Nope, not to pay college tuition! MIL is moving to a nursing home, not safe to have her real stuff there. What are the best resources for selling fine jewelry?
From what I have read it sounds like you are lucky to sell it for half of the fancy appraisal and then the store keeps 35%.
This will be n Southern California if any one has connections there.
Wouldn’t it be better to keep it in a bank safe or give pieces to family members to keep as ancestral jewelry with her permission? The bank safe deposit box could be in her name along with one of her children. For example, I made sure to include daughter’s name on the safe deposit box when she turned 18.
Some of the pieces are too big and gaudy and old lady for any one to want! The items that she promised to granddaughters are hopefully going to them!
Has any one bought or sold jewelry on eBay?
I would think you would be able to search estate or antique jewelry buyers online. (jewelry shops)
Maybe you could take them to a recommended jeweler to have them appraised.
If it is fine jewelry could pieces of the gaudy jewelry be converted into more up to date pieces by a jeweler?
Maybe find a reputable estate seller. You won’t get the appraised value anywhere, at least from someone who is taking it on consignment to re-sell. They are in the business to sell it for a profit so they need to lowball it , not to mention their expense to sell the pieced.
If it was me ( and my grandmother had some pretty gaudy pieces back in the day ) I would hold onto them and place in a safe deposit box. Besides my Nana’s fine jewelry , she has a lot of costume jewelry that her great grandchildren really loved ! Some of the pieces ended up being used for dress up play ( again , not anything of value ) and others were sort of vintage and similar to things found in stores the girls shopped at.
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Some of the pieces are too big and gaudy and old lady for any one to want! The items that she promised to granddaughters are hopefully going to them!
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Have the stones reset. The gold from the settings may help pay for the new settings.
You might try Poshmark (dot com). I’ve purchased 2nd hand fine jewelry there.
I’ve bought jewelry on Ebay, although nothing I would consider “expensive”. Maybe $50. tops. What types of things are they? Gold settings? Precious stones? High end costume jewelry? A lot of pieces or just a few?
We kept all the real fine jewelry and it was divided amongst the two grandchildren.
We donated all of the costume jewelry to a local charity thrift shop.
Some of our fine jewels are hideously set as well, but they can be reset. And as noted upstream, you could use one piece as a trade to help offset the setting of a stone from another.
There are also shops around here that specialize in vintage jewelry resale. I would imagine ther is something like that in southern CA.
One person’s gaudy is another person’s fabulous.
I’d hold on to it for the time being.
It’s like disposing of vintage sets of china or silver for a pittance on the assumption that no one will ever want them because you prefer stoneware and stainless. Wait 10 or 15 years and you might be surprised.
We live in SoCal. While I have purchased a few antique pieces recently, selling jewelry isn’t very cost effective. There are several dealers on South Beverly. A friend of mine wanted to sell and Baume Mercier gold and diamonds, purchased for about $10,000. Her best offer was $1500.
My cousin sold some of her mom’s pieces recently (mom died.) She sold it to a jeweler who buys estate pieces. I know jeweler paid $60k for her diamond ring - which had been our grandmothers. My cousin has no sentimental attachments to anything.
She has some semi-precious stuff that is pretty big, amethyst, opal, aquamarine, topaz, etc. And so big it the stones would have to be recut to be worn by real people. MIL liked Elizabeth Taylor style stuff with semi precious to afford it.
If there is no big rush (i.e. you don’t need the money right away to pay for care, etc.) I would scout around on Ebay to see what similar pieces are going for. Maybe try listing things. If there is gold, that alone can be worth a lot. One of my grandmother’s bracelets (which I never liked) fetched $500 at the jewelers just for the gold. An antique ugly watch got $300. Stones typically not so much, but on ebay you might be surprised what people are buying. A lot of today’s jewelry has large stones, so someone might buy to reuse.
If you have a good jeweler, s/he may have ideas about how to get the most value from the pieces, whether re-setting, selling the stones loose, or selling as antiques. We have a friend who is a jeweler who has helped us with all our jewelry needs–resetting, making sure the prongs on the engagement ring (that he sold us) remain in great shape over the decades, and much more.
It is important to only use jewelers you trust, as I have heard horror stories about stones being swapped for zircons and other issues. Fortunately, we have only had good experiences.
Try Bonhams or Heritage auction houses. If the jewelry is fine enough, it may qualify for the fine jewelry sales. If not, they may be able to sell it in their house sales for less expensive collectibles. There is no guarantee that it will sell, however, and if it is out of style, it will probably sell at very lowball prices in any event (if it sells at all). This is true regardless whether you consign it to an auction house or a retail vintage jewelry dealer.
http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22512/
I wonder if this California jewelry collection was all owned by one person! Anyone for an insect brooch?
" It’s like disposing of vintage sets of china or silver for a pittance on the assumption that no one will ever want them because you prefer stoneware and stainless. Wait 10 or 15 years and you might be surprised. "
This is so true. While I have some boxed up china from Sweden that I will never use , I can’t say for sure that one of our children will want it someday.
I have a set of sterling flatware that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. My MIL had another set so she gave it to us. I didn’t think I would ever use it , but I took a look at it a couple of years ago , and it is really simple and elegant. So I polished it up and use it for special occasions
We kept the sterling flatware! We did NOT hold on to sets of China in the hoes that they might become va,unable in 10-15 years. Sorry…wasn’t going to happen. 12 sets of dishes took up too much space. They are all gone now except for the one set we are using.
But jewelry takes up less space. Still…there is the decision…liquidate now…or liquidate later. If the goal is to,liquidate now, then one needs to know that the fetching prices might not be as high as hoped.
First off…you need appraisals of these things that are current…not ten years old. We just got an appraisal done…and it was $125 for one piece. We needed it for insurance purposes. The 15 year old appraisal, and the bill of sale were totally off the mark!