Coin bracelet

[Andrew McCabe]

In an interesting sequel, the bracelet is now on retail sale at 46,000 euros ($64,000) in a Paris jewellers

That's quite the markup. Not unusual, to be sure, but 457% almost overnight is rather substantial. Doubtless there's haggling room built into that figure, of course, but the asking price certainly narrows the market.

That's actually fairly low for a jeweler's markup. A diamond ring retailing for $1500 typically contains no more than $75 worth of gold and perhaps $100 in melee diamonds.

Well the starting point was presumably the original estimate of 500 euros, which makes a mark-up of over nine thousand percent. The 14600 euro starting figure referred to by commodus was already "full retail price" including auction commission for a widely advertised and heavily contested piece.

The analogy is more akin to buying a coin at an NAC auction and then trying to sell it for five times that price.

[commodus]

Well the starting point was presumably the original estimate of 500 euros, which makes a mark-up of over nine thousand percent. The 14600 euro starting figure referred to by commodus was already "full retail price" including auction commission for a widely advertised and heavily contested piece.

The analogy is more akin to buying a coin at an NAC auction and then trying to sell it for five times that price.

True. I wasn't even figuring from the original estimate! Considering this, the markup is absurd. Free enterprise is one thing, but marking up to this level is nothing short of pure greed, even with wiggle room for bargaining built in. I hope the retailer who has the piece for sale now is stuck with it for many years.

That's actually fairly low for a jeweler's markup. A diamond ring retailing for $1500 typically contains no more than $75 worth of gold and perhaps $100 in melee diamonds.

This is quite so with regard to modern jewelry, but not so much with regard to antique jewelry, which tends actually to be undervalued, though as a rule older creations tend to be much superior to modern commercially produced stuff.

[Maffeo]

Very interesting discussion. I certainly agree that antique, 19th century jewelry is far superior to modern, mass produced jewelry - just compare men's cufflinks... As a collector I have the collector's aversion to coins mounted in jewelry, but I'll confess that I do use a mounted Eagle as a fob on my pocket watch chain. As far as the availability of ancient coins in the past is concerned, I remember reading somewhere that during the early 1930s the Bank of Italy had such a large cache of Roman gold coins that it actually melted them down to mint new coins.