A digital archive showcasing the extensive collection of jewellery and adornment images shared on the former Ethnic Jewels Ning site over the years. These images have significantly enriched discussions on cultural adornment and its global dispersion.
You need to be a member of Adorned Histories to add comments!
Request your copy of our newsletter.
If you would like to receive our newsletter
Comments
Looks great!
This was a good one, just found a new home. The color of it was nice and good price for all the silver involved. Which is interesting because when people ask prices and weights ( i don't sell by grm) and then when you ask the people selling by grm what they are asking per grm? they fail to tell you. It is still up in the air depending who is selling meaning there is no one grm price. Even in India where they are always putting on scale, there is a sliding scale of prices all to do with where the silver is from, how rare. Instead of just pricing it like that. They use the grm price and then mark accordingly. I find the system arbitrary since there is not one standard price per grm.. why use it at all?
When I purchase by gram to resell, that's how I base prices. When it's by the piece, then I resell by the piece. I believe that weight is essential as it lets us know how hefty a piece is- comfortable to wear or not. The weight of a piece may also appeal to our "ancient" selves- as we still see in many cultures; the greater the weigh, the more prestige and wealth associated with it.
Hi, I have usually found in all my years buying from weight, never has it in selling come into question until recently. I have never sold anything by weight since I buy with the quality in mind even after all those years when everything in India was on a scale. Here we don't weigh or lets say when I buy I don't have people weighing , only by piece. Usually clients I deal with like bigger things and weight only is secondary to the appeal of the piece, scarcity etc. I think for commercial trade at boutique shows or whole sale venues, maybe it might work, or with parts etc. But I find that weight becomes arbitrary when one is selling unique antique pieces especially where is in India , China and Indonesia the weight also becomes a sliding scale based on the quality as well. I remember 6 r grm and then at the same time 50 r grm and even then price was based on the quality. now those same items have same scale only now based on the higher silver price. The reason I'm mentioning it is if I were buying and asking for grm price since grm is mentioned as part of the selling description, I have encountered dealers not telling me what they are charging per grm ? this is why i find it a hard thing to know weight when the price usually is not really factored into a real calculation. If you are buying in countries where there is a sliding scale, then you mark up with orignal grm ;price in mind according to some base price that has been established? This is what i'm trying to find out.. how do you price it by grm when the charge for grms is so different every place? Isn't it the same to say I paid x and then just mark it up to x which is what normally one does? Why I'm asking is that when people ask me the price and then ask how many grms and I'm weighing it, I 'm trying to understand how they are getting a calculation based on what?
I think that there are different markets. We sell old and new jewelry and with the new, we price based on gram- some pieces we price straight out and others we literally sell by the gram, so we have to weigh items for the customer. We purchase most of our old items by weight as well, so this is how we base most pricing and as we purchase by gram weight, it makes the most sense for our market. Sometimes we do get pieces that are not based on gram weight, and we sell them this way- not based on gram weight. I think that in your market, this would be the norm. It sounds fishy that dealers would not tell you what they charge per gram UNLESS it is by piece.
The gram price in Morocco, for example, will vary according to scarcity, quality, silver grade- many factors. We are used to what certain items go for what price per gram; it's always been that way in Morocco since I've been buying, and it's the norm. Many dealers will price items individually at very high prices, but when it comes to buying wholesale, almost everything is sold by gram weight- perhaps this is how they purchase from women and other wholesale dealers? We price based on the price that we pay for an item (which in turn was based on grams). Yes, it would be similar to paying X for an item and selling it for Y. It helps us to know gram weight as when we have a wholesale customer, we know the rock-bottom price that we can accept per gram for X number of grams.
With Chinese silver, I have NEVER purchased by gram weight, only by piece, so gram weight has no factor in our pricing.
I think that gram weight makes no sense in your market. In ours, it is an important factor in our pricing structure. I believe that the new trend to ask gram weight may have a factor in the over all high market value of silver. People may see silver of any sort as an investment, not just culturally, but in a "worth it's weight in gold" way. It has certainly been a topsy-turvy market for everything the past several years!
