Question about platinum prices/weight

[akanesama]

Hi all! We just purchased a men's platinum wedding band - it's 6mm wide and we just weighed it on a kitchen scale, it came up as 0.5 oz exactly. We paid $1150 (before tax) for the band. It's a size 12. Did we pay too much/too little? I can't seem to find a site that would tell me that kind of info. The ring is lighter than I thought it would be.

Thank you for reading! I can't wait to post my wedding band next week when I pick it up. They're just setting the diamonds.

It's style # PT439-6RG on lieberfarb.com

 

[akanesama]

Oops, it seems I posted this in the wrong section. Can it be moved to Jewelry talk?

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 11/29/2008 3:30:00 PM
Author:akanesama
Hi all! We just purchased a men''s platinum wedding band - it''s 6mm wide and we just weighed it on a kitchen scale, it came up as 0.5 oz exactly. We paid $1150 (before tax) for the band. It''s a size 12. Did we pay too much/too little? I can''t seem to find a site that would tell me that kind of info. The ring is lighter than I thought it would be.

Thank you for reading! I can''t wait to post my wedding band next week when I pick it up. They''re just setting the diamonds.

It''s style # PT439-6RG on lieberfarb.com

Without calling Lieberfarb on Monday to get a quote I can not tell you their recommended retail, but...

Platinum closed yesterday Friday Nov 2 at $878 per ounce, having crashed down from a high of $2,200 in Feb of this year.

Lets assume that your jeweler bought the piece from Lieberfarb somewhere in the $1000 per ounce range if he had it in stock.

Leiberfarb would have thus paid $1,000 per ounce for the metal to make your ring and would have had to use a little more than the 1/2 ounce that it currently weighs. That is a nice heavy ring for a band by the way.

They would have had to either cast or die strike the ring depending on the manufacturing process that they are using and then they would have to have marked it up from the actual cost to have made the ring. Let''s say that they are into it roughly $600 to $650 by the time they make it, polish it up, box it and sell it and let''s assume that they are using a markup of somewhere in the 30 - 40% range. This allows them to pay the bills, and take home a small net profit at the end of the year, generally not more than 8 - 10%, actually a pretty poor return on invested capital by many industry''s standards.

So we have a range of wholesale pricing to the jeweler of $780 if the ring cost 600 to make and a 30% markup was added to $910 if the ring cost 650 to make and a 40% markup was used.

Then your jeweler needed to buy it, put it in inventory, pay the cost of shipping when he bought it, presumably with other items so that the cost need not be born entirely by the one ring and then he needs to mark it up to pay his bills. Of course if he brought it in when you ordered it then he had to pay the postage just for that ring which adds to the final cost of the ring.

Hard to say what your jeweler is using for a markup, but traditionally the industry will put at least a 100% add on markup (50% of gross if you look at it from the gross cost method) and some stores will add more. So in a typical store you might expect that ring to have cost from $1,560 to $1,820 depending on the cost from Lieberfarb.

None of this incliudes the cost of setting your diamonds which can add from 25 to 75 per stone depending on how they are being set, by whom and how many are being set.

Please keep in mind that these are just estimations based on the information that you gave us and I did not even begin to try figure out the pure platinum deferential cost with the alloyed platinum which would depend on knowing what the alloy was and whether it is 90% pure or 95% pure. This is just an exercise to share with you some of the costs that go into making a ring and why it costs more than the value of the metal.

All of which is to say that yes, I think the price was very fair, especially if it included the labor to set your diamonds into the ring. One of the gifts that the Internet has brought you is tremendous downward pressure on markups, meaning you get more for your dollar, but things still cost more than the cost of the metals involved.

Wink

 

[strmrdr]

$1050 is the cheapest price I found online for a similar weight ring.
So Id say the price is fair.

 

[strmrdr]

Wink you forgot to convert to troy oz in your calculations.

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 11/29/2008 5:08:07 PM
Author: strmrdr
Wink you forgot to convert to troy oz in your calculations.

LOL! I knew I was forgetting SOMETHING.

It''s ALWAYS something. To quote a very missed commedeinne.

Wink

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 11/29/2008 5:11:25 PM
Author: Wink

Date: 11/29/2008 5:08:07 PM

Author: strmrdr

Wink you forgot to convert to troy oz in your calculations.

LOL! I knew I was forgetting SOMETHING.


It''s ALWAYS something. To quote a very missed commedeinne.


Wink

lol np...
What I found interesting is the price jump for the heavyweights was more than the extra plat would explain.
My guess is the lighter ones are cheaper due to mass production and volume.