The value of gold, platinum and silver have all drastically increased, leading Canadian jewellery collectors to re-evaluate whether they buy, sell or remodel their pieces.Nic Hotchkiss/The Globe and Mail
There’s a new gold rush in Canada, but it’s got nothing to do with panning for nuggets in the Klondike. With the metal more than doubling in value over the last two years, and hovering at a stunning $6,000 an ounce, more people are looking to cash out of their unworn chains and bangles.
“Gold has gone mad, and that has driven most people to their jewellery or safety deposit boxes,” says Duncan Parker, vice president, jewellery specialist of Toronto-based Dupuis Fine Jewellery Auctioneers. “People are pulling out their kitchen scales and weighing jewels, using apps to work out how much they may be worth.”
Determining value isn’t straightforward, cautions Parker, speaking from Montreal where he was meeting with potential consignors. While the value of gold, platinum and silver have all drastically increased, style and whether a piece is signed by a major house play a huge role in what it might achieve at auction. “I saw someone this morning who had his mother-in-law’s gold charm bracelet which represented a trip that she took to the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of London and the Pyramids. But it doesn’t mean anything to anyone else, so it’s just a piece of gold.”
Sentimentality is what prevents many collectors from parting with their jewellery, even if they might turn a profit. “I would never sell anything I have collected because I want to give it to my nieces and goddaughter,” says one Toronto jewellery enthusiast who requested anonymity for security reasons.
“Everything I own whether it is inherited or acquired has a story to it. And when I am making a purchase, I don’t think about the price of gold or the value going forward. I think about what I have in front of me and whether it is something I would want to impart to someone else.”
Where price sensitivity might come into play is when a piece is being remodelled. “The rising value of metals has absolutely impacted my design process,” says Anjli Patel, a Toronto lawyer and art patron. Patel has been working with Parris Gordon of Beaufille to reimagine some of the traditional South Asian jewellery passed down from her mother and grandmother.
While reimagining some of the traditional South Asian jewellery passed down from her mother and grandmother for her family to wear, Anjli Patel has steered away from anything where metal was the main ingredient due to rising costs.Nic Hotchkiss/The Globe and Mail
They steered away from bold gold bangles or anything else where metal was the main ingredient. The diamonds, rubies and emeralds in matching earrings and a pendant were reset in a bar pin; the rubies from another suite are the star feature of a graphic pair of ear drops.
“In the finest pieces of jewellery, the least amount of metal used, the better the quality,” says Brett Sherlock, a Canadian-based international consultant for Christie’s. “That’s why platinum is used. It’s a stronger metal and you can make the jewellery finer and show off the stones. When you look at a Harry Winston necklace, all you see is a wreath of diamonds and just a touch of the claws.”
Sherlock says in his dealings with higher end jewellery, he hasn’t seen any motivation to sell because of rising metal values. “Most of the Canadian clients who are consigning are collectors or their mother, grandmother or great-grandmother was a collector and these things have been sitting in a vault for decades.”
On the buy side, Sherlock says metal prices might come into the equation, to a point. He helped one client with a budget between $600,000 and $1 million make a purchase for a 60th birthday gift.
“In that case, you are looking mostly at the gems and the maker. But if I continue to advise that client on gold bracelets and earrings for day, I would say buy gold that’s signed by a jewellery house. Otherwise, it’s just worth its melt,” he says.
Patel’s son wears an Art Deco-inspired bar brooch made from a pair of earrings and pendant that once belonged to his grandmother.Nic Hotchkiss/The Globe and Mail
One area where value fluctuations are always top of mind is at retailers carrying high carat gold. “If you go into a traditional South Asian jewellery store where they’re selling 21 or 22 karat gold and say, ‘How much is that necklace’ they’ll put it on a scale,” Parker explains. “The same would happen at a Chinatown jeweller where the jewellery is 24 karat gold. They’re not selling it for straight up gold value, but it’s not much more than that. It’s bullion that happens to be made into the shape of jewellery.”
And the fact that bullion is bullish is moving some collectors to hang onto or add to their stash for one simple reason: cachet. “Everyone knows how much gold is, and so if I wear a lot of gold, everyone knows that I must have a lot of money,” Parker says.
“Jewellery has always been a status symbol, but today if you see a big diamond, you don’t think ‘they must be doing well.’ You think, ‘that must be one of those synthetic things.’ So the status symbol of diamonds is fizzling.”
Gold, on the other hand, isn’t losing its lustre anytime soon.