Written by Carolyn Doyle for customers of
The Dorado Company
and other visitors to the azgem.com website who subscribe.

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To enquire about gems or jewelry...

Usable Gems... and a little opinion.

Gem Stone Jewelry Making

Gem stone jewelry making describes how some independent jewelry dealers produce gem stone jewelry for their customers.

Many of us enjoy jewelry... and we also enjoy people. Some have found that the two can be combined into a successful business selling jewelry without operating a jewelry store.

Thankfully, a number of these independent dealers buy from us. Most started by buying our jewelry dealers kit. Now we continue to provide many of them with loose gem stones and earrings.

This issue of the newsletter focuses on how these dealers combine loose gem stones and other components into a piece of fine custom jewelry.

Please keep in mind that these jewelry dealers are business people. Yes, they're doing what they enjoy, but their purpose is to make a profit. Fortunately, that's not difficult.

So, let's run through how a jewelry dealer  produces a 14 kt. gold and gem stone ring for sale. We'll call our imaginary  jewelry dealer Mary, although both real men. and women are equally successful doing this.

Mary is a part-time jewelry dealer. She has a full-time job and many of her co-workers know she sells jewelry. But they also know she only sells jewelry after work and on weekends.

To begin, Mary needed to establish relationships with a few suppliers where she could get the jewelry components:

She used the information and links in our jewelry dealer's kit to help find them.

Now Mary has a source for gold and platinum mountings... a jewelry mountings manufacturer or supplier.

These folks supply the gold ring that holds the gem stone. They also supply jewelry components such as clasps, bails, heads, and neck chains. Mary found a supplier in her town. He's called a findings dealer.

Most mountings suppliers  are wholesale only, so Mary had to give her business license number to them when she opened her account.

Mary purchased her first few mountings with cash or a credit card, but she has now been allowed to open an account with monthly billing.

Mary also has a colored gem stone dealer (me). She knows she gets a good deal here. Mary doesn't buy all of her colored gems from me... just most of them.

For accent diamonds Mary occasionally buys from her mountings supplier, but usually she buys from  a local diamond dealer.

(When Mary has a call for a larger diamond she goes to her local diamond dealer and gets two or three diamonds to show her customer She doesn't have to buy these diamonds, she borrows them overnight "on memo" as the practice is known in the jewelry trade.)

Mary also has an account with a jewelry trade shop run by Rick. He is a bench jeweler, or goldsmith. Rick sets stones, makes custom mountings, repairs jewelry, and sizes rings.

Today Mary wants to produce a ring for her stock. She keeps several pieces of jewelry in stock to show to customers on request.

Last week Mary bought three ring stone sized gems from me for this purpose. She bought:

She has seen a ring mounting that she likes in one of her mountings catalogs.  It takes an 8 by 4 mm marquise shaped center stone, and six round accent diamonds in 1.7 mm diameter.

Now Mary figures her costs carefully:

	She already knows what she paid for the pink sapphire.
	With a call to her mountings supplier she finds today's price for the mounting. This price varies slightly from day to day, based on the world gold market.
	She also gets the price of the accent diamonds with the same phone call.
	She has a price list from Rick that tells her the cost to set the stones and size the ring.

With this cost information Mary determines what it would cost her to make up the ring. She then adds her profit margin to determine her selling price.

Mary makes a judgment that she can easily sell the ring for this price and give her future customer a great deal.

Mary now calls her mountings supplier and orders the mounting and accent diamonds. Tomorrow afternoon she will visit the supplier, carefully inspect the mounting and accent diamonds for quality, and then take all of the components to Rick. 

Rick will do his magic at the workbench, skillfully setting the stones and buffing the finished jewelry piece to be sure it looks its best.

Mary picks up her ring from Rick a couple of days later, and again inspects it carefully for quality and appearance. She now has another piece of fine custom jewelry in her stock. This one is a pink sapphire and diamond ring in 14 kt. yellow gold.

After Mary sells the ring she'll bring it back to Rick. He will then size it to fit the customer.

And that's one way that independent jewelry dealers produce unique fine jewelry for sale.

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Industry News...

Las Vegas Gem and Jewelry Shows

June in Las Vegas is hot. The jewelry industry trade shows are hot, and so is the weather.

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Jewelry Dealers

Mother's Day and graduations are coming. These occasions present great sales opportunities, as do birthdays and wedding anniversaries.

Check your inventory! Is it time to make up a few new pieces? We have the gem stones you need and you already have the resource information to buy the mountings and have the stones set.

Now is the time! Talk it up, and make those sales.

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Also, be sure to check out that great $10 book called Make Your Content PREsell.

The book's wisdom will help you be more effective... in sales and life.

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Jewelry Dealers Program

Do you enjoy jewelry and gems?

Do you enjoy talking with friends and co-workers?

Take a look at our great Jewelry Dealers Program.

Carolyn Doyle

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