Can anyone refer me to a melee buyer in the nj/ny area that pays a
competitive price for diamond melee. I currently have about 20 carats
and will have more on an ongoing basis. Any specifics about $/carat
for various qualities of melee would be very helpful.
Thank You,
David
David, what do you mean by ‘competitive price’? Unless you have
twenty carats of perfectly matched ideal cut melee, I doubt that you
will receive offers of even 10% of regular wholesale. The world is
full of lots of unmatched, unsorted melee - I have at least 120
carats myself from many years of buying and scrapping old jewelry -
and it is more expensive for dealers in NY to sort your lots than it
is for the manufacturers in India to buy the stones already matched!
The main use for these stones in the U.S. is as replacements for
repairs, and who wants to buy misc. lots to maybe get the one stone
they need? I have heard of offers of $10 - $25 per carat for misc.
lots bandied about, and I doubt that there are many higher, unless
the stones are very high grade and over 10 points each.
Anyway, good luck, I hope you can prove me wrong! Please let us know
what you are offered if you approach any dealers.
Lee Cornelius
Vegas Jewelers
Unless you have twenty carats of perfectly matched ideal cut melee, I doubt that you will receive offers of even 10% of regular wholesale.
I like to pop the occasional small diamond into a piece as a sparkly
accent, and don’t care about matching, so if somebody has “unsorted
unmatched melee” lying around they want to sell me for… what did
you say, Lee? $10-$20/carat?-- I’m ready to buy it!
Noel
Unfortunately, while there are quite a few willing buyers at that
level, I doubt that you will find many sellers without making a major
investment in time and/or money to find those with these excess
stones. Look towards bankruptcy auctions and those jewelers who are
looking at bankruptcy for your most probable suppliers. The
successful buyers are the ones who can ferret out the deals when the
owners reach the desperation point.
PS - I am not sure about your area, but the majority of melee
diamonds that we remove from scrapped jewelry are from tennis
bracelets and cluster rings that originally retailed at Kohl’s,
WalMart, etc., for $100 to $200 per carat, including the 10K gold
mountings, so you can guess the quality… Nothing that you would
want to put into an art piece, and certainly not ‘sparkly’.
I-2, KLM baguettes, anyone?
Lee Cornelius
Vegas Jewelers