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New York--Total U.S. jewelry and watch sales were a record $68.3 billion in 2011, a gain of 11 percent over 2010, based on preliminary data from the U.S. government.

This was well ahead of 2010’s $61.5 billion and substantially ahead of the prior record year--2007--when U.S. jewelry and watch sales were $65.3 billion.

In the 2007-2009 period, the U.S. economy was in a recession. While many jewelers claimed hardship, the recession actually had only a modest impact on retail jewelry sales. Peak-to-valley--2007 through 2009--jewelry and watch sales dropped by only 11 percent in the U.S. market before posting a solid recovery in 2010 and 2011.

Total jewelry sales rose by 10.8 percent to $59.2 billion in 2011, while total watch sales rose by 12.1 percent to $9.1 billion. Watch sales were 13 percent of total industry sales, stable with the prior couple of years.

The total industry sales gain was the first double-digit increase since the mid-1980s, when the industry posted several years of sales gains in the low-to-mid teen range.

Most of the sales gain in 2011 was due to inflation related to higher costs of precious metals and polished diamonds. Retail jewelry prices were up by about 8.4 percent during the year. So “real” jewelry sales rose by about 2.6 percent.

This article was first published on IDEX Online on Feb. 1.