high street wedding ring price 7 times value of gold content

hildon233

Jewellers like to pretend their rings are expensive because they are made of gold. This is not true. The value of the gold in a typical wedding ring is only about one seventh of the price - the rest is markup.

Evidence:

I went into Goldsmiths jewellers on the high street yesterday, looking for a man's wedding ring.

A 5mm wide 18kt simple gold band (court profile) was £750. I asked them for the weight, so I could get a feel for how much gold I was getting. The assistant became very defensive and said they didn't have a scales and couldn't possibly talk about weights.

So I went into Ernest Jones and saw a similar ring for a similar price. Same story. They became very shifty when I asked how much it weighed and said they never deal in weight. Same for several other high street jewellers.

Eventually I tried F. Hinds where I again tried a similar ring at a similar price. They reluctantly weighed it for me. It was 4.6 grammes.

So I worked out the value of the gold in it. An 18kt gold ring weighing 4.6 contains 18/24 * 4.6 = 3.45 grammes of gold.
The official price of gold yesterday was £30.40/gramme (source: London Bullion Market Association).

So the ring they were selling for £750 contained just £104.88 worth of gold. Obviously jewellers need to make a profit and I would not expect to pay wholesale rates but that is a truly astonishing markup.

All the high street jewellers are at it. When you go shopping for gold, always ask them to weigh it - just so they know you know you're being totally ripped off.

trinity_enigma

We got our rings from Birmingham jewellery quarter and really appreciated the fact that they work out the price of the rings by weight rather than all the rings costing the same no matter the size.

CompBunny

Great post and very true! I think sites like wedding rings direct, cookson gold, the beautiful company offer much better value for money if you are willing to "buy blind". 18k gold 5mm medium weight court ring in size "Q" (random size for arguements sake, smaller sizes are cheaper) is £411 including VAT from Wedding Rings Direct or £327 from The Beautiful Company who helpfully say that such a ring would contain 6.3g of gold.

hildon233

You're right, trinity_enigma. I have bought gold in the Birmingham jewellery quarter in the past and found the jeweller I dealt with to have an old-fashioned honesty and straightforwardness which was very reassuring.

Unfortunately I am in a typical UK town which is bereft of any decent tradespeople. Maybe we will make a trip to B'ham or Hatton Garden. It's not just about the money - I don't like being taken for a fool.

DizzyMagpie

I've ordered mine from a London-based jewellery maker on etsy called GoldPanPete. They're three 9ct gold, 1mm thick stacking rings, hand made for £50. I'm due to get them next week so fingers crossed they turn out ok!

I'm only a size H and really grudged paying £100+ from a high street jewellers for such a wee bit of metal!

floss2

We bought our bands (18ct shaped diamond set & 9ct D-band) from Goldsmiths using Tesco vouchers, which gave 4 times the face value at the time. As far as I'm concerned, the Tesco vouchers gave us £900 worth of Goldsmiths vouchers, not the hard cash we would have had to spend if we had gone somewhere else.

Faith177

Both my wedding and engagement ring were custom made in the jewellery quarter. The diffrence between what we paid and what they are worth are amazing.

Idiophreak

hildon233 wrote: »

So I worked out the value of the gold in it. An 18kt gold ring weighing 4.6 contains 18/24 * 4.6 = 3.45 grammes of gold.
The official price of gold yesterday was £30.40/gramme (source: London Bullion Market Association).

So the ring they were selling for £750 contained just £104.88 worth of gold. Obviously jewellers need to make a profit and I would not expect to pay wholesale rates but that is a truly astonishing markup.

Kind of a simplistic way of looking at it, to be honest. Fine, there's £105 worth of gold. Then you've got a couple of quid's worth of silver and copper, then the process of manufacturing the 18ct gold. Then you've got the costs of acquiring the gold, storing it, heating it, forming it, polishing it, boxing it...then you've got rates, heating, furniture for the shop, staff, processing payments, resizing the ring, customer service, branding...and I expect when you go to a jewellers you actually want to see more than one ring, so there's an investment in stock, too...

It's really not meaningful to compare the cost of raw materials with the final price in such a black and white way. I'm sure there are only a few quid's worth of materials in an i-pod, for instance, I'm sure the cotton that goes into a pair of Calvin Klein boxers runs into pence...I've no doubt the high street make a good profit on these rings, but to suggest 6/7 of the rrp is markup is quite misleading tbh.

LEJC

Whilst I agree with the OP in essence...I have to side a little with Idio...

Yep sure take your piece of gold and make your wedding ring with it...admittedly the high street jewellers have highly mechanical processes to make them and the cost involved is fairly standard....but a handmade ring can and does take quite a skill and time to make.

If you really object to the costs then something else to consider is actually making your own...there are companies that run courses,and for a few hundred pounds you can have a lovely couple of days making your own rings...not done it myself but my neice did and really recommended the experience!

gadgeteer_2

You can't really look at it that way. Based on your logic, the phone in your pocket is nothing but a collection of plastic and little bit of metal. So instead of the hundreds of pounds the phone manufacturer is charging, it should be about £5 worth of raw material.

It's very normal for the largest cost of a product to be made up other things like staff costs, rent etc.

Places like the JQ in Birmingham have lower rental/staff/marketing costs and deal in high volume so their prices are considerably lower. I bought my fiancee's ring from there so you can save over high street.

But what the High street offers you is convenience and a trusted brand name. Whether you think that price is worth it is a decision for you to make.

MrsC....tobe

There is usually an allowance in the selling price for a discount to be applied aswell so don't be afraid to ask for a discount as many people do and they are happily granted because the jewellers know that this allowance is already in and they're still getting what they want/need for the sale.