Finished & set cabs

If I'm being honest I have to agree with gunsil. Those prices seem high. I understand where you're coming from between the time spent between sourcing the material, slabbing, then cabbing however just be glad you aren't hand making the settings as well.

At the same time I bought a pound of river crossing agate (Argentina condor agate)that was very expensive ($85/lb). I got 6 slabs out of one rock and have two more to cut.

I have seen custom handmade jewelry post and sell on ebay/Facebook that is entirely hand made and they usually ask around $125-200. Most informed buyers know about calibrated settings. A quick search I'm finding 25x18 sterling silver settings for between $10-20, smaller ones cheaper.

At the end of the day it boils down to how much money you have invested in the materials (stones/settings/chains) and how much you value your time. I average around half an hour to make a cabachon so if I can get $35-40 each I am satisfied with that wage.

But it also depends on your market and customers. If the market can sustain it they will sell. I personally only try to sell cabs I want to get rid of so I don't want them hanging around a long time either.

Finally, I don't see any dendrites in the agates (or any of them). Dendrites are the "tree branch" looking patterns sometimes mistakenly called "moss agate". Not saying they aren't nice quality agates and very well could come from Indonesia, but I would have guessed they were Botswana or Montana agates.

Best of luck, and for your sake hopefully I'm wrong but figured I should chime in and explain my reasoning. If you take a look at sterling silver cabachons on ebay you will see ridiculously low priced stuff that makes it discouraging to us American lapidaries. There just isn't any way to compete with foreign labor costs. I think this is what the other person was saying about make sure and advertise the rarity and make sure your customers are familiar with the material.

I have heard etsy is a good platform to sell unique stones that people may search for specifically.

I personally haven't figured out the selling side of lapidary yet and do it simply for my love of rocks.

One other avenue you can try if you don't do silversmiths is wire wrapping. Wire wrapping allows any shape or size cabachons so you can make free-form "designer" cabs which usually sell for more just because they aren't standard shapes.

Alot of calibrated cabachons are actually made on automated machines now. It would cost a small fortune to get setup with that type of machine(s) but once its setup they crank out calibrated cabs. This is how a majority of the Chinese cabs are made. I believe they use cad/cnc machines to do skulls etc. A trained eye can spot them across the room.

Anyway, not trying to be intentionally harsh just honest. Please don't take offense

All of my pendants come with a free neck cord or chain, a box and a polishing cloth. I've found that a lot of people already have silver chains, so with the silver pendants I include a cheap chain and then offer sterling chains as an add on. Helps to make the price tag a little more attractive. I agree with others you're in the right area with these. Those look like nice chains you're including.

They are nice chains

I agree 100%. If you walk around a Rock and Mineral show you see a good number of vendors selling the same items that are clearly not made by them or anyone here in this country. I try to keep everything on my tables limited to items I cut and polished and I always make a point of telling potential customers that. One exception is the spheres I sell that were made by a good friend and I am selling them for his widow. 

It's not my intention to criticize anyone who is putting in the effort to make a living by selling overseas items. It's a lot of work doing shows and I have talked to some of these folks who do 20 shows a year. More power to them. 

Hey, this forum is made up of folks who make their own material to keep and admire, to sell, or to give away. Nothing wrong with stating that to people, it's a talent to be proud of and not be hesitant to acknowledge that.

Henry

I like the pendants and the chains, very cool! We are still in the learning about cutting, materials and how tools work phase of our journey, have not got to the selling part yet, so am not able to give constructive experienced advice.

But looking at things in general, I think the power plays are bragging rights of "handmade by someone local who's actual name you know" and also the "if something goes wrong with it, they may help you fix it" bits. That is where you can justify charging whatever you think is good for you, and good also for the buyer.

Best of good luck to you! I know the selling part is freaking me out a bit. A friend who commissioned a bunch of pendants for her family said she knew I would charge her nothing, so instead of money she did a barter trade for some physiotherapy for my wife :-)

lapidary1234 like I said I am not offended at all.
What I don’t or ever will agree with is giving my work away! Or loosing money it takes money to make money!

When figuring a price for Anyone’s hand crafted pieces one needs to add up the following

1. Price per pound of material (rough rock)
2. You also need to add a few bucks to for any shipping cost of the rough rock to you. There’s a couple ways to do this I think possibly the best way might be take the price per pound then divide the number of pounds bought and add that number to the cost per single pound. Example 3 pounds of one type of rock, then the other 2 pounds for another pound of rocks is figuring the price per 5 pounds.
That’s the easy part, the hard part is figuring out from there is how to pay yourself for slabbing, then shaping, finally is the finished stone polished & set.
3. Then the cost of premade chains and don’t forget to add a few bucks for shipping added to the chains and or premade mountings. Either way once you sell an item your going to eventually have to restock your inventory at some point.
4. Don’t forget any packaging of the item(jewelry boxes) presentation is everything whether in store, gem show or online.
5. If mailing that cost would need to be added and discussed with customer at the very end.
All this adds up to the final finished items price. And these are prices & pricing for premade chains & mountings for a set stone.

The above mentioned is workable up to the point of making your own mountings, chains are a real time consumer if you ask me.
Making your own mountings you need to figure the total price of metals bought. Add a few bucks for shipping costs.
How many mountings can be made from what you bought, will your prices cover restocking metals? Or are you going to loose money making your own mountings by not adding shipping costs and restocking prices are changing almost daily now.
Don’t forget there’s other consumables that also at some time need to be replaced.

These are what I can remember right off the top of my head that the small business administration taught me. Spreadsheets are real handy keeping stuff organized like bought & sold stuff on hand, etc, ect.
“Remember at the end of the year you need to show a profit not a huge loss!”

It’s the people that are Not doing this breakdown of actual prices and loosing money by selling underpriced items that are giving the real skilled lapidary a bad name and calling them out for over pricing.
In reality it’s those undereducated ones giving there work away and loosing money and just haven’t done the breakdown making it harder for us who do the breakdown. If they done the breakdown they would be shocked at how much money they are loosing and just giving away there work.

All I can say to that is keep pushing that electroplated garbage and watch your customers disappear. While my customers just keep growing.

In business your best friend is repeat customers and word of mouth. That really helps cut down on advertising and keeps you in business.