I always weight the time that it takes to make stock and draw it into wire vs buying it in wire form already. Sheet is another story and can go either way. Most sheet goes into bezel backs and small earrings. I don’t cast, but if I did, I might try alloying as you describe. I looked at your website, nice work! Thanks…Rob
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gold silver and even copper prices will never back down to where it was before the run up. precious metals, have a history of slowly increasing in price, popping sky high then back of just some.. the back off provides for another jump. gold can stay near the same price for several years over even 5-10 year before skyrocketing. silver is more volatile than gold, so far as copper is concerned, prices are at $6.65 per pound. a roll of three copper pennies weights a lb. copper has quarupled in price for melt down value for pennies. ( don’t melt US coins- it’s illegal!) nickel is at $9/lb. nickels are also at over melt down value. When i first learned jewelry making in high school, we bought silver sheet for $1.50 per oz. 60 years of inflation at an average of 4% per year make goods and services 10x present compared to the 1960’s. silver has increased in value 50x. The Hunt brother’s attempt to corner the market drove the price up to $50/oz, silver collapsed, taking the Hunts with it. Today’s prices is not market manipulation. High prices are here to stay and will go higher. i myself have a portion of my investment portfolio shifted to gold. The demand from data centers and electronics is insatiable. hyperscalers investing $1.7 trillion in data center infrastructure has only started. AI investment is showing no sign of slowing down. The companies make so much money that cost is not a consideration- 60% of silver is used industrially. copper is pure industrial demand. The demand feeds on itself. More data centers means more electricity generation. Electricity generation and distribution requires more copper and also silver.
I did a little four hour show this past weekend at a high end wedding venue. I don’t normally do shows, but the one day nature and people organizing it got my attention. The people attending were generally aware of the recent and rapid increase of the price of silver. I sold well, but mainly earrings and one very heavy silver and turquoise bracelet. There was a lot of interest in what I was doing with copper and brass and I have had follow up calls for copper bracelets for men. My son says that this may be a new emerging market. He and my wife were both there and commented that copper would fit the esthetic of many of the people who attended the show. Time will tell…Rob
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Glad you had a good show. Copper now is the poorman’s silver. At $6.65/lb, that’s 42 cents per troy ounce. Copper bracelets at one time were worn for health reasons. Copper making a comeback is not that surprising. Having worked with mixed metals in the past, copper’s properties make it easy to work with. Best of luck for the future of copper jewerly.
We are setting up for a two day show in Indiana. Copper is definitely on the menu as well as is Jewelers Brass. The silver we carry will eventually sell but not at the rate we did in the past I am sure. My wife and daughter are wearing some copper experimental bracelets and ended up passing out business cards at an Aveda Store in a local mall. Copper is perfect for the current fascination with Brutalist Design. The wire work we are known for may begin to be combined metals and shown little more often. The final product has customers who are convinced that copper is gonna fix their arthritis. Others who want the look of copper but don’t want any green skin. Do I seal the insides of some bracelets and not others? This will take awhile to solve.
Now if I can figure out how to price the stuff. I think the cost of the metal plus a simple hourly shop rate may be the easy way to go.
Here are some Celtic style pendants underway.
More news when I have it. Don
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Don M, I spent decades making and selling copper items at a Shakespeare Festival. Here are some things I came to grips with. Short of putting a layer of a non reactive metal next to where the skin will touch a piece, it react. This is because ALL of the products out there will not last long with wear, especially if someone wants to wear it every day. Those are mostly the people who think it will cure their arthritis. The best you can do is tell people about it and what to do themselves . Also copper will tarnish must faster than silver. I would tell people how to deal with the tarnish. The one they liked the most when I was selling was a joke, that wasn’t a joke. I’d tell them, “next time you eat at fast food, tell them you want copper cleaner with your fries.” reason for this is, ketchup has a high acid content. it is a great copper clesner. Ever see a copper pot hat has been used to speghetti sauce? that pot will be clean if not have clean streaks where the sauce had it the outside. When I’ve been at the festival for the summer, I sometimes ran short of pickle. I would make a weak solution of ketchup and water to boil a piece of copper in it. That would work until I could get Rio to send me some pickle. It was a small town without access to other supplies we could substitute. If you have access to a pen pplater, you can plate a layer of silver on the back or inside where the skin comes in contact. But that is another tool, and another expense that just got much more expensive. It will eventually wear off as well, but it might takes years instead of weeks. You can also get the anti tarnish slips of paper to put in a plastic bag the size of your item. This way when the item is not being worn, you tell them to keep it in that bag. or you can have (MAYBE) your wife and dauther make little pouches of silver cloth from a sewing store, to hold the items you make. I know we can get them from China, but that will take time. I tried that route once and it took nearly 7 months to finally get them sent. I wish there was a simple solution, but there isn’t. good luck with your show
Thanks Aggie,
I appreciate the good advice. I always tell people that copper, and silver, requires a bit of maintenance. And I say the best thing you can do is wear it. Don’t keep it in a box. And when asked about shining it up I say a soft scrub with ketchup and a soft tooth brush. Then wash with Dawn Power Shot and hot water. Buff it up with a Blitz cloth. The looks when I say ketchup are often quite comical.
Thanks again
Don Meixner.
Well we returned from our show in Indiana and I will say it was an excellent show. Business was really pretty brisk for the hottest day of the year in Franklin. Perhaps it was because people looked at buying silver as an investment. Or perhaps it was the realization that this was the cost of buying art and silver was going to be a bit more expensive this year. Like Rob, I sold a lot of earrings and rings. But even they are more expensive but because they don’t use a lot more silver the increase in price is not so big as to be a problem for the budget. I sold a few copper cuffs and like Aggie I had fun telling customers they could be brought up to shine with a little ketchup followed by soap, water, a decent polishing cloth and some elbow grease.
Its a new world and new market possibilities. We had fun and will continue to travel to do shows and maybe we will need to reassess this again. But for now we will continue as before.
Don Meixner
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