5 Crucial Factors that Determine the Value of Jewelry
Whether it’s a pendant, necklace, bracelet, earring, or ring, jewelry is always valued on the basis of either one or more of the same aspects. If there is a special day coming up soon and you are considering jewelry as a gift to commemorate that date, keep the following points in mind.
Metal
Gold, platinum, and sterling silver are the three precious metals that are primarily used in jewelry making. Both gold and platinum are significantly more expensive than silver. It’s a common misbelief that platinum is perennially more expensive than gold. While both gold and platinum have had their respective decades of dominance over each other, gold is more than twice as expensive as platinum in 2023.
Gems
As far as precious gems are concerned, there are far too many of them to mention here. Also, the price of jewels even within the same family differs widely from piece to piece, depending on uniqueness, size, clarity, cut, inclusions, etc. In general, clear diamonds, emeralds, rubies, fire opals, and blue sapphires are among the most expensive gemstones used in making jewelry.
Note that there are more expensive gems such as Alexandrite, musgravite, blue diamond, pink/red diamond, and taaffeite to name a few. However, due to their extreme rarity and price, using them in jewelry pieces is seldom feasible. For those with the means to do so, they can still be options of course.
Craftsmanship
It’s the gem cutters and the jewelry makers who combine hunks of metal and unpolished stones into pieces of rare art. Therefore, price is ultimately determined by the craftsmanship that went into creating the jewelry in question. If the jeweler also happens to be famous for his work already, that adds further financial and prestige value to each piece handmade by them.
Uniqueness
When jewelry is machine-manufactured from generic templates to save money, they hold very little artistic value. While people can buy them at comparatively cheaper prices, none of the pieces are unique, as they are easily replicated in mass numbers. However, when a master craftsman like Louis Krudo creates a ring or a pendant by hand, each piece of jewelry gains value for authenticity, uniqueness, and craftsmanship.
History
Old jewelry with a history behind it is by far the most expensive ever sold on record. The history can be dark, tragic, mysterious, hopeful, foreboding, mystical, mythical, or regal. As long as the jewelry is old, authentic, and reliably linked to one or more remarkable historical events, individual, and/or family, its value will increase substantially with time. Some of the best examples of this phenomenon would be The Pink Star, the Marie-Antoinette Pear Pearl, and The Oppenheimer Blue.
It’s to be noted that old time jewelry of prominence was always handmade from the most precious materials by master jewelers. Therefore, these pieces would be expensive even without the history because they meet all the different criteria that determine the value of jewelry in general. The long history behind them just takes their potential price tags through the roof during auctions.