More on Selling Your Jewelry

Despite the improving economy I can't seem to get through a day without more inquiries about selling off jewelry. Mind you, a good deal of these discussions are happening now because the baby boomer group has reached the point where their parents are dying or simply beginning to pass on their estates so it's not all about the economy. In many cases estates are being passed down and the jewelry is simply too dated (read: ugly) to be worn today, too worn to be worn today (I like that phrasing) or doesn't fit into the recipients life style (remember I'm in Cambridge where ostentatious displays of wealth are not always looked upon in a kindly manner). So I'm going to revisit this topic in today's posting with a review of the information I've given before on this and some new information as well.

What is it that you have?

The first issue (especially in the case of inheriting jewelry) is figuring out what you have and, if you want to get rid of it, the best way to do so. In many cases, basically what you have in your hands is a pile of gold that really can only be disposed of by scrapping it. Because of how much stuff is being sold off today, small stones (diamonds included) are rarely going to add anything at all to what you are going to be paid unless they are exceptional. There are more loose, low quality, small gems flooding the marketplace today then ever before, so much so that to some extent jewelers just send the whole pieces they buy, stones included, into the refiners to be burned out (and usually ruined) without even removing the stones as it isn't worth their time to bother. So unless you know your parents were collectors of fine goods, or there was some significant wealth in the family history, or if you're selling something you bought and you know it was a very high quality piece, I generally just recommend that you scrap the metal you have. If you are looking for money I always recommend you take it to two or three jewelers and see what they offer and then take the best offer. Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers doesn't buy gold outright but I will take it in trade towards work being done or pieces bought out of my case and because gold has been so high it is a good time to do something like this. Gold, however, has been on a gradual downwards swing lately so I would say if you're thinking about doing something like this now is the time to do it.

When you have something good what do you do with it?

So now let's say that you actually have a really nice, larger diamond and you want to know what to do with it. In my opinion the most amount of value is always retained in these by keeping and using the stone in your own pieces. This is because when you go to sell a piece you are basically selling it to someone for below wholesale as they are going to need to resell it to a customer and they aren't going to pay what they would pay their regular supplier for it. (There is more information on this in earlier posts---check my blog directory.) However for some people it isn't an option to keep the stone---either they need the money from it, or an estate is being broken up and they need money to be able to do that (cutting diamonds into small pieces is not generally recommended as a way to break up the inheritance (-; ), or it simply doesn't fit into their lifestyle and they would rather have the money to invest (gemstones should NOT be considered an investment) or use.

In these cases you have a couple of options available to you. One is to simply do the same thing as I recommend with gold and show the piece(s) to a few jewelers and see what they offer. If you don't like what they offer you don't have to take it. The second option is to try to sell it on Ebay or a similar venue. I do NOT recommend you sell anything privately if it involves you meeting with people you do not know. This is an extremely dangerous idea. The third option is to see if a jeweler will sell it for you. Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers will do this for customers assuming that the piece has a high enough value. I work on a commission basis when I do this so if you come to me with a stone worth a couple of hundred dollars I won't help you but if you have something of significant value that it will be profitable for me to spend some time on trying to sell for you I am happy to try to help you. The fourth option is to give it to an auction house to sell.

