Deb Karash created this necklace and earrings set, using sterling silver, copper, brass, and prismacolor. Photo: Larry Sanders.

Hampered by public perception that silver is a poor substitute for pricier metals, artists who work in silver because they love the material are faced with a distinct set of challenges.

When it comes to the family of precious metals, silver is the poor cousin. While gold commands prices of more than $300 an ounce, and platinum tops $500 an ounce, silver is lucky if its price rises above $5 an ounce.

That lower investment value means that jewelry artists wooed by silver’s gentle radiance are often faced with a harsh business reality: in many customers’ minds, a silver piece of jewelry just isn’t worth as much as a gold or platinum one. Who wants to hear, over and over again, “Why does that cost so much? It’s only silver.”

Selling silver isn’t for the timid. A successful silver jewelry artist must be able to make the sale on the basis of his art, not his materials. “When I try to sell a piece to a customer, it’s very difficult for me,” confesses jewelry artist Lee Epperson, from Phoenix, Arizona. “I can tell anyone anything they want to know about my piece — how it was made, what the design means . . . but as soon as they ask the price, I drop something on the floor and my wife takes over.”

In order to succeed, the silver artist must be able to boldly ask customers for prices that sometimes seem high, even to him. He must develop a thick skin so he can ignore the unbelieving looks of buyers more accustomed to the prices charged for Mexican and Asian mass-produced jewelry. And he must find ways to reach customers who won’t hesitate to plunk down the cash for a unique piece of wearable art — even if it is made of silver.

The jewelry artists interviewed for this article have all found their own niches, where they can do just that. Some do small scale production castings, while others fabricate one-of-a-kind pieces.

Some sell primarily at wholesale craft shows, upscale galleries, and fine jewelry stores, while others set up stalls at farmers’ markets or local fine craft venues.

The one thing all these artists have in common is that they are making a living selling silver. You can, too. To get on track to successful silver sales, follow these tips for selling silver.

Deb Karash created the Simply a Matter of Time brooch, using sterling silver, copper, brass, and prismacolor. Photo: Larry Sanders.

RAISE YOUR PRICES.
Although the first instinct of many artists is to keep prices low to attract the largest number of customers possible, the tactic can backfire in art jewelry. “When I started selling, I had many compliments on the quality of my work, but no one would buy,” says Karen Bahr of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. “I started asking customers why, and they informed me that at the prices I was charging, it couldn’t be real silver. I was trying to make silver jewelry affordable. They lumped me with the jewelry coming from Mexico — cheap, and who knows if it really is silver.”

“It was really hard for me to raise my prices,” says Deb Karash of Rockville, Illinois. “I think there were two things that really [convinced me to do it]. One is that if you want to work with galleries, it has to be priced high enough for them to make money on your work. They don’t want to bother with a $100 piece because they only make $50. The other thing is that if you’re doing these higher-end shows, if you don’t have prices on level with other artists doing work similar to yours, it’s insulting to the other artists.”

A good starting point for setting price is a simple formula: labor + overhead + materials + profit = fair price. If you are going to make a living from your jewelry, you must be sure your prices are high enough to pay you for your time and to cover all your expenses, both the material cost and the cost of running a business.

Evon’s Medieval Fleur de Lis, made of cast and fabricated sterling silver, strung on a triple strand of freshwater pearls. Photo: Ralph Gabriner.

For most artists, though, the price set by a formula is only starting point. If the price dictated seems too high for the piece to sell, they will adjust it downward slightly. If a piece looks like it might sell for more, they’ll raise the price somewhat. “We have a formula that works, [built from] five years of trial and error,” says Asheville, North Carolina, jewelry designer Q Evon. “But if we look at a piece and think, ‘That looks way more than that,’ we [bump up the price] to get more margin out of the piece, to offset the piece [you have to lower the price on].”

Cast sterling silver cuff bracelet by Q Evon; photo: Ralph Gabriner.

