The Jewelry Box Problem
Almost every estate has one: a jewelry box, a velvet pouch, a tangle of chains in a drawer. Some of it is costume jewelry worth a few dollars. Some of it is solid gold worth several hundred. Some of it might be signed by a maker whose name changes the price significantly. The trouble is that it all looks roughly the same to most people.
Selling before you know what you have is the fastest way to leave money on the table.
Start With What It's Made Of
The single most important variable in jewelry value is material. Before anything else, you want to know whether a piece is:
- Solid gold or silver: look for karat or purity stamps (10K, 14K, 18K, 925, Sterling)
- Gold-filled or gold-plated: marked GF, 1/20 GF, or simply plated; worth far less than solid
- Platinum: usually marked PT, PLAT, or 950; denser and heavier than white gold
- Costume: no metal markings, often very light, often magnetic
A basic jeweler's loupe (about $10) and a magnet can do a surprising amount of work here. Gold and silver are not magnetic. If a piece sticks to a magnet, it's not precious metal.
Then Look at the Stones
Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds are the four precious stones. Everything else is semi-precious, which doesn't mean worthless, but does mean a very different value range.
For diamonds specifically, size matters less than you'd expect. A one-carat diamond with poor color and clarity can be worth less than a half-carat stone with excellent grades. You cannot assess this accurately without a loupe or a GIA certificate, and you shouldn't guess.
If there's a certificate in the jewelry box or an old insurance rider with a description, those documents are valuable. Keep them with the piece.
Signed and Designer Pieces
A hallmark from Tiffany, Cartier, Van Cleef, David Yurman, or a significant studio jeweler can multiply value well beyond the material alone. Look for signatures stamped inside bands, on the backs of pendants, or on the clasps of necklaces and bracelets.
Vintage signed costume jewelry, Miriam Haskell, Schiaparelli, Weiss, Trifari, can also command strong collector prices. The signature is the thing to find.
Where You Sell Changes What You Get
This matters enormously.
- Pawn shops and cash-for-gold buyers: fast, convenient, typically 40 to 60 cents on the dollar of melt value for gold, less for gemstones
- Estate jewelers: better than pawn, still wholesale; they need room to profit on resale
- Auction houses: good for signed or significant pieces; fees can run 15 to 25% of the hammer price
- Direct sale platforms: best return if you have time; you set the price based on comparable sales
For pieces you're confident about and have time to sell, a direct listing gets you closer to retail. Tappraise can help you get a starting value and list the piece directly from your phone, which cuts out several middlemen.
The One Thing Not to Do
Don't accept the first offer without checking it against comparable sales. A quick search of completed listings on resale platforms for the same maker, material, and approximate stone size takes ten minutes and tells you whether an offer is fair.
Jewelry is small, portable, and easy to underestimate. The person making you an offer knows exactly what they're looking at. Now you can too.