Hi Hillary
thanks for the explanation. I guess the only place I ever purchased grm weight is in India. Even last time in Morocco I spent 40K i didn't buy one piece that way at all. Everything by piece. Even at the typical whole sale type people I had whole sale prices based on what I knew to be the value in my mine down from what they were asking. I did see them weigh things but it only maybe was for them to know the amount and then when I negotiated I used my own sense of what to pay based on what I knew I could sell it for. Is there some way to know what the grm weight is before one goes some place? antique silver is all I buy so again that is different then new fashion jewelry etc. Maybe good dealers tell you if you buy from them all the time. Even going into India every few months and buying for years I never ever had that kind of experience to buy with grm in mind. Yes in India everything is by grm but in fact like I said the price varied so much that it was really a way of them knowing how much they paid only. The scale in old days was 6rp a gm for most. Then up to 50 per grm for south Indian silver. Do you know what it is now? I think some one told me 4 dollars to 10 dollars a grm? is that possible? I'm so far away from the currency and grm amounts now but it is good to know actually because most of what I sell is from old collections and I base solely on the cost however if silver is in some cases so high, then I might have to re examine what I'm doing.. I have heard variations of degrees of pricing so that's why I'm interested. I have not heard anything standard as yet , this of coarse when buying from a scale situation abroad. I think if one goes all the time one gets to know, so that must be how to judge. I am not going so often now and not buying big amounts so it's not as important. The only reason i asked is I had a dealer ask me the grm weight of something i was selling and I weighted it and told him, and when I saw he was a dealer and selling in grms I asked how much he was charging per for similar type items.. he didn't tell me so I was just curious. These were on Turkmen items.
From my experience buying in Morocco most dealers will give a gram weight, even for antiques, if asked to do so and the gram weight of varying ages and qualities is silver is well known. All you have to do is ask a dealer.It is true, that not all dealers will sell antiques by gram weight, but some do and most have a very clear idea of what that price is. Most foreign buyers don't ask gram weight because they are used to buying by the piece and the dealers know that.
As collectors, Truus and I would never buy a price by the real/supposed gram value, but consider ALL the factors that we find appealing - or not. If the piece is made of very good silver, as an older piece (say 80% or more), that is certainly a plus, and if there is a lot of such silver, then it is one influence on us - but only one. Overall, beauty, artistry, interest, place of origin, function, age (in no particular order) interest us more than the materials per se, though the materials used do, for one thing, impact on the appearance, and if they are good, they of course "underwrite" the price. In some - usually simple - cases the material does become all-important: for example, if you buy a necklace of high quality coral, and especially an older one. We most often buy pieces that do not consist of beads only, but have interesting designs, and result from considerable thought and work, so that those qualities (thought and work) are terribly important to us. This is just to give a general idea. No "dot point" is likely to be decisive by itself, for us, nor do we add factors up individually. We take into account the TOTALITY as best we can, and that way end up with an overall "grade", so to speak, which is the price. Usually I think there is reasonable agreement, if you look at what a NUMBER of dealers (or frequent private sellers) what the price-range should be, for collectible - usually older - pieces, which are the ones we are most interested in.
Patti, you summed it up nicely. I again stress that I think that buying and selling in different markets makes all of the difference. Only once in a while do I buy an item in Morocco by the piece. I find my self weighing items all of the time and I base much of my personal buying online on weight as well, though it is certainly only one factor.
Pat when you say the prices of silver are well known, well known by whom? is it written some place? Yes the standard price in a daily basis is known if you are selling scrap. Yes you can ask , how much are you charging for this as they are weighing something and I suppose yes they will tell you. If you mean it is well known to all the dealers between themselves maybe that I can understand, but where did you learn the price variation. From Sarah? Is it something she told you or did you figure this out yourself by asking or pricing? Being that everything is priced also when you ask , how much is this , they give you a price.. do you ask to have them weigh it also and then figure out by what type of jewelry it is the grm value? The sentence the variation of values is well known? I'm really not sure where this information is ? I would like to know this if you can share it with us would be most helpful..
.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next