I’m sure even if you aren’t trying to pay attention you’ve probably heard about gold prices. And if you haven’t, let me be the one to share. Gold has never been more expensive than it is today. As of right now gold is sitting at $3900 an ounce. Last week, it hit $4300.
I think if you haven’t been paying attention it’s hard to understand what that means or have a reference point. In October 2020, an ounce of gold was worth $1888. In October 2022, it had fallen down to $1600 an ounce. Then in November 2023, it cracked $2000. A year later, $2700. And in this last year, it’s gone up almost $2000 per ounce. That’s a nearly 100% increase over just 5 years.
Okay? And what? What does it mean? Well, for what we do here at By Ren and Aiyah, it means our materials costs have skyrocketed. It means a ring that used to cost me $70 to cast in 14k gold now costs me double for the same amount of material. When our costs go up, we inevitably have to raise the price of our jewelry. Jewelers around the world are raising prices or dropping gold offerings altogether in fear that the market will price out too many of their customers to justify working with the metal at all.
Jumping gold prices indicates a lot. It obviously impacts jewelers like us, but in a much larger sense the ripples affect world currencies, banks, investors, economies, and other commodities like silver and platinum. Right now, gold is going up because the world is, well, losing its mind. Instability in our government, rising tensions globally.. these things cause investors to turn to more stable currencies, a sure bet. Gold. The US dollar has been quickly decreasing in value since Trump took office (who is surprised by this?). Banks around the world are instead buying up a lot of gold in an effort to move away from the dollar.
It also means your gold jewelry has never been worth as much as it is now. This can be a good thing. You’ll see a lot of jewelry companies marketing their solid gold pieces as “investments”, and while this sometimes is true, it can be misleading. Jewelry with a high karat weight gold (18K, 22K, 24K) might see some appreciation. Pieces that are heavy in gold, meaning it’s a chunkier, solid design with a hefty overall weight, will likely see some appreciation. Oftentimes, however, you’re paying for things like labor and gemstones and rarely at-cost gold weight. Getting a return on a piece of jewelry you paid retail price for isn’t always that cut and dry.
Many families, mine included, have used gold to save, store, invest, and wear their money. For a lot of people around the world, the move has been to buy 24k gold jewelry to stash for a rainy day. That gold ring your grandmother held onto from 1940 when gold was at $34 an ounce is worth a lot more today with gold sitting at $3900. I’ll let you do the math.
Having said all that, I’m no economist, and I certainly have not covered all there is to say about the latest gold price surge. Working directly with commodities can be tricky. I do my best to pay attention. Partly because it’s my job, but also because these things are fascinating. A little piece of gold sitting on our jewelry bench waiting to be soldered can represent and alter so much.
My opinion is this – if you can responsibly afford it, it will almost always be a better choice to buy a solid gold piece of jewelry. If not for the investment, for the quality. Gold will never tarnish, it will always be gold, and the price is always going up (although usually not this quickly). Buying it might mean saving and pulling back on impulse purchases for quick fixes like costume jewelry. It might be that you need to shop around a lot more, do research, and try pieces on in person before pulling the trigger. I think that it's worth it to have a piece of jewelry you’ll love, wear, and have for the rest of your life. Maybe pass down to your grandchildren and tell them, “You’ll never believe… gold used to be $3900 an ounce!”.
Our prices will be going up the week before Black Friday. We'll make more announcements about this, but if you've been eyeing a piece (whether it's silver or gold) now is the time to grab it.