The markup on a regular piece of gold jewellery is 300 to 500% depending on the brand. Much more if the piece is complex and handmade or very small. That does n

The markup on a regular piece of gold jewellery is 300 to 500% depending on the brand. Much more if the piece is complex and handmade or very small. That does not make sense to buy it as an investment. 300% is not unusual for a product when you consider everything between the raw material and the finished piece in a shop. For example, even for handmade piece, the jeweller will not start from raw gold, but from sheet or wire. The markup on those, out of the refinery is already 20 to 50% and he has not even started yet. Jewellery has as much use as any other decorative item, buy them as such. You like the craft involved in making it, go to an artist a see him working days on your commissioned( * ) piece for an insane amount of money. You don't care about the craft, just like the look - go for the cheapest possible that look good ( base metal plated, synthetic stones, machine made, ... ) Avoid anything in between IMO, to much of the value there comes from decades of marketing campaigns. If you like them anyway, go to auction ( not ebay, too expensive ) or second hand. ( * ) note that picking a stone and choosing a mount is not a commissioned piece - the jeweler will probably spend less than 1 hour working on your ring, half of that polishing it. It means going to an artist and picking a custom one of a kind design, with the majority of the work done by hand. i.e. Same difference between buying a limited print of a famous painting or go to a painter to have your family painted. Despite being the same price, only one is making an actual artist live.