Old jewelry

[Annandale_Man]

Originally Posted by gentlearts

There is a gold or coin dealer in every town. They will not pay top dollar, but they will pay according to the value they can get from it.

We sold all of our old 14k jewelry back in 2011. The value of the gold melted down brought us around $4K in cash.

[Nonchalance]

Originally Posted by orbiter

Go to a reputable jeweler, and he can tell you right away which ones are costume at no charge. As for the real pieces, he can give you the appraisals for a small fee.
Don't go to a pawn shop for the appraisals.

Certain brands of costume jewelry have decent resale value.

[farm108]

I would not sell anything that is made of real gold, silver or other precious metals. I would keep them. All of them, even if they are ugly, broken, it doesn't matter. It's like an investment.

The jeweler that will appraise them...he'll try to convince you to sell them. He'll probably insist. I would not do it.

[elnina]

I wouldn't sell my Mom or any other family member jewelry, even if I needed the money. Unless it was some cheap costume pieces. (my Mom had only 18+ K gold).
It's not up to me to decide what to do with family heirlooms. Other family members or future generations might treasure it.

I have some very valuable pieces that are few generations old. They were handcrafted. The artwork adds to their value. And so are precious stones.

[Nancy739]

Geez. I guess you didn't like Mom very much.

[SkyLark2019]

Just want to helpfully mention there are recipes on the Internet for at-home jewelry cleaner- you can also buy cleaner in jars and dunk the items at home (much easier than taking the items in to a jewelry store for cleaning.