Wholesale Jewelry – Know How to Get Your Money’s Worth When Buying Wholesale Silver Jewelry

When buying wholesale silver jewelries that you will resell online, you may need to take at least a crash course on jewelry appraising or have someone with experience by your side to help you obtain the right quality of silver jewelries without being shortchanged.

There are quite a number of considerations that a retailer should learn when ascertaining the value of silver jewelries. One of these has to do with finishing. Majority of sterling silver jewelries you will find are plated since over time silver tends to turn yellow and plating it gives it a shield of protection. The material used for plating may greatly affect the final price of the jewelry. If the plating used is rhodium which is a precious metal and much more expensive than sterling silver, the value of the jewelry will be much more expensive than those that were plated in non-precious metals like nickel. Most Italian sterling silver is plated in nickel.

Many prefer rhodium because it makes the silver very resistant to tarnishing. To reduce cost, many manufacturers would first give the silver a coating of copper before finally plating it in rhodium. However, silver with copper may turn green when worn by people with a skin type that may cause a reaction. Thus, it is good to ask your supplier whether the jewelry you are about to buy is directly plated in rhodium or if it contains another metal other than rhodium and silver. There are sterling silver jewelries that are not plated at all but instead they are polished in a machine. The process of polishing silver does not entail any raw material cost and jewelries finished this way are sometimes less expensive than plated ones. Those with an antique finish have been dipped in a chemical that has the ability to oxidize silver and then they are polished. This kind of finishing should not cost more than the regular high polished sterling silver.

Also to be considered when buying silver jewelries is the stone cutting. Many silver jewelries may include stones as part of the jewelries’ design. Stones, whether natural or synthetic, may cost more or less depending on the stone cutting. For example, stones in princess cut will cost more than round cut. However, the emerald cut or baguette cut would cost more than the princess cut.

The manner of stone setting also dictates the final cost of the silver jewelry. An inexpensive way to set stones on silver is through wax setting. Stones set in this manner are arranged on the mold prior to pouring of hot melted silver. The whole piece including the stones is cast out from the mold. This method of setting actually reduces the quality of the stones due to the heated silver and the quality of setting is not consistent.
In contrast, hand-setting the stones produces better quality silver jewelries but then they are much more expensive because their production is more labor intensive.

Lastly, the process by which the metal part of the jewelry is produced largely determines the cost of the finished jewelry. Some silver jewelries are merely cut out from silver sheets which is less expensive than the traditional way of casting silver on a mold. The latter is more costly because the silver metal after casting, still goes through a series of steps like polishing and filing making its production more laborious and thus more expensive.