How to sell silver jewellery at a good price ?

Selling silver jewellery and getting a good price is not easy ! What are the tips to better sell your jewellery?

Scrap gold professionals seldom display competitive prices to buy silver

It's a reality, Precious metals buying professionals offer a decent price for your gold. However it is not really true with silver jewellery!

The main reason is just profit. It takes the same amount of time to smelt 1 kg of gold or silver. However gold prices per gram are far higher than those of silver. Therefore for him to earn as many £ with silver, the scrap gold dealer will have to use much larger quantities of metal.

This is what most the prices to buy back silver are so low. If you get sell your scrap gold for 80% of the spot price value, you will only get about 50% of the silver spot price.

It is not much...

Tip 1 : Sell silver jewellery to jewellers, not to smelters

Scrap gold dealers are just here to buy jewellery and smelt it. They are not interested in the piece of jewellery itself, its aesthetic value or even its history. Only the quantity of precious metal matters.

Some jewellers will buy jewellery to sell it without transformation. Reselling jewellery is their most basic trade and a beautiful piece can sell for far more than its silver contents.

Consequently, you'd better visit many jeweller shops if you want to get a good price for silver (and even gold plated) jewellery.

Tip 2: Branded jewellery is worth more than its weight in precious metal

Some jewellery items are worth much more than their weight in metal. This is the case of branded jewellery that sells very well as is. Most luxury brands will sell very well : Boucheron, Cartier, Chanel ...

Tip 3 : Ancient jewellery

What has been said for branded jewellery is also true for some antique or ancient pieces.

Let's just say that you have just acquired a silver brooch. Honestly, it is ugly. No one would want to wear this !

Before dumping it, why don't you make sure it is not a 19th century brooch ?

This is why it is especially important to look for Hallmarks . Usually when you manage to find hallmarks you are not familiar with, it is a good omen !

With some luck that will be enough to find out at what date the piece was created.

Tip 4 : Ask an expert !

If you think that you have ancient jewellery but are unable to get enough information to evaluate it , it is a wise move to ask an expert about it.

It is advised to go to an auction house instead of a shop. The auction house has every interest in selling the item as high as possible as they are paid a commission on sale.

This is not true with an expert living off his shop. His goal is to buy valuable jewellery as cheap as possible to have the widest margin he can.

Tip 5 : Sell in quantity

We all have a limited time and professional are just the same. Si you sell a large volume of silver jewellery the scrap gold dealer could smelt everything in one operation and save time. Consequently, they will be able to give you a better price.

Tip 6 : Are you a professional seller ? Say it

Scrap gold dealers very often propose more favourable rates to other professionals. The goal is to establish a lasting business relationship and because they know that other professionals sell usually more quantity than just individuals.