Evaluating and Selling Jewelry
So Aunt Petunia has just kicked the bucket, and she left you a small treasure trove of shiny objects that you think are gold, diamonds, and priceless heirlooms. The Pandora Outlet question is, how can you tell what's Pandora Jewelry Outlet profitable and what isn't worth the trouble? Well here we go with a primer on gold, silver, platinum, and diamonds, how to identify them, and what you can get for them.
I've been working in the pawn broking industry for a bit now, and as part of my everyday job I have to evaluate and price jewelry. With that in mind, I'll be giving you an idea of what you can expect from pawn shops, as well as reasonable charges when selling privately.
Precious Metals: What they're worth to the worldThe mainstay of the jewelry industry is precious metals: gold, silver, and platinum being the most popular. All have their own benefits and all have their respective drawbacks.
Before we start, you should know that many websites, sellers, and buyers price metals by the Troy Ounce, and I'll be refering to value by the gram, since most jewelry isn't going to weigh more than a few grams. For ease of reference: 1 Troy Ounce = 31.109 grams. is a beautiful metal, strong for settings and full pieces alike, and is relatively cheap compared to the other metals. A quick way of identifying silver is to look along the inside of a ring, or along the clasp/end of a necklace or bracelet. What you're looking for is a little number like ".925" or ".999." This is the percentage of silver versus other metals that are in your item. Sterling silver, one of the most common types, is made up of 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper.
Current prices for silver are at about $0.18 per gram. I would expect to sell a weighty silver chain necklace (about 30 grams) for about $10 if you're being fair. Since we know that stores aren't fair, you can usually get away with selling them for about 2.5 to 3 times that amount. Traditional or white, gold is the most common and popular of the precious metals for most jewelry. Gold is weighed and valued by a system of karats, with 24 karats being pure gold, and is abbreviated after the value number as "K." Most people know that you can buy jewelry in 10K, 14K, 18K, and sometimes the full 24K (though this is rare).
Gold is a very soft metal, so other metals are added into any jewelry of less than 24K, and typical alloys include zinc, silver, and copper. When you're trying to identify how much gold you've got in a piece, you're going to follow the same guidelines as when checking silver, only this time you're looking for a 10K, 14K, or similar on the item. If you see certain letters after this value, such as EP, GEP, or P, it means that the item is gold plated and not solid.
Currently gold is at a high and valued at about $24 per gram, with predictions of rising again in the future. The price assumes you have a 24K piece though, so a little math is required to find the value of your ring/necklace/etc. To find the market value of your item, use the following equation:
Market Value = (karats / 24) x ($24) x (weight in grams)
In this case, a 10K gold ring weighing 3.0 grams would be worth: (10/24) x ($24) x (3.0) = $29.95. So for that ring you'd be looking at market value of about thirty bucks. is an incredibly strong metal, very hard to work, but very good for jewelry that's going to be put to the test. It's often used as the setting in gold and silver jewelry to hold diamonds and other valuable stones. The price of platinum fluctuates often for a few reasons: it's hard to work, hard to find, and Russia.
Wait. Russia? Yep, the good old Russians. Since the largest producer of platinum in the world is the Russian Federation, even the slightest rumors about fluctuating prices over there will send our prices into spirals up or down over here. And no one can seem to get them to let us in on their market information, so we're stuck in half a guessing game.
You can identify this precious metal by again looking on the inside of your ring, or near the clasps of your necklace/bracelets. What we're looking for this time is a little more complicated. Since can be made up of a few differend metals from the platinum group, these pieces are going to be marked with a number, followed by an abbreviation for platinum such as Pt or Plat, then either followed by the abbreviation for another group metal, or a number and the abbreviation. This can continue up to three or four times depending on how many different platinum group metals are in your item.
For instance, if you have a ring that is 85% platinum and 15% iridium, then you could see any of these markings:
850 Pt 150 Ir
85 Plat Irid
850 Plat Irid
Or really any combination of the above to indicate how much platinum is in the ring/bracelet/whatever. Right now, as long as the item is at least 56% platinum it is usually considered good, and sometimes as low as 50% is acceptable.
The current prices for platinum are at about $46 47 per gram. Yeah, it's a whole lot of cash for this quality metal. Expect to be charged out the butt to buy anything made entirely or partially of platinum, and expect to be able to charge quite a bit in turn. A solid women's ring (3 grams avg.) could net you up to $150 at cost, 3 to 4 times that at profit sale. are a girl's best friend, and the arch enemy of a guys wallet. There are so many different cuts and designs that this rare stone may come in that it would take another article in itself to go into sufficient details for identification and accurate pricing. Here are a few quick guidelines, though, on what you can expect to sell and buy them for.
In a pawn shop you're not going to get much for a diamond. I tend to buy them by a point, where one point is equal to .01 carats, and I only give $1 2 per point. This is a pretty common way of buying them and you'll usually get your item priced based on the diamond quality and the precious metal content. So if you have a 3.0 gram 14K ring with a 1 carat diamond in the middle, you're looking at about (14/24) x ($24) x (3.0) = $42, plus $100 in points for a total of about $142. Expect a pawn shop to sell that same ring for about 4 5 times that much.
The easiest way to identify a diamond is to use a diamond tester, which is like a Pandora Jewelry Store small electrode that you push onto the diamond surface. It reads green for diamond or orange for not, and it makes an annoying beep if you touch metal. I wouldn't recommend getting one though, unless you're going to be doing some frequent buying, selling, and testing, because this little baby can run you $90 or more. For a one time batch of selling, try calling local pawn shops and jewelers and ask if they can do some identification for you. Usually it's free, but you might have to shell out a few dollars to get a lot of stuff tested at once.
Selling Your Jewelry: A few thoughtsThere are a few places you can find to sell your jewelry, and you're going to find different results from each one.
Statistics: Posted by sonyaany — Tue Aug 16, 2016 8:24 am