Silver Charms price reduction at last! I am both excited and relieved to announce that we can finally revoke our last price increase. Effective immediately we are dropping our prices on all silver and gold vermeil items by 9%. I know how difficult these high prices have been for everyone. The silver market is a volatile and complicated creature with little regard for the needs of artists or small businesses. We will continue to watch closely and keep our fingers crossed that prices will fall again. To help buffer the price of silver, we are also introducing a new bronze line in our most popular styles. The bronze will be offered in a beautiful, warm, natural finish at less than 50% of the silver price. It will also be offered in silver and gold plate. We are using the same thickness of plating that we currently use for our vermeil style gold plated sterling silver. Bronze items will start to arrive at the end of August. I hope you all have a fabulous summer!
Very glad to hear this! I started incorporating your vermeil-style products over the last year or so and love them, but the price of the gold plated silver has become just about impossible for me to sell at reasonable profit in finished jewelry when wholesaling. Will you be offering that same satin finish vermeil over bronze? If it is just as sturdy and just as attractive as it over silver, that would be a great alternative if it’s more affordable, since it’s all about getting the aesthetic of brushed gold without the price – for me, at least. A bonus to that might be that if any of the plating wears away over time on a much beloved piece, it’ll be less obvious with bronze beneath it, unless the zinc layer is being revealed, though I don’t have the technical knowledge to guess which might be the case. Looking forward to seeing the bronze, at any rate. I hope you’ll be offering some of your beads in bronze, as well.
Comment by Diane — June 30, 2011 @ 4:42 pm
Hi Diane – Our gold plated bronze has the same satin finish and thickness of 24K gold as our current gold plated silver. Because they look identical we are implementing extra precautions and measures to ensure no mix up in the stock. That’s how much they look the same. And, good point about bronze being less obvious in case of wear. But I would like to emphasize that our plating is super reliable because we use an extra thick (40 microinches) layer of gold over both the silver and the bronze, so there should be little to no cracking, chipping, alterations in color, or wear. And, if this ever does occur, under most circumstances please feel free to return those defective pieces to us. In answer to your last point, we’re introducing our best sellers in bronze first, then after we see how things are moving, we will begin to expand into other styles. Thanks so much for your support and thoughtful reply.
Comment by juanita — July 1, 2011 @ 9:02 am