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Where to Go

Alice Jordan / November 25, 2018

This is a new Scandinavian/Thai business partnership with locations in Bangkok nach Phuket. They are not a refinery, and will simply buy gold items from you which they resell to a refinery in Switzerland. They will give you a fixed price in Thai Baht per gram for the karat-weight of fine gold after acid-testing. Manager Jani Holland says their price is based on the EUR price of the metal quoted by the London Bullion Metal Association exchange.

The information on the companys website is contradictory: it says the price is determined at the time of weighing and is up to date. However they also publish a price list per gram in Baht which Mr Holland admitted is not updated daily, only every couple of weeks. He says they are working on a new website modeled on that of the parent company, which will update prices daily and include a currency converter. Once again, Caveat Emptor: thailandjewelryadvisor recommends you compare the companys published rates with up-to-the-minute international gold prices and current exchange rates to check if the margin is acceptable.

Insider Tip: Bangkok Assay is an old-established company used by the jewelry trade, recommended for smelting larger quantities. For refining they charge a minimum fee of Baht 4000 or two per cent of the fine gold value. They will either buy the fine gold from you or supply you with a bar of hallmarked bullion.

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What are your options on pink gems

Alice Jordan / July 13, 2017

Talking specifically about wholesale gemstone jewelry, many buyers wonder why pink topaz or rose quartz remain very popular. The issue is related to gemstone availability, unlike gold supply which is always available, highly depends buyer/seller demand and price points. Firstly, pink topaz is available in abundance, it’s availability is directly related to that of white topaz. If you are surprised you should know that, plain white topaz is coated with a pink layer (in factories) to produce pink topaz. And this is what wholesale jewelry manufacturers use.

So what about pink sapphires? Why are they not common in wholesale gem stone rings and other jewelry. The reason is that it is not very easy to get hundreds of closely matching pink sapphire gems. Another point is related to the price point of this pink gem. If you can get a 14mm x 10mm oval pink topaz for around 50 U.S$, a similar size in pink sapphire should be priced in the 3,000 U.S$ to 5,000 U.S$ price range! Wholesale gemstone jewelry needs mass markets to consume large volumes of jewelry. If you have this objective in mind, you cannot produce jewelry with high price tags. Lower prices remain one of the main attractions of wholesale jewelry.

Somewhere between pink topaz and pink sapphire is another interesting pink gem stone, this is pink tourmaline. This gem is sturdy and much more affordable as compared to pink sapphire, but the price point will still not make it a viable choice for wholesale jewelry. If you were looking for a 14mm x 10mm oval pink tourmaline, you would firstly need to accept that the stone will have a few visible inclusions. Expect a price point of around 300 U.S$ to 500 U.S$ for the gem. While this is not cheap, it is many times cheaper as compared to pink sapphire.

Much of the cheap wholesale jewelry in silver with pink stones uses, pink quartz or rose quartz. 60% of such quartz is opaque and not very tough to source. You might come across rose quartz with an impressive clarity but, the pink on such stones is too pale.

Jewelry

Would you sell your gold to this outfit?

Alice Jordan / June 2, 2017

Everybody has gold items they dont wear: broken chains, your great aunts hideous opal ring, or even perfectly good pieces that are just out of date. When the price of gold is high its worth melting them in and you can spend the proceeds guilt-free on new items of jewelry, even though its not your birthday.

The cost of refining scrap gold is considerably cheaper in Thailand than in the West and there are more companies and individuals offering the service.

Do not, however, sell your gold to a pawn shop. They will have to bear the cost of smelting it themselves, and therefore will only give you a fraction of its worth.

If you have a sizable amount of scrap (at least 3 ounces) it is best to go to the sources used by the jewelry trade, such as an assay or refining company, as their reputation will be solid. (See Insider Tip below).

The cost-effectiveness of the exercise increases with the amount of scrap gold you have and is usually calculated on a minimum charge or a percentage of the value of the pure gold (i.e. fine gold , or 999 gold) after refining: whichever is lower. A reasonable percentage in Bangkok is 2 to 3 percent. In Europe or America you could pay at least five percent, and up to 10 per cent.

If you are dealing with an assay company you will be given the option of being paid the market rate for your fine gold minus the refining cost, or to receive it back in the form of a pure gold (999) bar hallmarked with the assayers logo. The latter option allows you to decide when it is in your best interests to sell the gold, i.e. if you think gold prices will be higher in the future. At that point you could sell it back to the assay company.

