I agree with Lee Einer Subterfuge in pursuit of money is bad mojo and
possibly actionable in court I’ve been doing custom work for many
years I have a 35 X mark-up on the gold We simply weigh the complete
piece and mutiply accordingly That’s the price, period The cost of
the wax is marked up as well, as is the labor for finishing and
setting Generally, the cost to the customer is about 3X the total
cost of labor and manufacturing That pays for the overhead and the
actual time spent in designing the piece, usually using Matrix design
software The waxes are done by hand, by milling or by “growing” on a
wax printer, depending on the design and time frame However you do
it, you MUST charge well or you cannot afford to own these toys ,
maintain a nice working environment and SERVICE your customer after
the sale Many folks I know charge considerably more, but I keep my
overhead very low
Wayne
There are two things.
A. If you’re buying gold from a vendors and fabricating then you
have clean gold. You’ll get better than 66%, maybe 85-90%.
B. If you’re using customers gold as we did, their gold has solder
in it and that will make a difference.
When we sent in gold for refining we kept a record of how much it
should bring in at 58.5%. That was our average.
David Geller
Hi fellow Orchidians. The thing that I love the most about this forum
is the amazing SHARING which takes place. It is wonderful that
jewelry folks from all around the world are willing to give
strangers the benefit of their hard-won knowledge. BUT, perhaps we are
being TOO open about certain subjects (like pricing.) While you may
feel that you are only sharing your with other jewelry
professionals, it just isn’t so ! ! ! Much of everything posted on
bulletin boards is available to the whole world. I have found my name
and posts and that of other Orchidians while using search engines to
research items on the web. While about CAD/CAM or
soldering techniques are GREAT, perhaps markup shouldn’t be discussed
so openly where “civilians” can see it, IMHO. It’s probably too late
too say this…the cat is out of the bag. The discussion which has
been posted so far will be available in SOME archive until “Gibraltar
may crumble, etc.” Just my 2 cents worth. David Barzilay, Lord of the
Rings