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Notes -
Gold is not behaving more reasonably, but that probably doesn't matter for rings because jewelry prices are not very connected to metals prices- the markup was already big enough to absorb material price rises and stones were the main driver of material costs anyways.
This, BTW, is why jewelry makes a terrible investment- unlike eg guns, which you can usually sell for a decent percent of the initial purchase price, jewelry you definitely can't, due to the very high markup and subjective appraisals.
Yes, but wives don't appreciate you giving them guns for Christmas. At least, mine prefers gold.
As for content, back to Costco. 3.68g of 24k. Spot price is $173, which makes the value of gold $636 out of $760 list price (and 10% sales tax for me). So that's 83% of list price as pure value from the gold.
That doesn't mean you can get spot price for it, of course. I wouldn't consider there to be any value in jewelry beyond metal scrap if it comes to liquidating, but it's a nice way to give a gift and give an investment at the same time.
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