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True, but both instances are unrealistic & if your making a thing that sells for £20'ish (that's worthy of hallmarking) , you'll be wasting your time.
Some invoices I get are mindboggling pieces of art...sometimes wonder if half the cost goes to admin & what's all the fancy stuff for exactly?
Sorry for being blunt earlier, but I can't be bothered worrying how things sound in writing..bear that in mind.
I agree with Chris.
And actually its not even £3 per item if you had standard service its less than £1.50.
Even on silver items its hardly worth factoring in its so small!
I don't know what the turnaround time at London is but at Birmingham its very good so its rare that I use same day or next day service and if I do its at special request by the customer so they have to pay the extra.
I really don't understand what the complaint is here.
I have to admit the charge seems reasonable compared to what we pay a here in NL. 30 items would be way over 120 euro, for normal hand striking/stamping if I wanted it lasering I would be doubling that cost and for a short turnaround only 21 quid, they would add 100% to the bill in Gouda. Even with the additional postage costs, I have to consider changing to London, or better still Edinburgh.
Poor old Les
I dont send much up to the assay office because I make sure its under the weight which most things are. It looks more professional to have them stamped but most of my sales are in a craft fair as its just a hobby for me. I know I am fairly new to making jewellery (five years), if the people that are making jewellery for a living, charge £20 for a plain ring, and hallmarking for that item is say £3, when you add labour and materials and other expenses, say heating in the winter and consumables, sawblades, flux etc, I dont know how they can make a profit.
From what I remember you get all 4 stamps in that cost as well right? If I wanted year mark and office mark....guess what additional costs. Where's that registration form?
Poor old Les
While the rationalisation of the charges is generally a good thing, there's still a lot of noise in the pricing - for example, packet handling. There's packet handling regardless of whether it is postal or direct, why is that listed as a separate item when it could have been rolled into a minimum charge?
The hallnote could still do with some additional points for laser marks, for example - if the laser engraving form is supposed to capture that then it doesn't seem clear. Mind you, I'd probably end up with the hallnote spanning 3 pages to make sure everything was clear...
Cost - well, it has to go up at some point. Everything else does.
If your pricing model doesn't cover the cost of having the item hallmarked then I'd hope that it is below the minimum weight. I'd prefer to hallmark everything in silver, but I find I'm shying away from it now to keep costs - and therefore price - down (and what I've been doing recently has no precious metal content anyway). I'm sorely tempted to get at least one more maker's mark made up so at least I can sign the things, but of course that's not a hallmark and anyone assuming it is within earshot of me would be corrected.
BTW - I'm assuming the link to the "Fairmind" submission form at http://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/welco...ful-downloads/ is supposed to read "Fairmined"?
I've just sent a parcel off with 20+ pieces in, in a mix of silver, 18ct gold and silver with 18ct gold, think I should save a few quid going by the old charges. I don't send really light stuff unless I'm sending a big packet anyway, then send whatever is not marked that I have. The only time the charges really make me cry is when I have a single item to send off.
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