I am back from one of the longest breaks I've ever taken in my life from the bench. I have taken two weeks off in the past but because of the way the holidays and our flight times ran I actually had about 2 1/2 weeks off. The last time I had that much time off was when I was 15! My wife and I once again went back to our favorite spot in the country, Big Sur. We like to stay at an inn called Ventana that is quite wonderful and I strongly recommend it to anyone heading out to that part of the country. The two pictures above were taken from the deck at the restaurant at Ventana. We also spent a few (cold) days in San Francisco to visit with friends and relatives and some of our favorite stores! So I am well rested and ready to get back to work although so far I've mostly been slogging through end of year things like inventory.
This year I may be revisiting some topics I have discussed earlier simply because the blog has gotten so long that newbies might find it hard to dig out some of the high points and the specific topics they would like to read about although you can get to my blog directory here. But to start with here I want to talk a little bit about metal prices today.
Gold, as many of you know, has reached somewhat stratospheric heights in price in the past two years. For quite awhile I believed that it was a temporary situation and that prices would drop, possibly quite rapidly, at some point. Well this hasn't proven to be the case. While I believe prices peaked at about the $1900 mark and, barring some world disaster, won't go over that point, I am no longer of the opinion that prices will make any significant drops in the near future. Please note that I am not a financial expert, and also that if I really knew what gold was going to do I would be rich and retired by now, but there just doesn't seem to be any reason for gold to go back down as long as the current market forces continue, which it looks like they will.
So why is this important to you? First of all it means it is highly unlikely that jewelry costs will go down so if you have a big occasion coming up and you think you can wait until prices go back down, I simply wouldn't count on it. Secondly, it means that it is going to continue to be a good time to scrap some of that old jewelry you don't wear anymore for something new and fun. While I don't buy gold for scrap outright, I will take it in towards work being done, pieces in my cases or even to put towards repair work. I have had a number of customers who have cleaned out their jewelry boxes and ended up with some beautiful new pieces to wear. There really hasn't ever been a time in the past when you could take some of the (mostly commercial) jewelry you had bought years ago and turn it in for more than you paid for it. The third thing that is important about this is that it means that everything you own currently has far more value than it did if you bought it more than 3 years ago, which means it might be time to update any old appraisals you have. You should check with your insurance companies about whether they require this (some of them do) or if they have clauses allowing for increases in value automatically.
So it's a new year. Why don't you go clean out your closets and see what you come up with. Bring it by and let me see if we can't get you into a nice, new, more beautiful bauble for the upcoming year!
My next posting will be on synthetic diamonds as I just took in an order using a stone a customer purchased recently from one of the synthetic diamond manufacturers.