Tips For Selling Estate Jewelry
Senior adults can accumulate quite sizeable jewelry collections, and those collections are sometimes worth significant amounts. If you have a collection of estate jewelry to sell, here are some tips on how to get the best possible price for the various pieces.
Understand the Melt Value
The estate jewelry collection's melt value should be the minimum price you'll accept for the collection. While some collections are worth substantially more than their melt values, no collection should sell for less than its melt value.
The melt value is how much the precious metal in your estate jewelry would be if someone melted it down. In other words, this is how much a buyer could get if they melted the silver, gold, and platinum, and sold it to a company that would recast the precious metal.
A jeweler can determine melt value fairly easily, and this is an objective valuation method. The jeweler will first check the type and quality of metal used in a piece of jewelry, and then how much that metal weighs. Sometimes determining the metal's weight requires subtracting the weight of gemstones, which is something a jeweler can do by measuring the sizes of the gemstones.
Once the type, quality, and weight of a jewelry piece's metal is determined, the melt value is derived by multiplying the weight by the spot price of the respective metal.
Clean the Jewelry
Other valuations are somewhat more subjective, for buyers will weigh a piece's beauty and design differently. No matter how else your estate jewelry is valued, however, it'll help if the pieces make a good first impression.
Cleaning your jewelry before getting it valued will ensure it makes a good first impression, and it'll also help the jewelry to shine. Any dust or grime on jewelry will reduce a piece's luster and sparkle.
You can quickly clean jewelry at home with an inexpensive jewelry cleaner kit, which can be found at local department or jewelry stores.
Include Any Extras
If the pieces in your estate jewelry collection have any extra items associated with them, bring those items when you get the jewelry pieces evaluated.
Extra accessories may include original receipts, jewelry boxes, cards, or appraisals. These can help authenticate a piece of jewelry, and sometimes the box adds significant value. A brand-name vintage box might even be worth more than a small piece of jewelry that it held.
The extras are especially important if your estate jewelry is extremely old or extremely valuable.