Featured Jewellery - Designer Jewelry

Designer Jewelry

Many buyers like to shop for designer jewelry for a couple of reasons. First,
there’s a certain caché about owning a piece of jewelry with a recognizable
style. It’s a status symbol of sorts—others in the know spot your David Yurman
necklace or Cartier bracelet and know you paid good money for it, just
as if you were carrying a Coach bag, wearing a Burberry coat, or driving a
Mercedes Benz sedan. In theory (although it’s not a guarantee) you can feel
confident that you’re getting a good quality piece if a reputable design house
puts its name behind it.
The big problem with buying designer jewelry on a site such as eBay is that
you can’t guarantee what you’re getting is the real thing. Design houses control
their distribution channels very closely. It’s much less likely that a seller
can get her hands on a ton of Tiffany & Co. jewelry during a liquidation
sale than on nondesigner goods. Indeed, these days, it’s getting harder to
find authentic designer jewelry on eBay at all, especially from the big houses,
simply because those companies have been waging war against online auction
sites.
In June 2004, Tiffany & Co. filed a lawsuit against eBay stating that of the
186 items bearing the Tiffany & Co. hallmark that Tiffany had anonymously
purchased and examined for authenticity, only 5 percent were really
Tiffany items, while 73 percent were fake and were being passed off as the
real deal. (The remaining 22 percent were labeled Tiffany, but in a way that
suggested they were counterfeit—for example, with quotation marks around
the name “Tiffany.”
eBay addressed the issue by pulling about 19,000 auctions that appeared to
falsely represent items as Tiffany hallmarks, but at press time the lawsuit
remained active. This has translated to a serious downsizing in the number
of designer pieces available on eBay; a recent search resulted in only about
1,600 items for the keyword Tiffany, a search that previously resulted in
tens of thousands of hits.
76
Part 2 eBay for Buyers
Assessing Quality
When assessing the quality of a piece of designer jewelry, consider these points:
■ Designer name. In the designer category, you’ve got several strata of
offerings. The big guys you’ve heard of are backed by their priceless
names: Tiffany, Cartier, Harry Winston, Van Cleef & Arpels. Then
there are the modern superstars of designer jewelry, houses such as
David Yurman, Lagos, and Penny Preville. Next are the designers
who have “made it” because Hollywood stars have latched on to
them—glitzy designers such as Me & Ro and Erica Courtney. There
are also tons of designers who, although not known the world over,
have developed a loyal following among jewelers and their customers.
They might be rising stars, such as Ayiko Matsuoma and Jordan
Schlanger, who have recently been picked up by exclusive department
stores. They might be even smaller than that—designers of fine or
fashion jewelry who are building a small but loyal following on eBay.
So how does name equate with quality? Well, if they’re smaller
designers, they’ve most likely manufactured their jewelry by hand or
with a cherry-picked production line, which suggests a high degree of
craftsmanship. If they’re larger design houses, they might be using
factories, either in the United States or overseas, to manufacture their
jewelry, but they probably have high quality standards. That’s not to
say that a designer piece is automatically better quality than an
unbranded piece—that’s not true at all. But you do know that there’s
some accountability, especially among prominent design houses,
which in many cases will stand behind their pieces if something goes
wrong (that is, assuming the jewelry isn’t counterfeit).
■ Gemstones and metals used. With designer jewelry, the same causeand-
effect relationship between valuable stones and metals and the
price of the jewelry doesn’t necessarily apply. For example, a Tiffany
& Co. piece in sterling silver will, in the offline world at least, cost
you much more than a similar piece made by a company with a less
well-known name. Along the same lines, a hot design house might
specialize in silver jewelry with semiprecious gemstones such as
amethysts and topaz, and will charge a fortune for them even though
the materials used aren’t intrinsically wildly expensive. You pay for the
name, of course. In cases such as these, you’ll get more value from
well-made, nondesigner jewelry that uses higher-quality materials.
77
The Ins and Outs of Jewelry Buying Chapter 4
Red Flags
Just like with brand names in any category of consumer goods around the
world, designer jewelry is a popular target for knockoff artists. Be very careful
as you shop for designer pieces on eBay, searching for warning signs and
asking a lot of questions before placing a bid. Here are a few things to watch
out for:
■ Counterfeits. Some sellers who are auctioning true fakes will try to
pass them off as the real thing. How can you tell, especially if the
starting price for the auction is in the hundreds? Here are a few clues
that things aren’t what they seem:
■ Private auctions. Private auctions are those where the seller can
hide the identities of the other bidders, as well as her eBay feedback.
That means you can’t see who’s bidding against you, nor can
you see what previous buyers have said about this seller. Although
private auctions aren’t inherently bad, they can be a sign that
something’s awry. Because bidders’ IDs are withheld, other experienced
eBayers can’t e-mail them to warn them if something looks
suspicious. Worse, your best weapon against fraudulent sellers—
their feedback rating—has been hidden from you. If you suspect a
piece might be counterfeit and the auction is private, you might
want to move on to the next listing.
■ A seller who is incommunicado. You e-mail the seller your legitimate
questions: How did you happen to acquire this Cartier watch?
Do you offer any authenticity guarantees, such as a returns policy?
If I cover your costs, could you have this piece authenticated
before shipping it to me? The seller doesn’t write back, or shoots
you a terse reply but avoids answering your questions. Turn your
back and walk away; this seller probably has something to hide.
■ Synonyms for “knock-off.” Auction houses and estate jewelry dealers
for years have sold jewelry for years that, in their words, is “Tiffany
style” or “inspired by Van Cleef & Arpels.” This is the seller’s friendly
way of telling you that, yes, it is indeed a counterfeit, or at least a
close replication, but that it has all the class of the authentic design.
Look for clues in these auctions, such as the one in Figure 4.11, that
serve as a wink and a nod to clue you in that the item isn’t real.
78
Part 2 eBay for Buyers
79
The Ins and Outs of Jewelry Buying Chapter 4
Figure 4.11
Is it or isn’t it? Read the
description carefully for clues
about whether this is a
counterfeit design.
(By the way, a seller is technically prohibited, according to eBay’s
rules, from using illegal comparisons such as “Tiffany style” in their
listings. But many of them still do, and you should be aware what
you’re getting into when you bid on these listings.)