and workmanship? It's easy to say, well, she likes it, so it's worth the money, but obviously that isn't true at some point--e.g., I would not have considered the piece for $50K. On the down side, there were two things I knew for sure: (1) The exhibitors are capitalists who want to make money. (Nothing wrong with that, of course.) (2) I'm not a good negotiator. So what do I do? Assume that (1) and (2) virtually guarantee that any price I end up with will be overpaying, and therefore I just shouldn't buy the jewelry? Or should I chalk the assumed excess expense up to the cost of a relationship and wedding, and move on?
We didn't buy the necklace on the first day of the show, but we bought it early the next morning on the grounds that she needed something that would go with her wedding dress at the very least, and this necklace was something that would go with almost anything dressy she'd ever wear. Okay, fine...but...I'm still troubled by my vulnerability. Yes, if I'm concerned about what I paid, I could take the thing to get it appraised, but it now that we've bought it together, it has sentimental value that wouldn't show up in any professional appraisal. What I'd like to be able to what to pay for something AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE. Unfortunately, I suspect I will never be able to do that very well with jewelry.
Yep, that was mainly a rant. But if you have any suggestions, I'd like to read them.