The Elephant in the Room:
Metal Prices

Let’s address the elephant in the room.

If you’ve shopped for fine jewelry lately, you may have noticed that prices look different than they did even a few years ago. We’ve mentioned it here and there in emails, on social media and during conversations at The CMD Shop, but precious metal prices affect nearly everything we make, so I think it’s worth talking about openly.

Gold and silver are commodities, which means their market prices change constantly. When those prices rise, the raw materials we use to make jewelry cost more too. For a small jewelry studio like ours, where every piece is made by hand and material quality is something we refuse to compromise on, those changes are impossible to ignore.

Precious Metal Prices Really Do Matter

Gold has experienced significant increases over the last several years, and silver has had plenty of volatility of its own. Those shifts affect solid gold, sterling silver and even 14k gold-fill.

Gold-fill is sometimes misunderstood as inexpensive plating, but it contains a substantial layer of real gold permanently bonded to a core metal. When the market value of gold rises, the cost of producing quality gold-fill rises along with it.

The same is true when we make a solid gold Special Occasion piece, a custom wedding ring or a one-of-a-kind Reconstruction project. The amount of metal, the karat, the scale of the design and the current cost of those materials all become part of the final price.

What This Looks Like Inside Our Studio

Behind the scenes, we do what small, materials-conscious studios have always done: we pay very close attention to what happens to every scrap.

When we cut metal, there are tiny pieces left behind. There are offcuts, filings and remnants from fabrication. We collect and sort those materials carefully so they can be recycled rather than discarded. You can read more about that part of our process in Let’s Get Scrappy.

That practice isn’t new for CMD, and it isn’t something we started because metal became expensive. It’s simply part of respecting the materials we work with. When those materials become substantially more valuable, though, being thoughtful about every last bit becomes even more important.

It also means our pricing sometimes has to change. I would rather be transparent about that than quietly compromise the weight of a ring, substitute lower-quality materials or start making things in a way that doesn’t reflect the standards I’ve spent more than twenty years building.

We’re Still Making Jewelry Slowly and By Hand

Another piece of this conversation is production. Most CMD jewelry is made to order rather than sitting in a warehouse waiting to ship. An actual person cuts, solders, files, sands, polishes, checks and finishes your piece in our Upstate New York studio.

There isn’t a conveyor belt in the back room, and I don’t want there to be one.

Making jewelry this way costs more than mass production, but it also allows us to create pieces designed to last. If you’re curious about what that really looks like, I wrote more about our process in What Handmade Jewelry Really Means at CMD and about the philosophy behind it in A Case for Slow Jewelry in a Fast World.

Your Old Gold May Be Part of the Solution

This is where the conversation gets much more interesting.

If you have solid gold jewelry sitting unworn in a drawer, you may already be holding material that can help fund something new. Through CMD Jewelry Recycling and Reconstruction, eligible precious metals can be sent through our refining process and their value applied as a credit toward your new CMD piece.

That might be an old gold chain you haven’t worn in twenty years, wedding jewelry from another chapter, inherited pieces that don’t suit your style, or a little collection of mismatched gold that has accumulated in your jewelry box.

We currently accept qualifying solid gold, palladium and platinum for recycling. Sterling silver is not part of our recycling-for-credit program. If you’re unsure what you have, that’s completely fine. Part of the process is helping you understand what may be usable.

And an important distinction: your exact piece of gold is not melted down and directly fabricated into your new ring. The metal goes through our refining vendor, and the value of the eligible recycled material is applied toward the materials needed for your new piece. I explain the process in more detail in What Actually Happens to Your Recycled Gold?.

Yes, That Old Jewelry May Count

That solid gold necklace you received years ago and never wear? Possibly.

Your grandmother’s gold ring that means something to you but is destined to live in a drawer forever? Bring it.

The wedding band from another chapter that you’re completely ready to let go of? We can talk about that too.

Sometimes the most valuable thing hiding in a jewelry box isn’t a design you need to preserve. It’s the material itself. Instead of leaving precious metal unused, it may be able to support a Reconstruction or custom project that you’ll actually wear.

Quality Still Comes First

Metal markets will continue to move. I can’t control what gold or silver costs next month, and I certainly can’t predict where those prices will be five years from now.

What I can control is how CMD responds. We can design thoughtfully, use materials responsibly, recycle what we can, stay transparent about pricing and keep making jewelry the way we believe it should be made.

That may occasionally mean prices change. It may mean taking a closer look at different material options, including 10k and 14k solid gold where appropriate. It may mean discovering that the forgotten gold in your jewelry box has more potential than you realized.

But I’m not interested in making something cheaper simply for the sake of making it cheaper. I’m interested in finding thoughtful ways to create jewelry that feels worth owning for a very long time.

Have Old Gold Sitting Around?

If you’re curious about what you have, what may be recyclable or how that credit could fit into a future piece, book a complimentary 15-minute consultation with me. You don’t need to know exactly what you want to make yet. Sometimes we start by simply figuring out what’s sitting in the jewelry box.

 

More soon,
Colleen

 

© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: January 19, 2026
Updated: August 26, 2026