Many artists like silver because the lower material costs mean that they can offer jewelry with price points under $100, and some even offer simple pieces starting at $20. More complex pieces can command higher price points, however: Diana Contine of Dakota Moon in New Hope, Pennsylvania, charges just $18 for a pair of simple pearl and silver earrings, but also creates pieces that sell for up to $1,000. Q Evon’s cast silver jewelry retails at prices starting at $70 and going up to $500, while Karash’s one-of-a-kind work ranges from $150 to $1,000, with an average price of $250.

“Silver, you can sell at a reasonable price,” observes Gordon Hubbard, whose work starts at $45. “If I do a group of china shards [set in silver], I’m going to end up with a $300 order. If I do the exact same thing in gold, it’s a $3,000 order.”

When you set your price, you should also consider the future, as well. Even if you’re selling exclusively in retail venues now, would you be able to make the leap to wholesale if the opportunity presented itself?

Galleries generally take 40 to 60 percent of the retail price as commission, and frown upon your underselling them at craft shows or on the Internet at prices less than half of what they’re charging. If you set your retail prices high enough, you can wholesale your work at 50 percent of the retail price and still make money.

It’s not easy to raise your prices, but you may be surprised by the results. “Sometimes I’ve had something at a lower price [and it didn’t sell], and then for whatever reason, I’ve put the price higher, and it sells right away,” says Contine. “Sometimes people value what costs more. If they look at something that’s too inexpensive, [they assume] it must not be well made.”

Diana Contine's silver PMC necklace includes carnelian and pearls. Photo: R. Diamante.

KNOW YOUR MARKET.
What the market will bear depends, of course, on the market. When you charge prices significantly higher than those commanded by mass-produced silver jewelry, you need to seek out customers who can discern the difference between machine-made charms and hand-crafted pendants.

“You have to find an audience that is looking for the value in the work and in the idea, and not just in the material,” says Karash. “When I do shows like Philadelphia Craft or the Smithsonian, [customers] look at the prices and say they’re so reasonable. When I’m doing a street fair, people are like, ‘oh no,’ and they walk away.”

“Most of my pieces retail for less than $500, and in a fine jewelry store, that’s an impulse buy,” says Evon, who finds buyers for her small-scale-production line of silver jewelry through wholesale craft shows such as the American Craft Council shows and the Buyers Market for American Craft in Philadelphia. “If you can have a piece that looks like a piece of pricey [designer] jewelry, priced at less than $500, it’s an easy sell.” (The strategy seems to be working: Evon reports she has added 35 new fine jewelry store accounts in the last year.)

For many artists, the best places to find those discerning buyers is at juried craft shows and fine craft galleries. “The shows I do are all juried shows, and they’re mostly all paid admission,” says Hubbard. “I find that the people who pay admission to these shows are very educated in selecting hand-crafted items. They will spend $50 on a bracelet because they’re looking for hand-crafted work.”

Diana Contine, of New Hope, Pennsylvania, created this brooch with silver PMC with a patina to add color; it also includes an oak twig wrapped with silver wire. Photo: R. Diamante.

Others have found success in less likely places. Bahr says one of her best markets for higher-priced silver jewelry is a large, indoor farmers’ market in the suburbs of Calgary. “Farmers’ markets are usually noted for the quality of product,” she says. “The handcrafts are all quality handmade things, and you have to prove that it’s handmade. I’m finding that people at farmers’ markets are looking for quality products, and most have the money and are willing to pay to get quality products.”

All agree that flea markets and street fairs are least likely to be good venues for the silver jewelry artist. “In the very beginning, we did flea markets, and that is a no-no,” says Bahr. “Everyone wants to beat you down on price.”

SELL YOURSELF, NOT YOUR MATERIALS.
You are not selling silver. You are selling your artistry, your talent, and your vision. No one would pay $100 for an ounce of silver. What you are being paid for is your creative endeavor — which just happens to be expressed in silver.

“When I create a piece of jewelry or a piece of silver pottery, I’m creating a piece of artwork,” says Epperson. “I make unique pieces, and people recognize the style and recognize the name.”

