Metal Casting Zone Info Blog

Posts Tagged ‘gold’

Product Description
New Melting Ladle. This new melting ladle. It is used for melting metals for casting jewelry and other items. The tool has a wooden handle for insulation and a cast iron bowl dipped in nickel. It has a 5 mm (3/16″) pouring spout. The bowl measures approximately 2″ (51 mm) in diameter and the handle measures about 6″ (152 mm) long.

Melting Dish Ladle & Handle Jewelry Casting Gold Tool

is it a good idea or bad? i know coins are better for faster trade, but when it comes right down to it is an equal weight of .999% pure gold, silver, platinum, or whatever just as good in the long run?

i just ask because sometimes a few grains is much easier to acquire. thankyou

Gold Melting Furnace, Gold Casting Machine, Silver Casting Machine, gold tree, silver tree, wax tree, gold casting, vacuum casting machine, jewellery casting machine, gold casting process

silver Tree, gold Casting

Jewellery Casting Machine, Gold Tree, Silver tree, Wax, rubber Mould Cutting, Gold casting training, gold casting process,Bottom Pouring Vacuum Casting Machine, Vulcaniser(Die Press) Wax Injector, Burn Out Furnace, Wax eleminating Furnace, Centrifugal Casting Machine, Melting Furnace, Rubber, Powder, wax Tree, silver Casting Machine, Gold Casting Machine

For those of you who are thinking about selling gold jewelry, it is crucial that you understand fully how to determine the price for gold jewelry. Not only this can help you to tell a good deal from a bad one, it also helps to analyze your competitors and understand the market better before you make any investment.

Gold price

The most important part of wholesale gold jewelry trading is to understand the breakdown of the cost of a piece of gold jewelry. Let‘s say the current good price is $500 per ounce. To calculate the cost of gold for a piece of 14 karat gold jewelry that weighs 3 gram without any stones, we first divide the price per ounce by 31.5, to get the price per gram, which is $15.87. This is the price of pure gold. To convert this to 14K gold, knowing that there are 24 karats in pure gold, we divide $15.87 by 24 and multiply the result by 14. The price per gram for 14k gold is roughly $9.26. Therefore, the total cost of the gold for a 3 gram ring would be $27.78.

Labor Cost

Another major part of the cost for a piece of gold jewelry is the cost for labor, especially for pieces set with precious stones. Gold jewelry generally requires some filing and polishing after it is cast out of the mold. The labor cost can sometime be as high as $2 per gram, depending on the origin of the jewelry and the style. In addition, the cost of setting any stones on a gold jewelry can be over one dollar per stone. Certain advanced setting such as channel set and invisible set cost even more because of the high level of craftsmanship required.

Markup of Competitors

A good way to analyze if a certain style of gold jewelry is profitable and beneficial for a business is to understand your competitors’ prices. Since you already know how to calculate roughly the cost of a piece of jewelry, and therefore the price that you can get it, buy looking at the markups of your competitors, you may get an idea of how severe the competition is. For instance, if the competitors are marking up the jewelry three times of the cost, the competitiveness of that style is not really that high. On the other, if everyone has the same pricing and the markup is 50% above the cost, the style might have already saturated the market.

Volume trading

Another angle of looking at the pricing issue is that when the competitors are marking up at a low margin, the item is probably accepted by a lot of consumers. The justification behind it is that when the profit per piece is low, and people are trading them actively, there probably is a high demand for it. On short, the higher the profit margin, the low the volume of sales and the low the profit margin, the higher could be the volume of sales. Another point that is worth noting is that the volume theory also applies to jewelry vendors. If you buy in large quantity, pricing should go down automatically. Therefore, running a successfully business involves getting the balance between all the factors within the resources and infrastructure you have such as employees and capital.

Closeout Jewelry

Since jewelry business is highly time-sensitive, styles that were once popular several months ago may not sell at all couple months later. Therefore, when buying gold jewelry wholesale, you should estimate the monthly sales and stock according to the sale volume. For example, you may want to stock a certain style for two months worth of stock and restock it when it runs out in order to minimize the closeout items in the inventory, which is sometimes referred to as inventory shrinkage.

