Jeweler Recycles Clients’ Gold and Forges Relationships

WELL, I HAVE a bee in my bonnet, and I must let it out!

Redesign is my favorite part of my job, and using clients’ gemstones and precious metals to create a whole new 21st-century look lights up my Nordic DNA that says recycle/reuse. For years, industry pundits have testified that you cannot reuse gold. Why? “It has already been cast, can’t reuse it,” or “Old gold will cause porosity in the cast piece,” or just plain “It is too old.”

I heartily disagree.

In 2019, I designed a ring for a client. All her gold. All her diamonds and her mom’s diamonds. My cost to do the job was about $1,800. The appraised value was $41,000! How do we convince clients that the jewelry we sell them is truly rare and precious, then turn around and say it is useless? Gold has been dazzling us for thousands of years. Gold is bought from clients and sold as used jewelry or refined, but according to those “who know” in our industry, it can never be reused for a client.

Recently, I designed an engagement ring with a young man and his mom. His grandparents and his parents had been our customers. I gave him diamond prices and asked if he had any old gold. He looked at his mom, who pulled a gold and diamond ring from her purse. It had been her mother-in-law’s. I had designed the ring with his grandmother in about 2007 from old family wedding rings. She later told me that when he asked for the gold, she was thrilled to give it to him for a fourth generation to value.

If a client comes in to sell their gold, I explain it has much more value to them than to me. It goes in my recycle jar and will never be used to create or repair someone else’s jewelry. Casting grain costs 10 times what I will buy scrap 14K gold for. If the client has gold, we will re-shank the ring for $250; if they don’t have the gold, $550, making their scrap worth $300. I understand that by doing business this way, I lose a bit of money, but I do create a rock-solid relationship with my clients. If you buy gold from me, you can use it forever.

I want my clients to know their precious really is precious. With gold going off the charts again, more jewelers should consider this approach.