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Not just gold weight

Alice Jordan / May 14, 2017

Encouraged by the thirst for cheap diamond jewelry, wholesale jewelry manufacturers are getting increasingly stingy with gold weight. This is a short term perspective and by the time the buyer realizes this, the jeweler is safe and happy with the purchase!

It is not just gold weight that is compromised in wholesale diamond rings, you can also see the ugly quality of the diamonds in such rings. In contrast to this the affordable diamond ring collection from Kaisilver works within strict parameters for diamond selection. The diamonds in our rings are natural and they all look gorgeous. We give you beauty without requesting you to plunder your wallet. If you look at the diamonds in most wholesale diamond rings, you can see with the naked eye that they are milky and clouded. It might be legally right to claim these low grade junk as diamonds but, in jewelry and gemstone terms we would call them junk.

This entire write up on diamond gold rings is not aimed at justifying extravagant price tags for our diamond rings. The RG183 is NOT EXPENSIVE, and is priced below 1,300 U.S$ in 14k white or yellow gold. The center diamond is a 3mm round and the diamonds on the sides are 2mm rounds. Combine this with the 8 to 10 gram gold weight that is almost 100% more than what a wholesale diamond ring would have, and you will agree that good diamond rings need not be lavishly priced. A glance at the complete report on this Kaisilver diamond ring will be both useful and interesting.

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Bangkok gem crime

Alice Jordan / April 22, 2017

First up, heres a confession: It almost happened to me too. My stirling credentials (Old Asia Hand, 12-year resident of Bangkok, street-wise traveler, journalist cynic) did not prepare me for the slickness of the operation. When I finally caught on to what was actually going on we were (cross my heart) almost killed.

My husband and I decided one fine day a couple of years ago to spend the day being tourists in Bangkok. Since wed lived here so long our out-of-town visitors had tailed off and we hadnt had to escort anyone to the temples and monuments in such a long time. So off we went on a jaunt, just the two of us, to the Grand Palace.

Some distance away from the palace gates we saw a very long queue of Thai people all dressed in black, snaking its way into the palace grounds. Days before an elderly princess, the Kings sister, had passed away. With the Royal Family being so revered here, I realised immediately that this mass of people in black lining up outside had something to do with her death. Then suddenly a very charming and well-spoken Thai gentleman smartly dressed in black materialised.

Oh, what a pity, he said. Wed come on just the wrong day. The Grand Palace was closed to tourists since this was the day that the Thai public were allowed to come and sign their names in a commemorative book. In fact hed just done that himself, he said. Then he whipped out a map (why, oh why did this in itself not ring my alarm bells?) and suggested another Wat nearby that we could go to instead.

Jewelry

Government showroom

Alice Jordan / March 22, 2017

Before you could say feckless farang, a tuktuk appeared out of nowhere and we were being sped on our way to the temple in question. We had no sooner rounded the corner of the Palace when I saw that the gates to a second official entrance to the Palace were open. Whoa, I said to the tuktuk driver, let us out HERE. This fell on deaf ears, though I spoke clearly, politely, and firmly, in Thai. The driver was by now on his cellphone in loud negotiations with his keeper. Let us off, I insisted. No, he replied, one ear still glued to the cellphone, I take you to Government Showroom, very good shop, very cheap Thai souvenirs, gemstones. Better than Wat.

Fully aware of the fact that we were, literally, being taken for a ride, we kept insisting on being let off the tuktuk, and the more we insisted the more enraged the evil jockey became, commandeering his three-wheeler at an increasingly reckless pace. Careening into a large roundabout on only two of those wheels without so much as a sideways glance, we came within an inch of our lives of being broadsided by an SUV. Only after that did he screech to a stop and pour us out of his vehicle, a jellied mess, dumped unceremoniously on the sidewalk. And what nerve: furious that we refused to pay he let out a toxic and imaginative stream of Thai curses!

So what would have happened had he had his way with us and taken us to the Government Showroom?

Jewelry

Wholesale Diamond Rings

Alice Jordan / February 22, 2017

The quality in terms of design, gold weight and craftsmanship as seen in the RG183 diamond gold ring cannot be found in wholesale diamond rings. If you had to have a clear look at the insides of the RG183 three diamond gold ring, you will understand what we mean.

Wholesale diamond rings are made to please mass market, they fit a hot search term that is often encountered on the online market place. Buyers looking for cheap diamond rings, will not be impressed with the RG183. This jewel is gorgeous and built to last, the gold weight is kept at a healthy 8 to 10 grams. A wholesale diamond gold ring on the other hand would weigh around 3 to 5 grams, nothing more. Unlike the RG183 Kaisilver diamond ring which has no scooping done inside the band, a wholesale diamond ring would be heavily scooped and scraped to save on gold weight.

