I forgot about the above question.

Yes and no. To be more exact---for the most part yes. But, there are so many factors involved in buying and selling gems and jewellery that is is sometimes on par with the mystery of how karma works. I can only tell you about my own anti-fleecing observations:

1. If you absolutely love the thing to death, even though it is gawd-awful to everyone else, and it sports an eye popping, yet still affordable price, you have not been fleeced.

2. If the bauble in question is just some blah generic thingy, with good workmanship, that you are, for some odd reason, forced to wear every day for the next 10-20 years, you've still not been fleeced, even though it makes you raise an eyebrow or two at the price.

3. If it's a trendy, throw-away-after-not-even-one-season type thing, you for sure have been fleeced even if the thing only cost $2.99. You are also not helping the environment recover enough so that your grandkids can have somewhere nice to thrive in the future. For shame.

4. If some sales dude/ette tells you to buy the thing because it is without question an excellent investment at the current price, and you take their word for it without doing your own homework and using your own common sense, you've been fleeced, even if the thing was originally $9570 and is now an unbelievable $29.99 This also applies to what some wholesale gem dealer's discounts amount to.

5. If you have commissioned a unique piece of Haute Joaillerie from a luxury B$M store or a master metalsmithing artisan, you have been undoubtedly 100% fleeced, BUT you secretly know it, AND can afford it. In fact, if you really study the matter, the poor artisan that has been pounding, soldering and setting your one-of-a-kind platinum masterpiece for months now, actually deserves to be overpaid for putting up with your silly pseudo-aristocratic brand name taste and total lack of thriftiness.

6. Does someone else what to do no. 6??

Slraep