Auction Houses

Auction houses can be a good option for you if you have a group of pieces that are true antiques, or that are by known designers or that have a number of significant gemstones in them. They may, or may not, be a good option for a single large stone. If you have something truly exceptional, either a very large diamond, or a very high quality, very large,diamond (where you may be looking in the over $50,000 range) it might be worthwhile to sell through an auction house. However the diamond market everywhere is fairly standard, and runs on relatively small margins, so you have to weigh the costs involved in selling through auction. An auction house charges a premium on the sale to the buyer and a commission on the sale to the seller. (I confess to having not realized this until just recently. I was always under the impression that only the buyer paid the premium but as it turns out they will take something from both ends.) So the question becomes a little more complex on a single stone. Many of the buyers are in the trade and looking to resell the stones (and are often looking for deals). Additionally everything they buy carries a premium of anywhere from 15-20% so they have to factor that into what they will pay. Then you will also pay a commission which will reduce your yield. So if it is a piece in the hundreds of thousands it might be a good bet as those types of pieces are hard to sell outside of the auction world but on lower value goods it may be a wash in terms of which approach would yield the most. With true antiques however I believe an auction house is always the way to go. You can usually set minimums that the pieces can sell for with an auction house so you aren't obligated to sell in this case either if they aren't met. However you should expect the auction house to guide you as to what is a reasonable minimum bid for a piece and you should listen to their advice. The better ones all have far more experience in this then you do. I had a customer who recently sold a piece through auction. It was a very unusual link bracelet with pale blue, very flat but very large sapphires in each link. The auction house thought she would get about $5000 for it but it ended up going for $14,000. She netted about $12,000. This piece however (I saw it and had recommended she take it to auction) was a very unusual piece. If the sapphires had been removed and someone attempted to sell them off as they were no one would have paid much of anything for them because of the color and the large number of inclusions in them. But as an antique, and somewhat unique piece as a whole, it had significantly more value than it might have otherwise.

As with most things, there are no easy answers when it comes to this, and what I have said here is only a general guide for what you might be able to do. It does all come down to what you have and whether it truly has enough value. A somewhat generic, mid quality range 1 ct. diamond will yield something but I would tend to encourage you to just show something like that to a couple of jewelers. A 2 ct. mid to high quality range diamond I would encourage you to check with jewelers or work with someone like me who works on commission. A 5 ct. high quality diamond should most likely go to auction. Hope this helps a bit!

The 22k gold ring at the top is my wife's and has a 1.77 ct. ideal cut diamond in it.

On Selling Your Jewelry (Again)

As I said yesterday, this entry is a rehash of a number of articles I have written about selling your jewelry.  Not a day goes by anymore that I don't get at least one person, and often as many as five or six, into my store trying to sell something.  This isn't just because the economy has been a little soft and some people need some money but also because the high gold prices have led to a larger than usual knowledge about how selling your scrap gold can generate money.  Now obviously I am a jeweler and my storefront clearly identifies me as such.  And today, many people think that as a jeweler, I must not only sell jewelry, but also buy it.  Unfortunately in my case, that simply isn't what I do. I have never had scrap, or jewelry, buying as a part of my business plan. I am a jewelry designer, and SELLER, and that is what I do.  This doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of "jewelers" who buy jewelry, just that I don't do it. 

The one thing I am happy to do for my customers is give them a scrap credit for old jewelry towards something new I am creating for them (or that is in the case).  I don't have a problem with this as it is simply another form of payment. And with today's somewhat high gold prices often a commercial chain purchased 10 years ago can lead to a credit well over what was originally paid for the piece at retail.  But I am not in the business of buying and scrapping gold, nor am I in the business of buying old jewelry and reselling it. 

So let's talk about this business of selling your jewelry once again. There are, as I see it, three separate issues to be dealt with in selling your jewelry.  The first is a straight gold (or platinum) issue.  Gold has been at all time highs recently and it is possible to actually sell some commercial jewelry for more than what was paid for it at retail. This is truly a first in terms of this business.  Unless you bought something years ago when gold was fixed at $35/ounce there was almost never a case where you could sell something you bought at retail to someone for scrap and get more out of it than you paid for it. The reason for this is because everyone in the chain has to make money on what they sell.  So a gold refiner has to make money on refining and producing gold for someone like a gold chain manufacturer who has to make money on their processes and machines when they sell the chain to a middle man who then sells it (at a profitable markup) to a retailer who than must resell it again at a profitable markup.  This routinely meant that if you tried to scrap a chain shortly after you bought it, you would get nowhere near the price you paid for it.  However, because of the extreme heights that gold has reached in price today, it has, in some cases reached the point where in fact you cannot only scrap your gold jewelry for what you paid for it but often for more than you paid for it.

