Buy Hand Made

If I had more faith in the ability of humans to read between the lines than I would have just left the title and not written anything else. Alas, people are mostly dumb and so allow me to explain the simple economics of buying hand made goods versus commercial goods.  As always I will be using the Jewelry trade as an example because I am a silversmith, but this translates to all hand made and hand crafted goods.

What most people do not realize is that the vast majority of jewelry is not made by the person selling it.  This is especially true if you are buying from a store.  Most of those high end jewelers actually buy their innovatory from a catalog of current trendy jewelery which is all mass made in some third world country.  These rings and necklaces are made in bulk in a factory, paying their workers 10 cents an hour so that they can sell us richer countries cheap goods, which the stores mark up at 500% and sell to us, the gullible public. Since everyone likes pictures, I will provide a visual example:

The ring on the Bottom is available for sale from a national jewelry chain.  It has a sapphire, several tiny diamonds and is made from white gold.  The Ring on top I made by hand. It has a sapphire and is made from sterling silver.  They both cost about the same.  Now take a look at the detail in the lower ring.  Do you honestly thing that a human made this by hand?  If so we need to talk...  This was made by a machine in a country very far away and it cost them $50 to make... probably less...and that includes the stones.  If your read my blog post about how a ring is made by hand, then you know that even a simple design like this one takes many steps, and a talented craftsman to create.  Thus, forgive me for getting peevish whenever I overhear anyone saying that it is too expensive.

So where am I going with all of this?  Let me put it this way: Who would you rather give your money to? A fellow neighbor or a aristocrat in China?  The answer should be easy.  As Americans (and other countries are guilty of this too) we have become a "cheaper is better" society.  We demand to have it our way or the highway and we want it now.  We all love to get good deals, but all of our money is filtering into the economies of other countries.  If we don't shape up and start to put our money into the hands of our own shop owners, farmers, craftspeople and tailors, then we are going to find that we are the next third world country, driven into a hole of debt by our own thirst for a good deal.  I think we are all aware of how this works: By spending more money in our own local economies, there is more money flowing around...it is that simple.

The key to making this work is to rewire the way that we think...  to form a connection with what we eat, wear, drive and use everyday.  In the case of jewelry, the bragging right should sound more like this: "I had a local silver smith custom make this for me by hand!", not this" I got a great deal on this ring from the jewelry shop in the mall".  And this starts with having an understanding of what we are buying.

So next time you decide you want a loaf of bread, a cup of coffee, a piece of jewelry or even a car, consider if it would be worth it to spend just a tad more to have the money spent at a shop where they do their own work.  I have found the best part is the personal Karma you  feel afterwards, knowing that you have helped to support the people around you, and we all know that Karma has a way of coming full circle.