The importance of an unscooped ring is often not understood by the casual jewelry buyer. However this feature is vital to ensure longterm durability of your diamond ring. You might think that the visibility of the scooped portion inside the band of your diamond gold ring, would be nil once the ring is worn. But the fact is that the scooping also reduces the gold thickness and makes the jewel prone to bending and denting. Given the current gold prices, it is fair to say that the durability of most jewelry has taken a downward spin.

Know your gems

Kaisilver premiere

Alice Jordan / January 6, 2017

Kaisilver the worlds leading online custom jewelry provider recently launched its mobile website. While the development continues on the regular websites, the requirement for a mobile jewelry website was deeply felt. With more jewelry buyers across the globe depending on Kaisilver for their special custom made jewellery requirements, the convenience of a mobile website is a clear winner. The Kaisilvershop mobile site can accept orders through the secure payment servers at Paypal. You can also follow the regular process of contacting the support team at sales@kaisilver.com with your requirements. Suggestions, advice and price quotes can be specifically worked out for your requirement.

While the steadily increasing web traffic on this mobile jewelry website are encouraging, some debate has been going on regarding the suitability of such websites for wholesale jewelry. Given the volumes and required price points for gold and silver wholesale jewelry, it might not be suitable for a click and buy type of transaction. A lot of cross communication and negotiation is required to complete a wholesale jewelry manufacturing deal. However if you are already dealing with a wholesale jewelry provider and both of you are aware of your requirements and price points, a mobile wholesale jewelry website would have good utility for both the buyer and jewelry provider.

The steady increase in the use of handheld devices to search and browse the web is going to go on unabated at least for another 2 to 3 decades. Many top managers already claim that they do not turn on their laptops or desktops for days together. Although the scenario for a wholesale jewelry operation through a mobile website might not be very clear today, it is bound to evolve as long as it brings benefits to both sides.

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Corporate cufflinks

Alice Jordan / December 3, 2016

Corporate gifts can be given on specific occasions or during a particular time of the year. Exactly what makes a good corporate gift depends on a number of factors. For example, a company producing plastic bottles might not allow a very high budget for its corporate gifts. In this case, corporate cufflinks might not be the most suited type of gift. On the other hand, banks, insurance agencies, automobile manufacturers and even real estate brokers can think of gifting corporate cufflinks to their clients.

So how much do corporate cufflinks cost? The answer will be based on a few issues that the buyer needs to work out. For example, what is the volume of cufflinks that you need? If you had to place an order for around 100 pairs of silver cufflinks or an order for about 50 pairs of gold cufflinks, you could consider the volume to be a wholesale corporate cufflink order. Just as an example, the CUFF02 pair of gemstone cufflinks from Kaisilver might be priced at around 350 U.S$ when purchased as a single pair. But if you had to order them with a volume of 100 to 250 pairs, the price per pair would drop to around 40 U.S$.

When it comes to wholesale corporate cufflinks, they would generally include the logo of the company or the company name (or initials). The manufacturer will need to create a master mould for the design of these cufflinks. The design and moulding overheads would be borne by the first pair of corporate cufflinks that are produced. When these overheads are spread over multiple pieces, the price per piece would drop. The actual volume would decide the final price.

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Do not rush the cheapest deal

Alice Jordan / November 16, 2016

The design, metal and metal weight of the cufflinks also need to be considered. While gold cufflinks would obviously be priced much higher than silver cufflinks, you might want to try gold plating on sterling silver cufflinks. In recent years, stainless steel cufflinks have gained popularity and acceptance. It is normal for steel jewelry producers to expect volumes of around 500 to 1,000 pairs when it comes to customized corporate cufflinks. You could even consider ordering some silver cufflinks and a small number of gold cufflinks as corporate gifts. The annual revenue generated by each client might help you decide who gets the gold cufflinks and who gets the silver cuff links.

It is important to choose the right manufacturer for your corporate cufflinks. Also, do not rush for the cheapest deal. Your corporate gift is supposed to enhance the image of your company in the eyes of your clients. It is normal to expect that you get what you pay for. If you had to hunt for cheap cufflinks, they would be low in quality too. This might cause them to break or bend, ruining your corporate image. So if you are on a very tight budget and feel that even silver or steel cufflinks are beyond your budget, then think of some cheaper corporate gift. Avoid compromising heavily on quality, it could backfire. http://www.jewelry.kaijewels.com/man-cuff-link-kj-all.htm