When she first started, Bahr says her prices were roughly a quarter of what other silver jewelry artists were charging. She started to raise her prices, but still worried about “overcharging” until her future husband pointed out a few facts about selling art. “When I met my husband, he said, ‘People will take you a lot more seriously if you charge something. You’re trying to give people a deal, [but] they’re not looking for a deal when they’re looking for artwork.’”

Jayne Redman’s Tulip earrings, hand-fabricated and embossed sterling with 24K kuem-boo overlay, embossed 18K with fine silver kuem-boo overlay; and embossed sterling silver and 18K gold with 24K kuem-boo overlay. Photo. R. Diamante.

DON’T COMPETE WITH IMPORTS.
There is plenty of inexpensive imported jewelry available to the jewelry-buying public. If you want to make a living making silver jewelry, you won’t compete with any of it.

“I [sell] a few little Mexican things in areas where I can’t compete with the price, usually low-end stuff for the kids,” says Bahr. “But most of the low end stuff is relatively cheaply built. Although it looks beautiful, it’s cheap. [My customers] are a little more discerning, and can understand that my ring has three or four times the silver, so it won’t break three weeks down the road.” If a customer can’t see the difference, let them walk, Bahr says. “The people who go for cheap stuff aren’t interested in your stuff anyway.”

Finding a unique niche can help you avoid directly competing with cheap imports. For example, Gordon Hubbard has found success by creating jewelry from silver and items found on his island home of Nevis, West Indies, which he sells at a local resort hotel. By incorporating local pottery shards, conch shells, and volcanic ash from nearby Montserrat, he appeals to hotel guests who want something they can treasure for years to come, instead of just another T-shirt.

The hotel is also a steady source of custom work, Hubbard notes. “Sometimes [hotel guests] will find a shard and show the hotel manager what they’ve found, and the manager will say, ‘Gordon can make you a piece of jewelry from that.’”

Other jewelers have been successful by developing their line within long-established niches. Epperson, for example, works in a Southwestern style that has a long tradition of silver work. “Very little Southwest jewelry is made in gold,” he observes. “It is easy to work in silver when your outlets require silver.”

ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS.
If you want to make higher-end sales, you must have the tools to make it easy for customers to do so. That means accepting credit cards. “My sales increased dramatically when I added Visa, MasterCard, and Debit cards as a method to purchase high-end jewelry,” says Bahr. “The first thing I figured out was what the minimum charge was I’d have to pay for the year, and I asked myself, could I make that amount of money to cover the minimum charge? For a year it was $800, and I said, ‘yes.’”

EXPECT TO EDUCATE.
If you work in silver, you can’t rely on the intrinsic value of your work to sell your work. You’ll have to educate the customer about the artistry and talent that goes into it. “You must know your product — how it was made, where it or the supplies for it came from, what makes it special,” says Bahr. “I find that each of my pieces has a story behind it, and the customers like the stories.”

You may also have to teach both retailers and customers how to care for your jewelry. “One of the big problems I’ve always had [with silver] is teaching people how to take care of it properly,” says Jayne Redman of Cumberland, Maine, who is moving away from silver to concentrate in gold. “The tarnishing aspect is always difficult.”

To combat this problem, many silver jewelry artists include a silver polishing cloth with their jewelry, and are careful to instruct customers in the care of their silver jewelry. “If I’m working with an opal or a turquoise or a soft stone, you have to be very careful not to put any [silver] cleaner on the stone,” says Hubbard. “I tell everybody not to use silver dip — and I have replaced stones for people who didn’t know that.”

This is the first year I’m really making a nice income for myself,” says Evon, who started her business six years ago. “I have seven people who work with me, and they’ve been paid right along.”

“I started doing this full time seven years ago, and last year was the first that I was comfortable that I made enough money to really live on,” says Karash, who notes that she never considered switching to gold. “I think what I make is what’s in me. I either sell it and make a living, or I have to get a job.”

“This is a labor of love,” says Hubbard. “I do it because I like it, and I do make money at it. Not millions of dollars, but I’m a one-man show. I work when I want to work, and if I want to run down and get a cup of coffee,
I go.”