Jewellery & Economy

What to do when gold gets too expensive?

Published on February 26, 2025

It’s 2025, the gold prices have been skyrocketing for some time now, and that seems to continue for the foreseeable future.

What happens when gold becomes too expensive for events such as weddings? This question isn’t new: across cultures, people have long found creative ways to adapt when the price of gold put it out of reach.

From renting jewellery for weddings, to turning to imitation pieces and replicas, to rediscovering silver jewellery, the traditions of adornment have always continued in one form or another. These practices reveal much about how jewellery functions: not just as wealth, but as heritage, identity, and cultural expression.

Renting jewellery as an alternative when gold prices rise

If it’s just for the day, you don’t actually have to own the jewellery. So, for both guests and the bride herself, it is possible to borrow someone else’s jewellery. That can be the collective jewellery of several family members, but also a set rented from a jeweller. [1]

Bear in mind that, while this has been an accepted custom for decades, wearing another person’s jewellery is limited to these individual occasions; jewellery has never been passed down from generation to generation. Each bride expects to be honoured with a new set of jewellery. Second-hand jewellery that has already been worn for an entire lifetime, is usually dismissed.

And finally, jewellery is sold to cover expenses throughout a woman’s life: it is constantly added to or sold off.

This practice, by the way, makes jewellery that is more than one generation old hard to come by; most jewellery was melted down and worked into new pieces over the course of the owner’s life.

Imitation jewellery & replicas: how cultures respond

If it’s not for the day, but for a considerable amount of time, that is when imitations come in. And these can actually be very, very good! That is because imitations as a phenomenon have been around for quite some time, too.

Should a woman have to sell her jewellery to cover expenses, that will have the neighbours talking for sure – unless they don’t see the difference. Both silver and gold jewellery can be replaced by cheaper substitutes.

Those replicas were so good that the difference between the originals and their cheaper counterparts could often only be discerned on close examination.

In Egypt, one particular company thrived on this demand for gold-plated replicas. The icon of their brand name ‘al-Gamal’, the camel, was stamped into the jewellery; at a distance this resembled the official gold hallmark and added to the illusion of authenticity [2].

Speaking of hallmarks, you could also imitate those to look like the real deal from a distance. Instead of the official marks, they would consist of a series of X’s for example, or, a beautiful variety that does not speak untruths: the word ‘metal’ stamped into the surface: just like a regular hallmark would mention silver or gold content.

Silver jewellery revival: heritage and value when gold fades

As a result of those skyrocketing gold prices, trend observers have seen a return to traditional silver jewellery instead of gold. And that may even include traditional heirloom jewellery: apart from its monetary value, authentic silver jewellery has been being revalued increasingly as cultural heritage in its own right for the past decades.

Born out of circumstances, it’s nonetheless a beautiful way of old jewellery gaining new meaning in today’s world!

See more here about changing values of materials used in jewellery: did you know aluminium used to be a precious metal?

Cultural resilience: jewellery, heritage and solutions beyond gold

When the price of gold rises, the world of jewellery does not stop — it transforms. Imitation jewellery, silver ornaments, and even the practice of borrowing or renting jewellery all show how people preserve the meaning of adornment in the face of economic limits.

So, here we see again how jewellery has never been only about precious materials. It also carries heritage, memory, and symbolism. In this sense, gold’s expense only highlights a timeless truth: jewellery is valuable not just for what it is made of, but for the role it plays in tradition, identity, and human connection.

Find out more about jewellery as a financial asset in the course!

More posts on the everyday life of jewellery? Browse them all here!

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References for the use of jewellery as financial asset

[1] See Lindisfarne-Tapper , N. & B. Ingham (eds), 2013. Languages of Dress in the Middle East. Routledge, London/New York, p. 62

[2] See Fahmy, A.  2007. Enchanted Jewelry of Egypt. The traditional art and craft. American University in Cairo Press, Cairo

 

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