Used jewelry value?

[SPDguns]

What is used jewelry worth? I know I can have it appraised, I deal with a local jeweler that I trust, I have used him for 40 years. I'm not taking this stuff to a pawn shop or to a "sell us your gold" store. I know karat and carat's are factors.
Just looking for success and failure stories from other members.

 

[Rez Exelon]

For all the pieces I have, I set their floor value at the spot price of gold as it's nearly always possible to sell it for spot price. Not going to get spot from a corporate buyer (who average 17% below spot in my looking around) but selling privately at spot is possible.

The upper value is harder to set, since it falls under the "value is whatever the market will pay". The pieces I have are NIB, but most likely selling privately I'm going to get between 50-75% of their tagged price (compared to spot price being ~25% . It just takes a while. The lower I go the faster it sells obviously.

Now, I'm not dealing with designer brands or anything fancy, so if your pieces had name value that could change things greatly.

 

[XYZ]

I used to sell jewelry as a side gig about 30-35 years ago. Bought directly from the wholesaler. Back then there was a huge mark up at retail locations. I’ve heard it’s significantly lower these days.

 

[GnometownHero]

One of my lady friends was broke and I suggested she clean out her jewelery box. Sorted out gold earing backs, broken chains and clasp, old fashion rings, etc. This was back when gold was like $1600 oz. She made $975 just in scrap price.
I think gold is up to over $2500 oz currently.
So cleaning out drawers can be worth the time.
My daughter has an over 8 carat tdw wedding ring set with platinum ring guard and wedding band that belonged to my late wife Julie's mother and grandmother. Center diamond was over 2ct, 4 side 1ct stones and over 2ct of small diamonds. Fancy chunk of platinum all in all.
It isnt worth much unless she dissassembled and had all the big stones reworked to more modern cut as this ring was probably originally made 1925 era. It is not something she would ever wear but one day my grandaughter will get a wedding ring made and my grandsons will have a diamond to make wedding rings should they get married.
My mom had a bunch of different gold coins with fancy bezel and quality chains. There is some serious money now in those with current gold prices.
My girls have a bunch of real nice pearls and beautiful big opals. There are some natural rubies and emeralds, sapphires and spinels with their granny stash.

 

[SKATA]

My two cents. Since Mom died, she had alot of high end pieces. Stuff from Tiffany's etc. Believe me when I say this from 8 years of selling this stuff off . . . Jewelry mark-up is insanely high ! Pearls are worth nothing. When I was working in China, you could buy a pocket full of pearls for dollars. But the high end jewelry stores in OKC want $4,000 for a necklace. My estimate from them was the melt value of the gold clasp and not much more.
Diamonds don't bring value either. The one to ten point chips bring only dollars, maybe. Other jewelry like emeralds, rubies, etc don't bring much either.
Bite the bullet, find a reputable gold buyer and then sell it.
Also. The jewelry you see at Macy's, Dillard's, Kohl's, JC Penney does not have the same gold and diamonds compared to the 70's & 80's. It looks like costume jewelry. Go to eBay and look-up diamonds rings. Nearly two million entries. Look at how many of the diamond rings are nothing but diamond chips. Pretty shiny but not much else.

Sorry for the rant. I tried many times to convince my Mom not to buy the jewelry but she insisted it was a great investment. Yeah right !

 

[2busy]

My two cents. Since Mom died, she had alot of high end pieces. Stuff from Tiffany's etc. Believe me when I say this from 8 years of selling this stuff off . . . Jewelry mark-up is insanely high ! Pearls are worth nothing. When I was working in China, you could buy a pocket full of pearls for dollars. But the high end jewelry stores in OKC want $4,000 for a necklace. My estimate from them was the melt value of the gold clasp and not much more.
Diamonds don't bring value either. The one to ten point chips bring only dollars, maybe. Other jewelry like emeralds, rubies, etc don't bring much either.
Bite the bullet, find a reputable gold buyer and then sell it.
Also. The jewelry you see at Macy's, Dillard's, Kohl's, JC Penney does not have the same gold and diamonds compared to the 70's & 80's. It looks like costume jewelry. Go to eBay and look-up diamonds rings. Nearly two million entries. Look at how many of the diamond rings are nothing but diamond chips. Pretty shiny but not much else.

Sorry for the rant. I tried many times to convince my Mom not to buy the jewelry but she insisted it was a great investment. Yeah right !

Yep it's mostly scrap unless a known valuable piece.

 

[rhino2u]

Search shows jewelry worth 25%-50% of retail. Ouch….

 

[SPDguns]

Gonna put one piece on eBay.