304 SW Washington Street * Portland, Oregon 97204
Phone: 1-800-690-4995 - Fax: 503-227-4204 - E-mail: ajpm2@hotmail.com

"Hall of Shame" "Promotional" Jewelry: The public is becoming more and more price conscious these days. In most ways that's good - its certainly shaking up the way many firms are doing business and its certainly great for the buyer that more and more firms are competitive in their pricing. Many items are easily identifiable: one store's Sony D-365 CD player is going to be like every other stores Sony D-365 CD player, and the buyer can easily choose which store they want to patronize knowing that the product they are taking home will be identical in every way. Unfortunately, this is not true in jewelry. Retail jewelers, still hanging on to the idea that they can mark up every item 200-500 % !!!, have responded to the public's clamor for more reasonably priced jewelry by carrying poorer quality goods that arelabeled under the label "promotional" jewelry. It would take many pages to list all of the crap for sale out there, but I'll try to highlight the ones you're most likely to come across. Frozen Spit: This graphic term quite accurately describes the look of many of the diamondsbeing marketed today. They have no sparkle, no flash, are filled with inclusions:only the jewelry shops bright hot white lights make them saleable at all. Commonly found in earrings and tennis bracelets, these diamonds were saved from a fate of drilling on the end of a oil rig and are now waiting to "grace" the ears and wrists of those unsuspecting enough to buy this crap. Dirt cheap on the wholesale level (as little as $15 per gram of gold weight and $50 per carat of diamond weight) , and made in the lightest weight possible, they allow the retail jeweler to advertise 1 Ct tennis bracelets for $199 or $299 and still make an enormous markup. Hollow Rope Chain: Solid rope chain is one of the most popular chains on the market today, and for good reason. It looks good, rarely tangles, and lasts longer than any other chain on the market. Part of the reason for its durability is that it weighs more per inch than almost any other chain on the market; as such, its one of the more expensive chains available. In a never ending effort to make cheaper goods, rope chain is now being made with every individual part being a hollow tube rather than a solid wire: thus the name "hollow" rope. This stuff looks just like solid rope, but it is much lighter in weight. So far I have no problem with any of this, and, if this stuff came with a disclosure label I wouldn't be writing this at all. Hollow rope is one of the very flimsiest chains on the market. To me, not warning customers that the substitute chain that is so much cheaper is also so much inferior in an important way is just plain shameful! Needless to say, we don't carry hollow rope chain. Direct Diamond Importers: If your radio stations are anything like ours, you can't get away from some clown droning on ad infinitem about how he's a direct diamond importer, and how you should run not walk to his store and take advantage of the fact that he buys direct from Antwerp. Maybe he should be talking about the incredably high markup he needs to make topay for the fact that every radio station carries his ads 20 or more times a day. Maybe he should be doing a bottom line comparison with retailers like us who routinely sell for 1/3 to 1/2 of his prices every day. What's important is what you sell it for and how you treat your customers, not where you claim to have purchased your merchandise. Is it an investment? Its really amazing to me how freely the word investment is bandied aboutnowadays. To me, an investment is something you put your money in with thegoal of later taking more money out. If there's no hope of making money on the deal, or if the markup or commission on the deal is sooo high that it would take a miracle or a major devaluation of the currency for you to come out with a profit,any reference to investment is at best hype, and at worst just an outright scam.Lets take a look at some of the "investments" out there right now. Private Mint "Coins" and Medallions: There's lots of legitimate private mint stuff out there. It sells for a small premium over its metal content, is pretty to look at and easy to sell. Identificationis easy; they're clearly marked, and at $5.50 silver sell for $6.00 per ounce or less. The rip-offs are also easy to spot. Start with a full color large ad on back ofa magazine, the implication that somehow they are coins (coins are issued by governments, private minters can only issue medallions or rounds ), the implicationthat their limited issue will somehow make them more valuable in the future, andthe implication that you have to hurry to get some. Then figure out the per ounceprice- $10 - 15 even $20 per ounce is not uncommon. When you go to sell these great "investments" : guess what, they're worth theircontent and no more - just as if you had bought a low premium generic silver round.Don't be fooled by slick advertising hyping false rarity - someone has to pay for allof that advertising, and its the suckers who buy into their promotions.A good example is the 1/2 pound silver "coin" plated with 1 - 2 cents worth ofgold selling for $149.00 PLUS SHIPPING! Content on a $5.50 market is $42.00,the cost of striking and plating about a buck, leaving the promoters with a whopping$106.00 profit per "coin." If silver reaches $20 per ounce you will break even. Buying bars, rounds, or US 90% coin would net you more than triple your money profitwith silver making the same move. Jewelry: Now why would I knock something we sell? Obviously, I don't feel that thereis anything wrong with buying jewelry. Jewelry has many purposes: we buy it for thesame reason we buy nice clothes; because it looks good and makes us feel good to wear it. We buy it as a symbol of commitment. But when I hear jewelry salespeopletalking about how jewelry is a good investment, I see red. Jewelry, with very few exceptions, has a resale value of its componentparts and its metal content. All the money put in to the manufacture of jewelryis not recovered when you sell. Additionally, the jewelry industry, as a whole, has such high markups that there is virtually no hope of ever recovering your moneywhen you go to resell it. Even with our low markups, just the fact that you have topay for the labor involved in manufacturing the jewelry items means that gold wouldhave to almost double in value for you to break even. The automobile industry is a good analogy. Everyone knows your brandnew car is immediately worth 20% less the second you drive it off the lot.Imagine how little it would be worth if you could only sell it as scrap!!! There is a easy way to buy gold with the goal of selling it at a profit ifgold becomes more valuable. The markups and commissions are very low;gold only has to move a few dollars for you to realize a profit. Check our bullion pages for further information.