DO ORIGINS OF GOLD INFLUENCE PRICING? | MYTHS DEBUNKED

Back with another Q&A Fridays where I answer your burning hot questions about jewelry. As always, I put up a post on Instagram, telling you to ask me anything that you want to know about jewelry. I picked the five best questions, and I'm here to answer them today. So without further ado, let's get this thing popping.

How often should I clean my jewelry? Alright, so first things first, and let me just debunk this because I get it all the time. People ask me, hey, how do I clean my jewelry and how often should I clean my jewelry? If you haven't seen my video on how to clean jewelry, I'm gonna put the link right here so you guys can watch it. That's for anything silver; it also works on gold over silver. But this is something that I really have to stress, and it's the fact that you don't need to clean your jewelry all the time. You should maybe clean it once every four to five months when it gets really, really grimy. I always recommend just once a year.

When you go out, you don't need to clean your gold over silver, your silver, or even gold jewelry every single time you wear it. It just doesn't make sense. There's no point to it. You don't accumulate enough grime on there. And to be honest with you, if it's gold over silver, you want to honestly not put any sort of harsh chemicals on it, whether it be an ultrasonic or water or soap or anything like that. Just leave it alone. It's perfectly fine. If it gets really nasty and you're really OCD about it, grab a polishing rag, very, very lightly polish it, and you're good to go. But only do that once a month.

You don't need to over-clean your jewelry. Stop being so obsessive about it. Rock it, man. Rock it nasty, that's how I do it. Look at this, it's disgusting.

Do you dip finish your gold Cubans, and how long does the plating last if worn daily? That is a beautiful, beautiful question. Now, I don't know why I get such a bad rap these flash plating ever since influencers or even jewelers ourselves started saying that we flash plated jewelry right before we send it out. Everyone has this crazy stigma as if it were this bad thing. And yet, it's been done for quite literally years. Let me explain to you what a flash plate is.

Right when the piece is done, it may have little solder marks on there or may have these very, very slight imperfections on it. Or maybe the gold that we use has a little bit of copper or recycled gold from somewhere else, and it's not as yellow and bright and shiny right when you get it. So what we do is right before we send it off, we do a quick flash plate. It takes about 10 seconds, and it wears off within about a month or so. It's pretty standard. Everybody does it, and it's just for show, it's like if you were to buy a brand new car at a dealership and someone puts a brand new polish on it.

Obviously, it's gonna wear off, the car isn't that shiny. It's the same thing. It's a wow factor. It protects the gold, and it's something that most jewelers do. There's no problem with it. You're not getting something that's not real. You're still getting 14, 10, or 18K, whatever you paid for. It's just a protective coat. It makes it look shiny. Appreciate it. Stop hating on it. I don't know where this hate comes from, honestly. It's perfectly fine to flash plate your jewelry. In fact, I'd request it if I were you. It's only gonna do you well.

As far as how long it lasts, it really just depends. Some people, it lasts a month. Some people that rarely ever wear their jewelry, maybe two months, maybe three months, who the hell knows. Point is, it's gonna rub off, and then eventually, the real natural color of gold, which can be any color the jeweler decides it to be, is going to eventually come out. Hopefully, that answers your question.

Next question puts up a picture here, and it says lab or natural (diamond)? First off, first off, you're covering the picture of the ring, so I wouldn't be able to see it, number one. So I can't even tell if the diamond or not. But number two, I'm glad you asked this question because there's no way that you would be able to tell whether it's a lab or a natural diamond just looking at it. Let me go even one step further. There's no real way to tell whether it's a CZ, a lab, a Moissanite, or a natural diamond on a computer screen, a video screen, or through a picture. There's no way. There's absolutely no way. You have to see the stone in person.

But furthermore, lab and natural diamonds are optically indistinguishable. They are exactly the same because they are the same. Even when looking at it through a loop, it is very, very difficult to figure out which one is which because at the end of the day, they're both the exact same thing. The lab diamond is a diamond and optically the same as a natural diamond. Hopefully, that answers your question. I wouldn't be able to tell.

Now, that being said, and before I end this question, Moissanite does have a different shine when you sparkle it with light. There's more of a fire. It has more of a rainbow reflection, and that you can tell, but only to the trained eye and never with an actual camera, iPhone, or any other camera that you're holding in your hands.

Up next, video for customers who want to see their whole process of the item being made. It's more of a request than an actual question, but let me just clarify this real quick. I know that people get really excited when it comes to ordering chains, and trust me when I tell you I appreciate your business. Please do not confuse what I'm about to say with me being an ungrateful little piece of garbage because I'm not. I'm very, very grateful. But also, I, as the owner of this business and the one who creates the content, and because of that, I have to stop what I'm doing, whether it's creating YouTube content, Instagram content, running the business, shipping, and customer service, stop what I'm doing to create content for Instagram, which is what people see. They see, hey, listen, someone grabbed their chain, and they posted it on Gus Villa Jewelry's page, and it's awesome. And I hear that.

