Back in December I wrote about the stress of the escalation of silver prices, and what was already a minor disaster in the making has turned into a total nightmare.
What's going on?!
Silver had jumped 20% in the Christmas week. Since then it's gone up another 41%. That's on top of the 20% in December. 100% in three months in fact.
100% in three months?!?! Try to let that sink in, because I'm having a lot of trouble...
I've pulled right back on ordering stock in a desperate hope that prices might drop, and some pieces you'll notice are now already out of stock online. I've put some of my prices up by a modest 10-15% keeping it as low as I can but the honest reality is, to continue as a silversmith means that they days of lovely necklaces under £60 are a thing of the past. With chains now costing me up to 10 times the cost they did last summer I can't maintain that sort of pricing. All my chains are made in the UK - I COULD go start importing things, or making base metal chains as an option to off-set the cost of my silver pendants but that's just against the principles of my business, plus the fact is all that would happen is the price might be a fraction lower due to manufacturing costs but the quality would decline.
The silver crisis is so bad that most UK bullion dealers have ceased accepting any silver scrap, even our trusty local trader Bloomsteins right here in Brighton have stopped accepting scrap silver for the foreseeable future. As we don't cast our pieces in house we're not able to re-use our silver scrap to make new pieces and are at the mercy of daily bullion rates.
What Happens Next?!
In all honesty, I just don't know what this means for the future of the business. For now I'll continue to adjust prices as I make new pieces and keep the rises the lowest I can. It's not about increasing my margins, any increases is literally just covering rising costs, sometimes not even that.
On the plus side (because yay for plus sides!) I have had a thorough go through my existing stock and there are some gold and silver pieces that I have pre-made in small amounts at slightly lower prices and have been able to offer at reduced prices rather than scrap them. You can find them here just while stocks last: https://scarlettjewellery.com/collections/january-stock-review-sale
Going forward its likely that many of these will be phased out - making them at current gold and silver prices makes them unviable, unaffordable and therefore as tragic as it sounds, some of the best loved pieces from the collection will be retired, by force it would seem.
Such as the Que Sera Collection - a much loved and centrally meaningful piece from the range. To make one gold bead in metal alone now costs triple what it did this time last year. The bangle metal has gone from £19 to almost £60 and rises daily. Pieces like this just aren't viable going forward to continue to make. Things MAY change but as of January 2026 the picture is murky as hell.
So in the meantime if you've had your eye on something special please get it before I may be forced to retire it. I don't hold immense amount of stock, and going forward the whole range might be getting a very serious cull down to a much smaller collection.
Thanks again for your patience as we navigate worldwide chaos.
Stevie Holmes, Designer & Director
