alt Hacker News> It's fair to say that many people have this idea in mind when they buy jewelry, and that it pushes up the price.
Jewelry is the single biggest usage of gold, worldwide. It makes for nearly half of all the gold's reserve and usage. Jewelry alone represent as much gold as all the gold held by central banks and hoarded by individuals (be it bars or coins). There's also some gold use by various industries but that gold is often lost.
So it's fair to say that jewelry does, indeed, push gold's price up.
But maybe I misunderstood your comment.
Indeed, you misunderstood my comment. It says:
(1) Many people believe they can sell jewelry for something approximating the purchase price;
(2) This belief is false;
(3) But the false belief that the money they are spending is recoverable makes those people willing to pay more for jewelry, pushing up the price of jewelry compared to what it would be if people knew they couldn't resell it effectively.