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Why Cuban Link Chains Are So Expensive | So Expensive - YouTube
Channel: Business Insider
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even in the high-end world of jewelry
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cuban link chains are a symbol of luxury
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this 18 carat gold chain is worth 27
[12]
000 and some of the most valuable chains
[15]
will cost
[16]
10 times that making a single chain
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requires the skill of more than
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5 experienced jewelers and can take over
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12
[24]
hours so how exactly are cuban link
[27]
chains made
[28]
and is that what makes them so expensive
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somebody had to literally take 14 hours
[38]
of their day
[39]
running hot steel through machinery
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to then turn it by hand to then
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file it by hand so then polish it by
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hand
[50]
you're not just wearing a chain you're
[52]
wearing somebody's
[54]
blood sweat and tears and passion around
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your neck
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the origin of the cuban link chain is
[61]
tough to pinpoint but it likely didn't
[64]
start in cuba
[65]
it was a quintessential part of hip-hop
[67]
style in the 70s and 80s
[70]
and grew in popularity as hip-hop became
[72]
more mainstream in the us
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but not all cuban link chains are
[76]
created equal many cuban link chains are
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made by machines
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in countries like the us italy and china
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but the authentic and most expensive
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ones are made by hand
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at just a few shops in miami when you
[90]
move into the higher end
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of cuban link chains which we get into
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the fifty thousand eighty thousand
[95]
hundred thousand dollar chains
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those have to be handmade one because
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of the attention to detail the file the
[102]
tight links
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it's like going to a ferrari dealer you
[105]
could buy a ferrari off the lot
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or you could have it made to how you
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want
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this is a custom build a chain like this
[113]
goes through 30
[114]
manual and time-consuming stages
[117]
the skills come from your ability and
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practice and knowledge
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worldwide i can't tell you an exact
[123]
number within south florida there's a
[124]
handful of people
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literally a handful of people that could
[127]
do this not only is this process
[130]
incredibly labor intensive it's also
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dangerous
[133]
tino and his crew work with 1000 degree
[136]
flames to melt down the gold
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and form it into a bar
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you definitely got to be paying
[141]
attention to what you're doing in this
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job one
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mess up you're gonna hurt yourself
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there has been people that have lost
[149]
fingers in this in this business
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that bar passes through a rolling
[154]
machine as many as 12
[156]
times just to make it thinner each of
[159]
the nine jewelers at gold fever miami
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has a specific job
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at the stretch bench one jeweler can
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spend over an hour just stretching the
[166]
wire to length
[168]
this isn't dirt it's actual gold if you
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look at my hands you'll see the place of
[172]
gold on them
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this wire then gets curled around a
[175]
copper rod to form the shape for the
[177]
links
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for smaller chains a drill gets the job
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done
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but thicker ones need the strength of
[183]
two jewelers
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the most crucial stage of the process
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comes next it also requires the most
[191]
skill
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the soldering is the most intricate part
[196]
of what you're doing
[198]
essentially what you're doing is you're
[199]
heating up gold
[201]
and right before it begins to break down
[204]
and melt
[205]
you're introducing solder solder is
[208]
another type of metal that's used to
[210]
permanently close each link
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so it's the balance of applying the
[214]
right amount of flame
[216]
with the right amount of technique
[219]
to when those two metals meet that
[222]
solder melts and
[223]
fuses into the gold so
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if you left too long the whole thing is
[228]
just liquid gold
[229]
if done way too early the solder won't
[232]
melt properly and you won't get that
[234]
fusion between the links
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you can't mess that up or you're going
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to create gaps in the chain and you
[240]
can't be scared to stop
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and just do it all over again it's no
[244]
secret the price of gold plays a part in
[246]
determining the cost of these chains
[248]
an ounce of gold costs seventeen hundred
[250]
dollars today
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but even the most high-end cuban links
[254]
are mixed with something else
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gold itself is a very soft material
[259]
typically too soft to be made into
[261]
jewelry on its own
[263]
it has to be alloyed with other metals
[266]
white gold for example is an alloy of
[268]
gold made of white metals
[269]
like silver zinc and nickel those metals
[273]
make the gold more pliable
[274]
allowing it to be stretched and twisted
[276]
during the jewelry making process
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but they can be especially difficult to
[280]
work with
[282]
one small movement can make all the
[284]
difference
[287]
in rare cases with white gold this can
[289]
happen
[290]
this is the reason why it costs so much
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if any one of these links break
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you then have to take it back to the
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soldering table re-solder it and bring
[299]
it back here and turn it again
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once the links are properly turned and
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tightened the chain will lie flat
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a jeweler must then file down the chain
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so that each side
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is level and looks exactly the same
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and here is where the passion of the
[318]
jeweler comes into hand
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to how beautiful he can make that shape
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but these cuban links in particular
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didn't become so sought after
[334]
or so valuable until recently
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google trends shows that searches for
[339]
cuban link chains began taking off in
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2012
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and in the last two years gold fever
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miami sales have grown 100 times over
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the shop used to sell two thousand
[350]
dollars worth of cuban links a month
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that number is now over two hundred
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thousand dollars
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whether you're the most famous or you're
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just starting off to legitimize yourself
[360]
as a rapper
[360]
you have to have jewelry and if you have
[363]
jewelry you have a miami cuban link
[364]
chain
[365]
in 2012 jay-z wore one of the priciest
[368]
cuban links made at the time
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worth two hundred thousand dollars a
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year later daddy yankee debuted his 10
[374]
kilo cuban link chain in a music video
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and there's even more traction in the
[378]
music industry now
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they're so intertwined with pop culture
[384]
more specifically hip hop
[386]
and reggaeton just about every song
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that has a music video will have a
[391]
rapper with a miami cuban link chain
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it's become in a way like a status
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symbol
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we have customers that want to match
[400]
their rolexes
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to their chains these versions are often
[404]
decked out with diamonds
[406]
which naturally makes them pricier but
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gus doesn't see demand slowing for
[410]
chains like this
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or the more modest ones right now
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as of march of 2021
[418]
we are pumping anywhere from 10 to 15
[420]
kilos
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in five days so per five weeks
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and we still can't keep up with the
[426]
demand we still have a wait time of five
[429]
to seven weeks
[430]
this coupled with the steep price of
[432]
gold means prices likely won't drop
[435]
anytime soon my favorite part of the
[438]
process
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has to be the polishing it's when you
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see a beautiful piece of
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metal end up in a beautiful piece of
[445]
jewelry
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so plus it's the last step so that means
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we're done
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