But what I want you to understand is that it takes time to do these videos. I don't have the time to sit there and individually send pictures of particular stages that your chain might be in. I tell you this because I'm genuinely humbled by you choosing our company to make you your piece, and you investing with us. But to a certain extent, I have to use my time wisely, and I don't say that to be a jerk. It's just the reality of being a business owner.

I wish I could take pictures of every single stage for all the customers I have, but I pump out anywhere from 50 - 80 chains every single week. It would be absolutely impossible for me to sit there and send you each and every one of your stages. I just can't do it. Now, if you make the request, I'm not gonna hate you for it, but I am going to explain to you, probably not feasible. If I can do it, I will, but if I can't, I just can't.

Now, that doesn't mean our customer service is not there at any point. I got five guys answering the phone. Anyone can pick up the phone and say, hey, how's my chain going? And we're gonna give you a live update. But as far as pictures, unfortunately, I can't. But if I can, I will. Love you!

What have you learned being a content creator / jeweler? Angel, that is, uh, I can't tell you how deep that question can go, and I could do a whole entire podcast just talking about it. I won't bore you with the details, but content creation in general has taught me two main, very, very important things. Number one, it's taught me how insanely time-consuming it is. I get asked all the time, 'Gus, what's your secret to all these followers you have on Instagram, on YouTube, etc.?'

And the reality is, it's the time invested into creating good content. People have no idea how insanely time-strenuous it is to create content, to create Instagram and Facebook and reels, etc., etc. It takes an insane amount of time, most of which I was not prepared to do, and until I actually started doing it and to be consistent with it, which is the biggest thing, I think, about social media when it comes to creating content.

As far as the other big thing that I learned is that YouTube and Instagram and social media have two very distinct sides to it. From one side, it is a beautiful platform in which behind the camera exposes me to a lot of people that I had no idea about. They get to know me as a person, which I find really, really beautiful and at the same time rewarding. When someone stops me in the middle of the street, shakes my hand, I shake theirs, we talk a little bit, maybe I get to educate a lot of people, some people even make connections with me, I earn their business this way, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

But at the same time, there's a very, very ugly side of social media, which is, number one, the insane amount of just negativity and hate that you get, whether it be on the YouTube comments, on Instagram in general, people think that because they're behind a camera, they get to just say whatever they want. 

And by all means, everyone has their opinion, and I respect everyone's opinion out there, but there's a certain amount of people that just evoke a very dark side of social media, which I quickly had to learn and shield myself. I've even had this conversation with Creep, who runs this YouTube channel with me. We've had this conversation about not getting high or getting low.

It's really cool to get recognized and get a lot of love on social media, and I'm very appreciative of it, but I can't let it go to my head because at the same time, on the same breath, I get another person on YouTube absolutely destroying me. So you can't get too high, you can't get too low, and I've learned that over time. Shout out to Angel, who's a beast at creating content. If you don't follow him on YouTube, subscribe to his channel. It's CUBAKNOWS JEWELRY. He's helped this channel a lot, and I love you, my brother.

Does gold origin play a part in pricing? That, ironically, is probably the best question I've been asked, and let me explain to you why. Origins of gold have absolutely zero to do with how much the pricing is. London fixed price is what we trade at every single day. So whatever London trade market says the gold value has, that's what we buy it at. It's constantly changing. I would highly suggest you download this app called KITCO. It's gonna tell you exactly what the London ounce price is exactly when you want to know about the actual origin, whether it comes from Peru, whether it comes from Russia, whether it comes from India, whether it comes from Italy.

I have no care in the world. At the end of the day, it's still you, it's still gold, and it's London that fixes the price, not anybody else. Something that I get asked for all the time, 'Hey, my gold is Peruvian, does it cost more?' No, it's just gold. It's whatever this app says it is, that's the value, that's what I pay. Excellent question.

That about does it for our Q&A Fridays this week. Once again, if you are following me on Instagram, when I post that story up there, make sure to ask your questions, and you might see it on our next Q&A Fridays. As always, subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, so that when I post a new video, you'll be the first one to see it. Share this video with anyone that you think would find this content useful, and I'll see you guys in the next video.

Also, check out GusVillaJewelry.com if you're interested in the Miami Cuban link, whether it be silver, 10K, 14K, who the hell knows, whatever's your budget, we got something for you. See you guys in the next one.