[quote=deadzone]Why do you say 14K gold jewelry is worthless? It is worth basically its equivalent weight in gold in proportion to 18K. Can you tell the difference looking at it?
Nowadays with the high price of gold, 10K jewelry is quite common.[/quote]
I’m not a jewelry expert, so I don’t claim to be…But, to me 14k or 10k gold isn’t worthless. It’s just worth less….a lot less…
I think most 14k jewelry are lousy “investment grade jewelry” because it’s meant to be affordable for the average person and meant to look pretty…But it’s marked up significantly above how much gold content is in it. If you want to resell it, it’s worth about how much gold content is in there, which is a lot less than most originally bought it for. Not in all cases, but in a lot of cases… When jewelry is bought back, often times it’s melted down for gold content only. At least that’s what one of my friends who owns a jewelry retail store that buys back gold jewelry says. The top dollars she pays is usually the old pieces that come from asia that are 18k and 24k…but again they are mostly melted down.
I think “investment grade” jewelry here in the west are not 10k or 14k gold, they are at least 18k and they are usually associated with a brand or celebrity or both to be worth more than the gold content. You won’t find many in that category that are 10k or 14k…And I think if you try to resell them, you’ll find out what I’m saying, probably.
That’s not to say one shouldn’t buy 14k gold pieces for a significant other. They are pretty, and there is a non-financial benefit of jewelry for significant other. But imho, calling it an good “investment” in most cases is a far stretch, especially if you are buying them from retail stores brand new. You might be able to arbitrage them if you buy something from someone, and that someone doesn’t know what it’s really worth, and you do. No different than going to garage sale and finding an painting that’s worth a lot that the seller didn’t know about. But again, I’m not a jewelry expert and don’t like that sort of wild speculation/gambling…
That’s why when it comes to gold, I just prefer the real thing…Bullion. because the markup from the gold content is as low as it’s going to get. Gold coins at times can be purchased at $10-15/ounce above spot prices and sold $10-15/ounce below spot prices. Actually for awhile, when one bought gold over a verified trusted gold dealer over eBay, you could actually get gold below spot because for awhile eBay included coin purchases as part of their eBay bucks rebate program…They did that until a lot of people like took advantage of that, and then they started to exclude bullion purchases…It was great because you bought gold $10-15 above spot, your ebay buck reward would rebate you back $100 per coin purchase up to 4 coins per quarter, and your Visa card would rebate you back 1% for purchases….
Some people collect rare coins, and those coins have value beyond the metal content. That works too. But, I don’t do that. I just prefer to keep it simple…
