In the past, selling a piece of pre-loved jewellery was an arduous process of visiting auction houses and intimidating jewellery buyers, or risking a pawnbroker and hoping to be offered a fair price for your piece. Online adverts and daytime television shows suggest that the best way to sell a piece of jewellery is simply to cash for the highest bidder, but that is not the case.
Nowadays there are many different options for selling your jewellery in an informed way and ensuring that you get the best possible price for a piece, including several platforms that offer free personalised advice throughout the process and can even take charge of selling your piece for you. If you’re ready to sell your jewellery, whether it’s an old family heirloom or just a piece you don’t wear anymore, there are a lot more options than you might think.
From valuing your pieces to the different platforms you can sell them on, here’s our expert guide to selling your jewellery.
Do Your Research
Before you start looking at different options for selling your jewellery, it’s important that you properly understand the piece that you are selling so that you can accurately describe it to potential buyers and have a good idea of its value. The more you know about your piece of jewellery, the better position you will be in to sell it.
Useful information to compile about your piece is its brand, the materials that it is made of, the age of the jewellery and whether it has any visible signs of wear. Depending on the piece and where you bought it from, you might have this information already from any documents that came with your jewellery when you first got it. If not, you can do a lot of the necessary research on the internet to learn more about your piece and get a rough idea of how much money it might be worth.
Determine the Value
Your initial research should have helped you get a better idea of the value of your piece of jewellery, but this will only be a rough estimate. For more insight into how much a piece might be worth, you can visit several different jewellery buyers and auction houses and ask how much they would offer for it.
Comparing these prices will help you determine a more accurate value for your jewellery, as well as giving you different options for eventually selling your piece. It is worth noting however that these buyers may all be offering you less than the real value of your jewellery, as their main focus will be on making a profit.
For a more trustworthy evaluation, you could take your piece to an independent jeweller, valuer or jewellery expert. Whilst this process might be more time consuming or costly, it is the best way to ensure that you get a fair price for your jewellery and that you understand its true value.
How to Get Jewellery Valued
Getting your jewellery professionally valued is the best way to get an accurate idea of how much a piece is worth, and can be particularly helpful if you have inherited a piece of jewellery that hasn’t come with any information about its history. Many large jewellers offer customer valuation services, or you can approach an independent jewellery valuer to assess your piece.
Most valuers will give you a document after your piece has been valued, which will detail how much your jewellery is worth and what has been done to determine its value. This service will cost money, but it’s a very valuable investment if you’re looking for accurate guidance of how much you should be selling second-hand jewellery for.
Decide Where to Sell your Jewellery
Once you have done your research and have an accurate understanding of how much your jewellery is worth, your next step is to decide the best place to sell your jewellery. Where you decide to sell will depend on different factors, including how much your piece is worth and how quickly you would like to get money from selling it.
Here are some of the places you can sell your jewellery:
Auction House
An auction house is a good place to sell a piece of jewellery that is particularly rare or old, as buyers will be attending auctions on the hunt for unique pieces. Many locations also have their own jewellery expert onsite to assess your piece before it goes up for bidding, so you can be confident that it will be sold for an accurate price.
The downside to selling jewellery at an auction house however is that there is no guaranteed sale of your piece, and auctions tend to be infrequent so it could take a while for your jewellery to be sold. Many auction houses also take a percentage of your profit as a selling fee, so it is not the best option for those hoping to receive the full value of their piece of jewellery.
Pawnbroker
If your piece of jewellery isn’t particularly valuable, or you are just looking to sell it quickly, then your best option is to use a local pawnbroker. You will likely be paid in cash for your piece and the sale will be very quick and efficient, but you cannot guarantee that you will receive an accurate price for your jewellery.
Online Marketplace
More and more people are turning to the internet to find second-hand jewellery buyers and platforms to sell jewellery, with places such as eBay and Craigslist being particularly popular options. By selling your jewellery on an online marketplace like this you can set your own price for the piece and pick your buyer, and the process tends to be quite simple.
However, it can take a long time for jewellery to sell online, and again there is no guarantee that your piece will sell at all. Selling jewellery on a generalised online platform as well means that you won’t receive specialised help and knowledge on selling your piece, and could potentially be scammed.
Independent Jewellery Shop
Many independent jewellery shops buy vintage or second-hand jewellery for a fair price and will be able to accurately value your piece and ensure that it is sold properly. Places such as London’s Hatton Garden are perfect for this, as you have a wide range of buyers to choose from.
This is a very time-consuming option however that is much harder for those who live in more rural areas, as well as potentially being quite a stressful way to sell your jewellery. If you’re willing to shop around then it’s a good option, but it won’t be suitable for everyone.
Specialist Online Jewellery Company, such as Jollys Jewellers
Selecting a jewellery community such as Jollys Jewellers to sell your pre-loved jewellery is the best way to sell your pieces, as these platforms are run by jewellery experts who often offer the best possible prices for your jewellery. Their services are fast and easy to use, and you can feel confident that your piece is being sold on a trusted platform.
With Jollys Jewellers, you can list your item for free on our site after taking photos and writing a description, using our team of experts to help with any issues or questions you have. Once it has sold you send the piece to us, and we take care of every aspect of the selling process including cleaning and refurbishing the piece. We also offer a VIP service that takes charge of the selling process, letting you sell your jewellery without any hassle.
How to Sell Jewellery Online
Selling jewellery online is a popular way to find a new home for your pre-loved pieces, with many different platforms and services to choose from. It’s a faster and much less intimidating way to sell jewellery that gives you more control over the sale, and is easy to do from the comfort of your own home.
After researching and valuing your jewellery, you will need to create a description of the piece that lists its features and any history it has, to give the best impression to a potential customer. You will also need to photograph the jewellery clearly, using a camera or your phone. We recommend that you use a plain, light-coloured background for this, focus on the main part of the piece such as its gemstone, and make sure that the image isn’t blurry.
Once you have the relevant information and images of your piece, you can choose the platform on which you want to sell your jewellery and upload the details. At Jollys Jewellers, we offer a specialised service in which our experts will assess, clean and repair your piece once it has been sold, before sending it to its new owner and giving you peace of mind that your sale will happen without a hitch.
Whether you’re looking to sell a piece of jewellery that you have inherited or are clearing out your personal collection, selling your jewellery is a sustainable way to ensure that pieces are not lost or wasted. As well as making yourself some money, you might help someone else find their dream piece and help to give your unwanted jewellery a new lease of life.
There are many different options for selling your jewellery, and the process no longer has to be the stressful, drawn-out chore that selling has been in the past. With sellers like Jollys Jewellers, you can quickly and efficiently sell your pieces on an expert platform that gives you the best price for your jewellery, with high-quality service guaranteed every step of the way.
To find out more about how you can sell your preloved pieces with Jollys Jewellers, click here or get in contact with us by clicking here.