The second issue has to do with selling the gemstones that may be in your jewelry, including diamonds, rubies, sapphires, etc.  Unfortunately a vast quantity of jewelry produced and sold in this country has absolute garbage in it in the way of gemstones.  The vast majority of those tiny diamonds and other stones in pieces are pretty much junk.  This is so much the case that many scrap buyers don't even bothering removing stones from pieces---they just send the jewelry into the refiner and the stones are burned out and usually destroyed.  It isn't even worth the time often to remove the stones, no matter try to resell them.  So if you have a piece of jewelry you are going to scrap and there are small stones in it, don't expect to get paid a penny for them.

 The other problem is that even if you do have high quality stones in them, many of the people buying gold for scrap these days have no clue of what they are looking at unless the stone has some significant size to it.  Now if you do have a more significant sized stone in the ring it may be possible to get an offer made on it.  Diamonds of better qualities, 1/2 ct. and up should generate some money (although prices have not risen on gemstones the way they have on gold so it is unlikely that you will get back more than you paid for the stone originally---or even close to it).  There are a few things to remember when trying to sell your gemstones. The first is that, unlike with metal at the moment, this is not a seller's market.  People are dumping jewelry right and left these days so the normal midrange to lower quality goods that most people own in this country are in abundant supply.  The buyers must be able to make enough on something they buy from you so that they can 1) sit on the goods until they are actually able to sell it and 2) make a profit on it when they do sell it.  Often the buyers are reselling the stones to wholesalers as they have a better chance of selling the goods.  If this is the case the person who buys it from you has to take a price far lower than the wholesale price because the dealers are paying less than wholesale on their normal goods (so that they can sell it to a retailer and everyone makes money on it).

I always believe that you maintain the most amount of gemstone value by holding onto it and putting it into a new piece.  Admittedly, if you are in need of money, this isn't a solution but if you are simply scrapping things you aren't wearing anymore and feel like taking advantage of the high gold prices, hang onto your stones. 

The third issue is a little trickier when it comes to getting rid of your jewelry. This involves pieces that might be worthy of bringing to an auction house like Skinner's in Boston.  Generally speaking I would only encourage this if you have true antique pieces in good shape, or significant gemstones.  What do I mean by significant gemstones?  These would be diamonds of exceptional size, color, clarity and cut (probably over 2 carats and VS or better clarity grades) or larger emeralds, rubies or sapphires of exceptional quality.  Despite what most of you think about your pieces, you probably don't own one of these stones but that isn't always the case.

 The baby boomer generation is also just starting to see their parents passing on family heirlooms.  This does sometimes mean that pieces passed down through generations are becoming available to people who see no immediate or long term use for them.  Unique pieces of note or with historical significance should be looked at by a qualified appraiser who could direct you to the appropriate place to sell them.  When I see customers with large quantities of jewelry they have just inherited come in, I usually try to divide the stuff up into three piles: junk, stuff to scrap with a gold buyer, and stuff to go to an auction house.  Most of the time there is very little to go to an auction house.  The advantage of using an auction house is varied.  For one thing, if pieces have true historic value they will be able to tell you.  Secondly, the buyers pay the premiums to the auction house.  Thirdly you can set minimum sale prices for stuff (although I would always advise you to listen to the auction house on this---they know what stuff goes for and what it will yield and they don't base it on the fact that it was your grandmother's piece and that you remember her wearing it when you were a child).  Fouthly you have the chance of generating a return far higher than scrap value in some cases. 

What I haven't discussed again here is the issue of actual yield on gold scrap.  But the following is a posting that will help you with that:

http://spirerjewelers.blogspot.com/2010/03/selling-your-gold-for-scrap.html

The pin pictured above is an old piece I made that I recently came into a picture of.  It is a sunstone with orange sapphires in 18k and 22k yellow gold.