The jewelry industry has been having a bumpy ride this year. Tariffs, inflation and the steeply rising price of gold (up more than 60 percent since early 2024) have pushed the cost of new items in most jewelry boutiques and department stores far beyond what they were just a year ago.
But not everyone in the trade is complaining. Sellers of vintage jewelry, insulated from some of the current economic volatility because they deal in pieces made decades or even centuries ago, occupy a sliver of the market where price increases haven’t been as steep and business has been quite good.
“I’m thrilled” by the elevated price of gold, said Benjamin Macklowe, the president of Macklowe Gallery, a jewelry and decorative arts business in New York City. As a seller of items such as a 16th-century ring set with a Roman mosaic and Angela Cummings’s 1980s designs for Tiffany & Company, he isn’t worried by many of the spiraling costs affecting contemporary jewelry production.
“We are very happy all the great jewelry companies have to manufacture at $3,400 an ounce,” Mr. Macklowe said, as that “makes everything I sell look so unbelievably well valued.” As an example, he noted that a weighty 1940s tank bracelet in gold would be about $17,000 at Macklowe, while a new piece of comparable size might cost “four, five or six times more.”
“People see incredible value because they’re getting the history, they’re getting the uniqueness of design, they’re getting the amazing manufacturing,” he said. “It’s got a real collectible quality to it without the price being like a collectible piece being made today.”
Go for the Bold
The comparative accessibility of vintage jewelry makes it possible for shoppers to be a little more daring in their choices, according to Randi Molofsky. Through her bicoastal U.S. showroom For Future Reference, she curates a vintage jewelry offering — mostly unsigned items from the 1940s to 1980s at $6,000 to $10,000 — for retailers including Bergdorf Goodman and Moda Operandi, and sells to individuals by appointment. (The business also represents contemporary jewelry designers.)
Her clients, she said, often approach vintage shopping as an introduction to precious jewelry of all kinds: “It’s really like a gateway into buying fine jewelry and buying bigger pieces that feel a little bit more affordable. There’s a value proposition with vintage in general, but particularly now.”
As for the styles now in high demand, Ms. Molofsky mentioned jewelry watches with hard stone dials and collars and bracelets in the tubogas style, flexible forms that look like they were made of pipe.
A shift in style also has buoyed the fortunes of vintage jewelry. “People like weirder stuff these days than they used to,” Ms. Molofsky said. “Not that long ago, people didn’t really want one-of-a-kind. They wanted the same special piece that everybody had.”
Now, especially among younger clients, “it’s kind of a badge of honor to have something that is pre-owned or pre-loved.”
Safe and Sound
With shops in cities including New York, Rome and the Qatari capital, Doha, the family-owned vintage jewelry business Eleuteri has seen its share of economic and political ups and downs since it was first founded as a cafe in 1894.
“Whenever there’s a crisis, people resort to things like gold and jewelry,” said Wagner Eleuteri, the third generation of his family to run the business. “Jewelry, at least, gives you intrinsic value.”
He saw such responses during the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, as well as in recent months, noting that trade conditions have affected the company somewhat. For example, his latest Hong Kong auction acquisitions won’t be coming to the boutique in the United States, to avoid the tariffs now in place.
However, he added, they would be a small price to pay for the current boom in business. “Having a stronger market is way more important than having to avoid a 10 percent tariff here and there,” Mr. Eleuteri said, estimating that his sales have gone up “by approximately 10 to 20 percent, month-to-month, across our stores in the first half of the year.”
Vintage Bulgari jewelry is particularly in demand at the moment, he noted, and Buccellati. “If a brand invests in its heritage, then it does trigger an interest in the secondary market and collectability,” he said. “And brooches seem to be back.”
A Golden Age
Emily Satloff’s jewelry brand, Larkspur & Hawk, sprang from her affinity for jewelry designs of the Georgian era — roughly 1714 to 1837 — and techniques of the time, particularly foil-backed gemstones.
“It was such a romantic era,” Ms. Satloff said, “and the first time jewelry reached the masses, the upper middle class — not just royalty and clergy.”
Late last year, she began selling antique Georgian jewelry, too, through her 25-year-old brand’s website and New York City showroom. She thought it “felt right to sell existing things that still have life in them.” Floral diamond cluster earrings in gold and silver from about 1830 ($4,000) and a rivière of graduated cushion-cut topazes dating from the late 18th century ($14,500) are among the antique items Ms. Satloff currently offers.
She said she had observed steadily growing interest in antique jewelry that had only been compounded by current conditions. “Antiques have gotten more expensive in general over time,” in part because of period dramas like “Bridgerton” and “Queen Charlotte,” Ms. Satloff said, adding, “Antiques call to somebody who really wants a little nugget of the past.”
Discount Code
Clients of Yafa Signed Jewels, which has a retail location in Palm Beach, Fla., and sells globally by private appointment and at international exhibitions, often regard their purchases as “wearable art or an alternative asset class,” said the company’s co-owner, Tyler Moradof.
The company’s wares start at about $10,000 and reach about $10 million, representing mainly heritage brands such as Bulgari and its Serpenti designs and Van Cleef & Arpels, with a ruby and diamond necklace from the estate of Estée Lauder.
“Year over year, we’re doing well,” said Mr. Moradof, who declined to be specific but reported sales increases of 50 percent annually since 2020. “We are in the process of opening up some other locations.”
Even the declining value of the U.S. dollar, which was trading near a three-year low in late June, has been a boon in Mr. Moradof’s business. “The U.S. dollar has become weaker, and the euro and Swiss franc have become stronger,” he said. “Our international clients feel like they are buying on sale.”
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