Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Is the start of a recession a good time to buy ruby/sapphire/emerald?

Neal - 14-3-2023 at 11:38

Somehow, gemstones are inversely proportional to diamonds, the value of a diamond goes up during a recession I hear. Or at least, is unaffected by it. So now would not be a good time to buy diamonds.

From the late 1990s to the early 2010s, platinum was more expensive than gold, peaking at over $2,000 per ounce in 2008. However, for the most part, gold has been more expensive than platinum since 2015. As of Sept. 2021, 1 g of gold is worth $43, 1 g of platinum $27 (or $765 per ounce).

So basically, the value of platinum cut in half from 2008 to 2021. Is there a why question to this? Too many catalytic converters out there now? Or some industry standard got replaced? (Like the conversion of big TVs to flat-screen TVs).

So, I'm not going to assume now is a good time to buy platinum, since it may never go up or surpass gold.

Anyways, going back to about gemstones like ruby/sapphire/emerald, does anyone know if big chain stores like Pandora or Cartier, you can buy gems from them, and sell it back to them like 20 years later, at a higher price? Doesn't have to be the same-store you bought it from..

If a recession in the U.S. starts, given the Silicon Valley Bank thing, I wonder if prices of gemstones will drop..

Rainwater - 14-3-2023 at 11:52

Buying from a branded store just means your paying retail price.
For investment advice, you in the wrong place.

From a business prospective, you buy in bulk and save alot. Last time I purchased stones (2014) I went all out and dropped about 5000usd. All natural, all certified with paperwork, more than I will ever set in my lifetime(just a hobbyist) . To purchase the equivalent stones one at a time from a retail store would have cost 500~2000% more.

In the eastern us, youll need to get a contact at amerimart.

Dr.Bob - 14-3-2023 at 13:09

The problem with many commodities is that buying them in small amounts is hard to do, and selling them back is even harder, without huge markups and discounts. I inherited some silver and gold from a couple of people, and most places buy silver or gold at 60% of its real value, and then sell it at 10% over the real value. For gems, it is much higher on the purchase side, and just as bad or worse on the selling side.

So my mother bought some Silver Eagle Dollars back in ~1980 for $20, which was about twice the value of the silver in them, and I was lucky to sell some at $40-50, but paid fees of 20-25% on that, so the actual gain was negligible after 40 years. Another friend made silver jewelry, when he passed from cancer, I helped his wife sell his silver wire and stock, and she was lucky to get about 60-70% of the silver's value, he had paid a large premium to get it in specific forms like wire and chains for jewelry making, so again, likely an overall loss of 50%, but at least it gave her some money.

You are much better off to buy gold mining or gem stocks, like Nemont Gold (NEM) Barrack Gold (Gold) or ETFs that either hold Gold metal or gold miners. Rio Tinto (RIO) does a bit all gold and gems. You can buy stocks in a few gem miners, but they are more privately held, so harder. The great thing is that the cost of purchasing stocks is almost nothing now, selling often has a few cents fee, and many pay dividends as well, so you get income, and don't need to buy a large safe. No guarantee of making money, but at least stocks and ETFs are very liquid and have almost no markup. I may not have made a mint on them, but at least I have made money on almost every gold stock I have every bought, and some did quite well, but they are quite volatile.

Neal - 15-3-2023 at 18:07

Quote: Originally posted by Rainwater  
Buying from a branded store just means your paying retail price.
For investment advice, you in the wrong place.

From a business prospective, you buy in bulk and save alot. Last time I purchased stones (2014) I went all out and dropped about 5000usd. All natural, all certified with paperwork, more than I will ever set in my lifetime(just a hobbyist) . To purchase the equivalent stones one at a time from a retail store would have cost 500~2000% more.

In the eastern us, youll need to get a contact at amerimart.

You know what I'm finding out only precious metals can be resold, not gemstones. So buying ruby/sapphire/emerald is a dead end. Stores like Cartier won't buy back gemstones, they only buy from mining companies, in which you might be able to sell back to a mining company though.

My dad did a similar thing with stamps. He bought $5,000 for a book full of stamps, spent some year trying to sort them out, but never got to sell them.

