Price discussion

Hand-crafted Knot Jewelry:
Decorative Marlingspike Seamanship rendered in precious metal.

Information Center	Shop Around For Goodies
Learn about knots and knot-tying See the workshop and show tour schedule. See what's new on the site Contact me (email, phone, etc.)	Cotton Bracelets Shop for ready made jewelry Request custom jewelry Find tools and instructions for making your own.

The following refers primarily to rings and bracelets, my specialties, made with Turk's Head knots.

My prices are based primarily on the effort required for a given piece. That involves not only the complexity of the knot itself, but the recalcitrance of the material used. The market value of the materials, of course, is of considerable significance as well. It seems that every time I get all the factors balanced and create a new price list, the costs of gold and platinum and silver ratchet up a few more notches.

My pricing criteria are as fair as I can make them, given the unusual nature of the craft that I pursue, and the difficulties I encounter along the way. I'm not locking myself into a particular pricetag for any given piece, though I will never raise a price once it has been agreed and money has changed hands. Pieces that require significant investment in material will have that material cost factored into the final price.

My preferred material is 18K gold, which is not as hard to work with as a lower karat gold would be, but is hard enough. Pure gold would be very easy, but it wears quickly and won't hold its shape very well. (There is a "microalloy" of 24K gold that is as hard as 18K, from a company called PureGold. It is available, but the material costs will go up considerably.) Pure silver is also very easy, and relatively inexpensive, but also doesn't hold up well. Pure platinum is very soft when annealed, but has no tensile strength worth mentioning and work-hardens so quickly that its only advantage is beauty.

The various colored 18K gold alloys I use have their own peculiarities. White gold made with nickel is harder than a banker's heart, even after it's been annealed (heated and quenched, to soften it), and I dislike it. I should charge extra for its use, over and above the premium I charge for color selections other than yellow, but I choose not to, keeping all 18K gold at a flat rate per crossing for the initial knot.

Silver, being easy to tie, I charge the least for. Since I make practice pieces in silver to verify that a ring will be the right size and shape, I generally sell those rings for a flat rate of $100 for a five-lead ring, $140 for a seven-lead.

Platinum has to be annealed between every step, sometimes during steps, and presents serious difficulties for my methods, so I will almost always tie a piece in silver first, then build up from there to the platinum, bit by bit. The process is stressful, even when I succeed, and if I break a platinum wire I have to start over from scratch - platinum's melting temperature is so high that any other metals present will be puddles long before the platinum solder flows. These factors are taken into consideration in my pricing for work done in this metal.

Remember, please contact me for details on specific items, as every ring, bracelet, etc., is a unique challenge. No two are alike, even if I make matching rings, because each piece is individually hand crafted.