reusing a customer's existing silver

[madsally]

Hi all, I'm interested in your thoughts on recycling customers' existing jewellery into new pieces.

I have an enquiry from a lady interested in me making her a piece to display an important stone, and she says she has some silver jewellery that she wants to reuse. I don't know yet if this is for financial reasons, or because the jewellery has sentimental value.

I'm also not so experienced in stone setting yet, and would perhaps want to wax carve and cast a piece for her, in which case using her existing jewellery wouldn't work anyway.

Do you recycle customers' existing jewellery? How does this impact on pricing?

Thoughts welcome!

[caroleallen]

Depends on how much time you have. I always say no because I'm short on time.

[SteveLAO]

From experience in a previous life it's a load of extra hassle! (And the finished product may or may not even pass assay depending on the scrap you're starting with.) As Caroleallan also mentioned, it's a load of extra time involved too!
The public think it will be so much cheaper as they are supplying the raw material, but what they don't get is that you have to spend so much time working that raw material into useful metal - melting up, drawing it down and so on - before you even start.....and time is of course money! I found that sometimes it actually cost the customer more, and not less, to reuse their own metal!
However if it's for sentimental reasons......then what price sentimentality!!

[art925]

From experience in a previous life it's a load of extra hassle! (And the finished product may or may not even pass assay depending on the scrap you're starting with.) As Caroleallan also mentioned, it's a load of extra time involved too!
The public think it will be so much cheaper as they are supplying the raw material, but what they don't get is that you have to spend so much time working that raw material into useful metal - melting up, drawing it down and so on - before you even start.....and time is of course money! I found that sometimes it actually cost the customer more, and not less, to reuse their own metal!
However if it's for sentimental reasons......then what price sentimentality!!

I do it I always add new metal to the old metal and I do tell my customer that. As Steve said, often it costs more based upon my hourly rate, but if the customer wants to pay for the extra time required then fine by me.
Les

[madsally]

Thanks guys,

the customer wants to recycle a silver bangle she was given as a christening present. It's not about money for her, it's not even much about sentiment; it's about ethics as she's a keen environmentalist.

I've said I'll draw up some designs, but I am a bit nervous about melting down and reusing the bangle - I've never done it before. Don't really know where to start. Maybe I'll search the forum for advice!

[Dennis]

Tell her you will hand it in with your scrap so that it can be professionally reformulated. Look at Cooksons scrap prices and pay her that.Then start with new silver and add a small handling charge.

However, scrap silver is not economical to sell, until you have a kilo, because there is a standard assay fee of about £40. So if you don't make much scrap, she could sell it to a jeweller who buys scrap, with the same effect. Dennis.

[Tabby66]

I've found that silver has a tendency to become quite brittle and crack when reworked, even with careful annealing. Do you have access to a rolling mill Sally, I think that will be essential

[LydiaNiz]

You can always use ecosilver - environmentally sound, and tell her you will recycle her bracelet when it passes on in the form of scrap (as Dennis said).

[madsally]

Unfortunately I don't have a rolling mill, I so much wish I did.

I think I did mention Ecosilver to her, hoping it would be a good compromise, but she was insistent on using her existing silver.

As it happens, since sending her some design ideas about a week ago, I haven't heard back from her. I think I'm secretly hoping she doesn't like them and goes elsewhere!