Carpe Diem

 Reprinted from my “Road Reflections” Blog – Sept. 15, 2011

Okay, I admit it… I sat and watched the Home Shopping Channel for about 20 minutes last night in my “not so fancy but clean, cheap motel room” in Farflung, Saskatchewan.  Now to be fair, I turned there when I saw the listing show “Ammolite”.  Some of you know that “Korite Ken” is my cousin, so I just wanted to watch long enough to have something to bug him about.  The thing I found interesting is that everything they were selling was in silver.  I’m sure they still sell gold, but like all of us, they’re trying to keep price points down to reasonable levels.

Here’s the thing about price points.  Trying to chase them down the scale is what Wallmart does.  Wallmarts’ suppliers have a price-point and a look in mind.  In order to make those two factors happen, they make jewellery cheaper, thinner and with lower and lower quality gemstones in order to fit the price-point.  I’m not equating Korite’s product with Wallmart at all.  I’m simply saying that jewellery is and should be more expensive today than it was 10 years ago.  Vive la difference.

All of this talk about making 6kt and 8kt gold, the silver bead phenomenon, stainless steel, titanium and other alternative metals reflects irrational fear.  What if home-builders decided to make houses out of cardboard in order to keep price points the same as they were 10 years ago?  What if Detroit, Japan and Korea decided to start making cars without airbags, without ABS brakes and with Firestone tires? 

Homes are being built to a higher standard than ever.  Cars have more features than ever.  They’re fetching higher prices than ever.  More money is being spent than ever, so why are we reducing features?

Some aren’t.  We have retailers selling more caraters than ever, more 2ct diamonds than ever and more one-off pieces than ever.  This is the time to not only carpe diem, but it’s time to carpe diamond!  Seize the diamond!