Quote: Originally posted by Dr.Bob  
The problem with many commodities is that buying them in small amounts is hard to do, and selling them back is even harder, without huge markups and discounts. I inherited some silver and gold from a couple of people, and most places buy silver or gold at 60% of its real value, and then sell it at 10% over the real value. For gems, it is much higher on the purchase side, and just as bad or worse on the selling side.

So my mother bought some Silver Eagle Dollars back in ~1980 for $20, which was about twice the value of the silver in them, and I was lucky to sell some at $40-50, but paid fees of 20-25% on that, so the actual gain was negligible after 40 years. Another friend made silver jewelry, when he passed from cancer, I helped his wife sell his silver wire and stock, and she was lucky to get about 60-70% of the silver's value, he had paid a large premium to get it in specific forms like wire and chains for jewelry making, so again, likely an overall loss of 50%, but at least it gave her some money.

You are much better off to buy gold mining or gem stocks, like Nemont Gold (NEM) Barrack Gold (Gold) or ETFs that either hold Gold metal or gold miners. Rio Tinto (RIO) does a bit all gold and gems. You can buy stocks in a few gem miners, but they are more privately held, so harder. The great thing is that the cost of purchasing stocks is almost nothing now, selling often has a few cents fee, and many pay dividends as well, so you get income, and don't need to buy a large safe. No guarantee of making money, but at least stocks and ETFs are very liquid and have almost no markup. I may not have made a mint on them, but at least I have made money on almost every gold stock I have every bought, and some did quite well, but they are quite volatile.

For stocks with high dividends I make a lot from ocean-liner companies. Those stocks, for every $1,000 you put in, you get $10/month, which I find is a good deal.

But there are chemical company stocks that I buy and sell again and again, because their curve is a sine wave. Right now most of my stocks are in the negative, so am buying, but the positive stocks are my high-dividend stocks meaning I don't want to sell them, because they give me money. Those gold company stocks you listed, NEM and RIO, it appears their dividends is a lot smaller than the ocean-liner dividends. But time to invest in some cheap AI stock companies.

Dr.Bob - 16-3-2023 at 09:58

The key to mining companies is that their stock value goes up and down with the price of gold, to some degree, but they also produce some income, which is much better than gold bars, silver coins, or stamps.

So they can provide a hedge against inflation, but also produce some income at a reasonable yield of %3-5 routinely, which is simialr to what CDs or bonds do, but also go up if the price of gold rises. But I have seen many people buy coins, metal bars and other precious items, only to find that they are very hard to sell at anywhere near their "value", other than for a few very common things (stamps and coins do have some inherent value as postage or for buying stuff, but often well under their collectable value.)

Neal - 16-3-2023 at 15:51

Quote: Originally posted by Dr.Bob  
The key to mining companies is that their stock value goes up and down with the price of gold, to some degree, but they also produce some income, which is much better than gold bars, silver coins, or stamps.

So they can provide a hedge against inflation, but also produce some income at a reasonable yield of %3-5 routinely, which is simialr to what CDs or bonds do, but also go up if the price of gold rises. But I have seen many people buy coins, metal bars and other precious items, only to find that they are very hard to sell at anywhere near their "value", other than for a few very common things (stamps and coins do have some inherent value as postage or for buying stuff, but often well under their collectable value.)

Hm, so now would be a good time to buy platinum and rhodium stocks.

Sept. 2021, rhodium was worth $20,000 per oz, then dropped to $9,400/oz currently.

Or guess I should wait for the price of gold to drop before buying gold stocks.

Neal - 7-4-2023 at 15:31

While this can be a new thread I'd rather recycle:

Every laptop has .3 g of gold. It's located at the SSD (or graphic card) at connected to the motherboard, where it is used as a plating on the edge connectors. Any good ways to extract this, from old laptops you want to throw away? I heard aqua regia is 1 way, but any safer or easier alternatives?

Rainwater - 7-4-2023 at 16:07

selectively striping the base metals until the plated foils fall off is the cheapest way to remove the gold
For pure scraps like hdd heads, bond wires, aq is used.
The problem is with the small-scale. Youll be lucky to break even.
If you had a ton of circuit boards, crush, grind, leach with cl2 gas and water.
Filter the carbon and silicates to the trash, and begin selective precipitation.