Sterling silver jewelry has always made up the majority of our products and sales. 
We had to raise prices earlier this year and some of our customers took note. I wanted to share some insight into the silver markets here since it’s very interesting stuff, at least to us!
This first chart shows that in the last 6 months we had prices of $14 per ounce as late as December climb to over $20 per ounce as of last week. Many of us in the fashion jewelry industry breathed a big sigh of relief this week when prices came back down a bit, but that 43% increase in 3 months was a big shock to us.
If you look at the second chart here you’ll see that we’ve seen more fluctuation in the first 3 months of 2008 than we saw in the entire year of 2007. Much of this is to do with the weakening dollar and uncertain economy, but that’s not even the most surprising news when it comes to recent activity in the silver markets.
Take a look at this third graph, the 5 year historical silver chart. Yes, just last week silver prices were 500% higher than the same time 5 years ago! That’s absolutely amazing, not even real estate during its most lucrative times jumped so high so fast. Gold prices in March ‘03 were around $320/oz and last week were in the neighborhood of $950/oz, a 300% increase, but still not quite the 500% jump silver took. The increased global demand for silver has really impacted the markets.
That silver jewelry you once bought on the beach in Mexico really may be worth cashing in on, it may be worth more thank you think!
