Platinum pricing, Am I getting screwed?

[phil94]

So I have been back and forth with my custom E-ring designer and things are almost finalized. We agreed on a price ceiling at which I stated was my upper limit and figured the ring would be below that. She returned to me with a price above this and I requested an itemization of what the costs were. Most things (ie diamonds, polishing, setting, casting..) seem very reasonable but the majority of the cost went to the platinum. She stated a cost of almost $1200 for just 90/10 platinum on a ring that is only a 2mm shank and 3dwt of platinum. I know platinum is around $1600 an ounce so thats roughly $80/dwt so with inflation of cost I would expect no more than $150-200/dwt. Is that reasonable? Am I missing something? Any insight would be greatly appreciated

 

[bcavitt]

$1,200 sounds high for 3 DWT of platinum. $150-$200 @ DWT is probably pushing the low end of what a jeweler can do and still make a reasonable profit on the metal. A lot depends on his overhead (a small shop would have significantly less overhead and therefore charge less for the metal).

Bryan Cavitt

 

[Karl_K]

90/10 is $85.76 per DWT from gs gold in bulk
http://www.gsgold.com/cart/search_result.asp?CATEGORY=01-CG-CastingGrain

Remember that you need to have more than is in the finished ring to account for that lost in casing and polishing.
So figure 4 DWT.