By understanding the market and your competitors before buy wholesale gold jewelry, you can reduce the mistakes during your entrepreneurial endeavor, thus increase the chance of succeeding tremendously.

There are many articles on precious metals on the web and some of them are quiet professional with a lot of details and data. I will try not to give you just another one. Here I will offer you a simple version and avoiding extensive technicality add my professional opinion on the best use of these metals in order to utilize their unique properties.

In this article we will focus on the most popular precious metals used for jewelry: gold, platinum and the fast growing in popularity palladium. Pure gold and platinum are soft metals which are extremely dense. pure gold is about two and half times heavier than iron and pure platinum is just under three times. While really bright in color pure metals are not suitable for fine jewelry because of their softness. Soft metals are easy to damage, difficult to polish, and unsuitable for detailed work. This is why they are mixed (alloyed) with other metals, in order to give them the desired properties. This is also where all this “carats” and confusing numbers come into play. In fact it is pretty simple. All pure metals in nature are white or gray in color except two, gold – bright yellow and copper- reddish pink. Now we go back to precious metals. All different colors of precious metals are achieved by mixing these colored metals with white ones.

Carat is a confusing name for purity or fineness of precious metals. It is confusing because the same word is used as a weight measurement for precious stones. That carat is equal to 0.2gr. and have nothing to do with metal fineness. To differentiate the one carat from the other, in some standards, weight carat is marked with ct and purity karat with kt or k. We can accept this rule to avoid confusion in further articles, therefore when we address metal purity we will use “karat”. Karat is used mainly to define purity of gold alloys. Different countries have different standards for gold purity and the most used globally alloys are: 9kt or 375, 10kt or 416, 14kt or 585, 18kt or 750, 21kt or 875 and 22 or 916. The alternative number which alone can be used as hallmark indicates the number of fine gold parts in the alloy out of 1000. The easy way to translate this into a manageable information is to perceive it as the percentage of fine gold used x10. For example 750 means 75% pure gold content or 18kt.

Platinum is used in almost pure form and 95% hallmarked 950 is a standard alloy. All alloys with pure platinum content of 95.0% or higher can be also marked with the full word “platinum” or “”plat.” Other used alloys are 900 (90%), 800 (80%) and 585(58.5) also called karat platinum. The amazing qualities of this amazing metal are better described in another article where I am comparing it with the white gold alternative.

Palladium 950 alloys are as white as the platinum, blending well with white diamonds and eliminating the need of rhodium plating. Palladium is a light metal with weight close to the one of sterling silver and much lighter than platinum and high carat gold alloys, thus making it the metal of choice for items like large earrings. At the time of writing, the price of 950 palladium alloys is about a third of the price of the 18k white gold offering great possibilities for large solid pieces at significantly reduced price. One disadvantage though is that quality casting of palladium requires materials and equipment, currently not viable for small workshops

The hallmarks you will usually find on your precious metal jewelry are:

1). Karat or fineness stamp (e.g. 18kt/ct or 750)

2) Manufacturer’s stamp

The karat stamp does not have much value without the manufacturers stamp because the declaration of purity is not signed. Beware; in most countries you can buy a karat stamp for few dollars.

Variety in gold colors and mechanical properties is achieved by alloying fine gold with one or more other metals. White gold for example is a gold alloy with whitening metals, usually palladium, nickel or silver or combination of them. Since the fine gold is always yellow, it is the alloy (base) metals that give the karat gold its color and properties. For example to be able to stamp an item as 18k it must content at least 75% of fine gold. The remaining 25 percent of alloy metals will determine its color and physical properties. If 8.4% of copper and 16.6% silver is used in the alloy, we will end up with the traditional rich 18k yellow gold color. If we mix the same amount of fine gold with 15 % of palladium and 10% of silver we will have good quality white gold. The constant content in 18k gold alloy is always 75% pure gold. Higher than 18k white gold alloys are not possible because the alloying metals are not in sufficient quantity to absorb the yellowness of the pure gold. 21k or 22k gold is always yellow, very yellow. The same principle applies for platinum and palladium, although these metals are used in much purer form (95% is a standard) and there is not detectible changes in color. The only changes there are in physical properties.

Now, with our newly acquired knowledge of precious metals we will probably arrive at the questions: What are the best alloys? What metal jewelry should I buy?

