What is the best type of jewellery to invest in?

jimjames

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

what training and experience did the sales assistant have in jewelery as an investment? who regulates this kind of advice, and who can you complain to if it turns out to be bad advice?

personally, i find it difficult to justify investments that don't produce an income.

And I wonder if their commission was disclosed as well as it would have to be under FSA rules for regulated investments. Asking any sales person whether to buy from them is a rather unlikely way to get independent advice!

richyg

Curious 2012,
With regards the indian gold - it is just that most gold in public hands is jewellery - and in the UK a lot of it is 9,12 or max 18ct. i think 99.99% is 24 ct. The lower the ct number the less actual gold in the piece. Other metals are added increasing the durability of the piece but it has less gold in it. India happened to make jewellery at 22ct which has more gold but is softer. This has become talked about a lot recently due to 3 reasons
a) Lots of gold jewellery is given as Indian wedding gifts.
b) The price has rocketted over the past 14 years.
b) Since 2000 indian gold has been hallmarked under a voluntary system improving the trust of the Indian hallmark. I bought a gold and diamond ring pre 2000 on holiday and the only hallmark is "750" meaning 18ct. However it is an untrusted hallmark - hence no-one really will value it. I think its 18ct with diamonds worth about £500 but the jewellers arent interrested. As such its value is compromised. As such be careful what you buy or are offered.

I would suggest you dont jump in without research. The gold price is very high - people are not trusting the stock market and investing in anything other than it, even wine with storage fees to pay (yawn - we have seen this before) and these things are being ramped pushing prices higher and higher.

Gold as people have said is the only real store of wealth - as it cant be made or destroyed and has historically stood the test of time.

If the stock market recovers I suspect the money will flee the perceived safety of the precious metal market back to stocks and the price will fall.

If you find something you really want go for it but remember new stuff will probably lose the VAT when it leaves the shop like a new car. It just goes to the chancellor.

If you learn about your watches in the same way as you can learn about old cars you might pick up the next undervalued thing that it starting to become valuable but isnt overpriced.

Rich.

not advice suggested , just my personal opinions

curious2012_2

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

what training and experience did the sales assistant have in jewelery as an investment? who regulates this kind of advice, and who can you complain to if it turns out to be bad advice?

thanks i did think the same. hence i am planning on speaking to some people I know that own pawn shops to get their opinion on what the sales assistant told me. i have my personal reasons for wanting to invest in jewellery as a long term investment rather than in ISAs etc. i invested in ISAs a couple of times and in the long term it did not really work as I ended up using the money lol. I already have some bonds, so now am looking at jewellery etc as long term investments..if i had a good eye to distinguish a fake watch from a real one id be looking at getting a rolex collection edition for cheap, but as I am not an expert at such things am going for a new watch...atleast i can be sure of what I am getting...

curious2012_2

thanks a lot for your advice rich it did break things down for me a little more...that is why i suppose the experts i have spoken to already have advised me to go for 22carat gold...I am thinking i shall be going for some indian gold jewellery, but shall also look at non indian gold jewellery of 22carat....one of the main reasons I want to buy gold jewellery, albeit am really into silver and white gold myself, is because my moms jewellery was stolen many years ago...it was worth a few millions as she had been investing in jewellery from her late teens....and i want to start to replenish that, in her memory...she loved gold, and am happy to buy gold as an investment because i know she would have done the same....i just need to find the right jewellery to buy is all....hmm...H Samuels? here i come lol

curious2012_2

somethingcorporate wrote: »

One small perfect diamond can be far more valuable than a large and obviously flawed one.

thanks for that my mom absolutely LOVED diamonds....she used to say, "diamonds are a girls best friend" lol....and i know what you are saying is correct. But as far as diamonds are concerned I am abit cautious as to buying them as the assistant in the pawn shop i spoke to did not highly recommend buying diamonds as an investment unless I REALLY know about them e.g. diamonds from different countries have different values...so am not ruling them out, as am sure my mom would be happy for me to have some diamond jewellery, but I shall do plenty of research before dabbling in that area..

grey_gym_sock

you do seem to be mixing investment and sentiment, and they may not be 100% compatible ...

i'm not saying you shouldn't do it ... your reasons are your own ... and if you find out more about it and always take out insurance, there is a fair chance of roughly preserving the real value of what you invest in the long term - subject to any wild swings in market prices, which could go either way ...

diamonds specifically can only be valued by experts - based on some combination of size, flawlessness, colour, & other things i've forgotten ... much more convoluted than gold, where it is just the weight of gold that matters (unless you have it as a piece of jewelery that adds value, which i thought most don't) ... the value of diamonds is also more questionable because they have been valued for a shorter time than gold, and there is a weaker secondary market: "diamonds are forever" was an advertising slogan, designed to dissuade ppl from selling into the secondary market, and so to keep up the price.

richyg

Curious2012 - I dont know your age or circustances but it seems like you prefer alternative investments which is great. Just an off topic thought - but if you got a saturday job either paid or even unpaid at a pawnbrokers I reckon within a few days of work you would gain a great deal of knowledge. What watches feel like , maybe how to tell a fake , what kind of jewellery is out there and what its worth as scrap gold or what could be sold on. It might be that you got an opportunity to buy there and as a minimum I reckon you could learn a ton of stuff - that you could rely on in the future. A kind of investment in yourself, often the best kind. Sorry its a bit off topic.

Anyway best of luck.

Reaper

curious2012 wrote: »

I have been advised to invest in Rolex watches as they hardly ever loose value.

I can't claim to be a watch expert but my feeling is the boom years of ostentatious wealth are over. Flaunting riches during a depression is seen as rather poor taste, plus the key Chinese market for big spenders shows signs of decline. MoneyWeek (who admittedly are perma-bears) have been running a series of articles warning people to get out of the luxury goods market. I agree.

DiggerUK

curious2012 wrote: »

.....one thing I did notice with gold is that gold from different countries have different values......

If someone starts to talk like that....make your excuses and leave the shop. Gold is gold and worth the same all over the world.
..._