Sell Your Jewellery: What Affects The Value of Jewellery
How To Sell Your Jewellery
The world of jewellery is vast. With numerous designers, metals, gemstones, and time periods to consider it can be difficult to know how to sell your jewellery. Fashion is forever changing, as is the appetite of private jewellery collectors.
With our expertise, we can help you sell jewellery for cash at the right price, to the right buyers, and without the high seller’s commissions that have become common in traditional auctions.
This guide aims to help you understand what affects the value of your jewellery. If you would like to sell your jewellery, get in touch for a free jewellery valuation and some no-obligation offers.
How can we sell your jewellery?
If you are looking to sell your jewellery but do not know where to start, Mark Littler Ltd are here to help. We make the selling process as simple as possible by handling all logistics and paperwork, and by providing fully-insured shipping options.
We can help you sell jewellery in two ways:
- Through a brokered private sale
- Through specialist auctions
We aim to get you the best price possible for your jewellery. We present you with all of the options for selling your jewellery so that you can make an informed decision.
Jewellery Valuation Contact Form
Want To Learn More About Your Jewellery?
What Affects The Value Of Your Jewellery?
Designer
Jewellery is made either in anonymous workshops or by well-known designers and jewellery houses. As you can imagine, pieces that are designed by famous designers or jewellery houses such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Georg Jensen will command a premium over those that were mass-produced. Pieces by well-known jewellery houses have more provenance and history behind them, making them more commercial than their fashion jewellery counterparts.
Most pieces of jewellery that were designed and made by famous designers will bear a maker’s mark, telling you who produced the item. This information is important in valuing your pieces of jewellery. The marks can be very small, and you may not be able to read them with the naked eye.
The value of jewellery can also be affected by whether or not its design is indicative of the period that it is from. For example, a brooch from the Art Deco period features a geometric pattern and bold colours, it will be more commercial than an Art Deco that shows none of the defining features of the Art Deco period.
Metal
Most pieces of jewellery are made from some kind of gold, silver, or platinum. Identifying the purity of the metal can help to determine the quality of the item. For example, gold comes in various different purities, with 24-carat gold being the purest, with 99.9% pure gold. As such, 24-carat gold items are considered of a higher purity than 9-carat gold items (37.5% pure gold).
Certain metals and purities are better suited to gem settings than others. For example, you would not set a 3ct emerald in a 9ct gold setting. Instead, you would use 18ct platinum, which is more durable than 9ct gold.
Silver and platinum also have different levels of purity that affect the value of items made from these metals. The purity of an item can be identified either through testing in a lab or through the hallmarks on the item. For example, a silver item with a full set of UK hallmarks can be called sterling silver.
Gemstones
If your jewellery is set with gemstones, there are many attributes of these gems that can affect the value of your item.
Firstly, what is the identity of the gemstone? Diamonds have always been, and remain, extremely commercial. Other stones such as tanzanite, sapphire, and emerald are also highly sought after.
Other attributes such as the cut, colour, inclusions, damage, carat weight, and clarity of the gemstone can affect the value. For example, a 1ct round brilliant natural diamond with high clarity will be more valuable than a 1ct round brilliant natural diamond with several inclusions and a chipped girdle.
There is also a disparity in value between natural gemstones and man-made gemstones. Whether or not a gemstone has been treated can also affect the value of your jewellery.
Condition
Of course, the condition of your jewellery will have an impact on value. Any dents, missing claws, scratches, etc will affect the value.
However, with jewellery, the condition of the item is more relevant to some styles than others. For example, gold is extremely malleable, and so a missing claw in a ring can be easily replaced. By contrast, items made from enamel, such as cameo brooches, can be very difficult to repair and restore.
The same can be said for different gemstones. Some gemstones are much easier to re-cut and re-polish than others.
When sending us photos of your items please be sure to include photos of any damage to the jewellery so that we can accurately assess the condition of the item.
Age
At Mark Littler Ltd we have sold jewellery from many different time periods, from the medieval Green Hammerton Ring to modern Cartier pieces. Jewellery from certain time periods is more sought after than others. For example, jewellery from the Victorian Era (1837-1901) is more sought after by collectors than jewellery from the Retro Era (1939-1950).
Whilst this is not always the case – sometimes more modern pieces command a premium, depending on numerous factors such as the designer – the age of your jewellery can be a good indication of its rarity and value in some instances.
As mentioned above, jewellery from specific periods is always more sought after if it reflects the characteristics of the particular period. For example, Art Nouveau jewellery bearing the characteristic swirls and natural motifs will be more valuable than jewellery from the same period that does not share these features.
Form
The form that your jewellery takes can have an effect on the value of your piece due to certain types of jewellery falling in and out of fashion.
As an example, solitaire rings and stud earrings are somewhat timeless. Brooches, by comparison, have fallen out of fashion in the last few decades. Brooches made of metal date back to the Bronze Age when they were used to secure woollen cloaks and tunics. They remained in fashion for a long time but eventually fell out of fashion in the 1980s due to changes in fashion trends and textiles. Today, clothes are more often made from polyester and cotton rather than from sturdier materials such as wool, meaning that the brooch pins are more likely to damage the clothing.
Of course, this is not to say that brooches are not worth much, just less commercial at this moment in time. That said, some of the most commercial brooches are from the Art Deco period and can command five-figure sums.
Rings, necklaces, and earrings are all very commercial, with specific styles commanding different premiums at different times in history.
How We Can Help You Sell Your Jewellery
Private Sale
Our brokerage service is a simple and stress-free way to sell your jewellery. We will broker the sale between you and one of our private buyers, handling every aspect of the sale on your behalf. For this service, we charge a 10 + VAT commission (12% total). This avenue is quick and easy. We will take care of everything for you.
Auction
We have built relationships with some of the country’s best specialist auctions. These industry relations help us to help you sell jewellery through the auction house that is best suited to you and your item. This is critical given the high cost of selling your items through traditional auctions. We will consign your item to the appropriate auction house for you.
Sell Jewellery: Expert Valuations
To make the process as simple as possible for you, we give you the opportunity to get your jewellery valued for free with our quick and easy-to-use valuation form.
Please provide as much information as possible about your item so that we can give you an accurate valuation.
Jewellery Valuation Contact Form
Postage Service
We make getting your jewellery to us simple.
We have a fully insured postage service. We send you specialist packing materials and instructions together with a pre-paid returns label so that you can ship your jewellery back to us quickly and safely.
For large collections and very high-value items, we also have a hand-courier service available.
Quick Online Jewellery Valuation
We provide free jewellery valuations. Please use the form below and provide as much information as you can about your item so that we can make sure your valuation is as accurate as possible.
AS FEATURED IN
