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The
jewelry is polished by machine without additional raw
material cost.
 2. Some silver
jewelry has a black antique look to cater to certain
consumers. These items are processed by putting the
jewelry into chemical solution to oxide the silver
before polishing and the pricing is similar to that
of high polished ones
3. Another common way of
finishing sterling silver jewelry is nickel plating.
Although nickel plating is illegal in some countries, most
of the Italian silver jewelry sold in the market today is
plated with nickel. However, since nickel is not considered
as precious metal, the price is usually not affected by the
cost of plating.
4. The most expensive way of
finishing sterling silver jewelry is using Rhodium. Rhodium
is a precious metal that is even more expensive than silver.
Therefore, silver jewelry with Rhodium plating is usually at
least five cent more expensive per gram. Since Rhodium has
the property of being highly tarnish resistant and very
expensive at the same time, some manufacturers would coat
the sterling silver jewelry with a thin layer of copper
before plating the Rhodium to reduce the cost. It might be a
good idea to ask the vendors if the Rhodium is plated
directly or not because some people have skin type that
would turn the copper underneath green.
Stone cutting
Sterling silver jewelry usually has natural or synthetic
stones set on it. The cutting of the stones, even with the
same size, might affect the cost. For instance, the
synthetic diamond cubic zirconia stones would cost more if
they are in princess cut as suppose to round brilliant cut.
Furthermore, emerald cut and baguette cut stones are even
more expensive than princess cut ones.
Stone setting
1. The way that stones are set on a piece of jewelry also
affects the cost. Many pendant and bracelet styles employ an
economical setting method called wax setting. The stones are
not really set one by one on the jewelry. Rather, they are
fixed on the mold before the jewelry is cast out from the
melted silver and come out of the mold together with the
silver. This lowers the cost of the silver jewelry
significantly. However, the quality of the setting is not
consistent and the heat of the silver in liquid form might
affect the quality of the stones.
 
2. Besides wax setting,
there are several hand-setting methods that are widely
adopted. The most common one is prong setting, where the
stones are held in place by three to eight prongs, depending
on the style. More advanced settings include channel
setting, bezel setting, pave setting and invisible setting.
Understanding the labor costs involved in different kinds of
settings is one of the keys to getting merchandize with the
best prices.
Stamping and
Casting Another categorization for
sterling silver jewelry is the way they manufacture
 the
metal part. To save cost, some jewelry is made by stamping
and cutting the needed shapes out from a large sheet of
silver and than bend it into the desired shapes. On the
other hand, a more traditional way of producing sterling
silver jewelry is to cast the metal out of a mold, which is
more labor intensive and hence more costly due to the
polishing and filing required afterwards. The way the
jewelry is made affects the durability a great deal and
hence the success of your business.
Author Greg Peterson got his MBA
from MIT business school and is now working as marketing
manager for jewelry businesses featuring wholesale silver
hip hop jewelry.
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