Different metals are good for different purposes. As a general rule (and if you can afford it) buy alloys with higher precious metal content. That applies mainly for gold, since platinum and palladium are used in almost pure form. 18kt gold or higher have distinctive gold color and real precious metal properties. My opinion is that alloys with less than 50% gold content (under 14k) should not be called gold, but gold brass or something else defining the inferior gold content. If you are looking for big bold and heavy pieces the best is to go for silver with gold accents or the very new precium (25%palladium and silver alloy developed by Handy & Hartman)which may be already on the market at the time you read this article. For your fine jewelry pieces choose 18k gold and platinum. 18k white gold can be used for heavier, thicker pieces while platinum is the best for delicate settings with a lot of detail. It does not make sense to set $10 000 diamond in white gold just to save $ 300-400 difference on platinum setting. Besides the aesthetical superiority, the security of platinum setting is immensely greater. When we come to earrings, especially large ones, choosing lighter alloys is essential. Palladium is the first choice followed by 14k white. For yellow, stick to 18k. You can never get the right color in lower karats. Then, your goldsmith’s ability to work light will come handy. Try to find the right craftsman. It is really making all the difference. The weight of the stud settings is rather small even in the case of large diamonds, thus making the platinum the obvious choice for white metal. The difference in price will be insignificant but the difference in strength and safety and quality – vast. Another advantage of the platinum studs – they could be made very delicate and retain their strength.

The process involved with purchasing jewelry can be at the same time fun and confusing. You can purchase jewelry either for someone you love or for yourself. The decision you make may turn out to be a tough one. Because gold jewelry represents something you will cherish for a very long time or maybe your whole life, you should allocate as much time as possible so the choice you make will be a wise one. There are some things you should consider in before you go for the purchase.

The first thing you should keep in mind is the source of the jewelry. Bargains are at hand. But always remember that you get what you pay for. If you are a person that shops online, the best choice for you would be a web store that specializes in fine jewelry. You should not have very high expectations if you choose to purchase from a website that offers home appliances alongside gold jewelry, even if it is a bargain. You should also look for a return policy in case the jewelry is not what you expected it to be or has a defect.

A very important aspect of purchasing gold jewelry is the quality. You can choose to purchase jewelry at low prices, but what are you really getting out of it? The quality of gold jewelry comes from karats. For instance, 24k gold is pure gold, but 18k represents 75% gold, 14k 58.3% and 10k 41.6%. All the other percentage is made of alloy or different metals that give the jewelry shape and strength.

You should not e hasty in your purchase. Try to get an idea about what you want by looking at a lot of designs. This may prove helpful and the satisfaction of the purchase will be even greater, because you know you have bought exactly what you wanted. The design and engravings, the look and feel, the ornamental detail and the finish are all things that you can use to determine whether that jewelry is suited for you or for the recipient you want to buy it for.

If you want to purchase gold jewelry for somebody else, be sure you are well-informed. You must know what your recipient’s ring size, neck size, wrist size or ankle size is, depending on the type of jewelry you want to purchase. You should do this in order to avoid any later unpleasant situations, like miss fits. You should also choose something that bears a special meaning or has some kind of special energy.

David Weitzman is a cosmic jewelry designer. He started designing this type of jewelry in 1998 and he received responses about the changes and the experiences that occurred in the lives of customers all over the world. The gold jewelry he designs represents symbols from Jewish culture –Star of David–, from Egyptian culture –Eye of Horus–, Tibetan symbols –Endless knot, Lotus– and others. You will also find representations of sacred geometry symbols found in all the cultures mentioned afore, like the Seed of Life, the Flower of Life and the Tree of life.

The jewels are hand crafted and finished. All of them are submitted to a special energizing process that involves special meditation. They are intended to cast light on the road of the truth seeker. The jewels are designed for a specific purpose and can be worn as talismans for success and good karma, others for healing and self balance purposes and some as symbols of unity. You can purchase them for yourself or as a perfect gift on a special occasion like a birthday or anniversary.

All the jewelry designed by David Weitzman can be found at ka-gold-jewelry.com. Ka represents the life force of the human spirit in ancient Egyptian culture. Gold has always been a symbol of the sun and can be used to represent life, light, love and well being.