What Should You Do With Unwanted Jewellery?

Have you inherited old and broken jewellery, or do you have old pieces that you’ve collected over the years that you no longer have any use for? Do you want to sell an engagement ring or sell a wedding ring that you no longer need? If so, why not consider selling these items for the most at a store like Muzeum? We offer the highest value for your old and vintage jewellery, and are completely transparent with our pricing.

As the storefront of the Great Canadian Roadshow, we have built a reputation for ourselves by travelling across North America, Europe, and Asia, looking for unique collectables, providing free evaluations, and paying the best prices when people come to us to sell their gold and silver. Learn more about us by visiting our website and seeing first-hand how much integrity, expertise, and passion, means to us in this business.

When you visit our storefront Muzeum in Toronto you’ll experience the difference: we treat each visitor as a welcomed guest and are happy to answer any question you may have. We’re here to make sure that you are getting the best value for your items, and our experts will walk you through the process of determining their worth.

How to Tell If Your Jewellery is Worth Something

Before visiting our store, you might be wondering if there’s a way to tell whether or not your old jewellery is valuable. There are a number of factors that go into pricing – let’s take a look.

Precious Metal Content

First of all, you should be looking for pieces that are made with gold and silver. We buy all sorts of gold jewellery, including old, new, broken, mismatched, scratched, and everything in between. Gold and silver always retain their value and depending on market prices you could get a decent amount of money when trading these items in. This is especially true in today’s market where gold and silver prices are high due to people looking for safe-haven investments in response to recent economic uncertainty.

Check for Hallmarks

To determine whether or not your item has any gold or silver content, look out for markings (or hallmarks) when sorting through them. These markings indicate the purity level of the precious metals in your piece. Common locations for markings are on the inside of a ring or near the clasp of a necklace. You may need a magnifying glass or a “loupe” to clearly see any hallmarks.

For instance, a marking like 18k (karat) indicates 75% pure gold, with the remainder being another metal. Other common purity levels you’ll see are 9k (37.5% pure), 10k (41.6% pure), 14k (58.5% pure), and 22k (91.6% pure). There is 24k (%100 pure) but it’s incredibly rare in jewellery as it is too soft to be practical.

Gold plated, filled, and rolled jewellery, generally have a 1/10th or 1/20th marking on them, meaning that the precious metal is only used in the outer coating. Also look out for markings like GF (Gold Filled) or GP and GEP (Gold Plated or Gold Electroplated) to easily determine how the precious metal was used in your piece.

When the purity of gold in an item is high, the payout will be much higher. So the payout for gold filled and plated pieces will be much lower than an item made from gold and with a karat marking. That being said, we buy any jewellery with markings, so make sure to come to us if you want to sell your gold jewellery in Toronto and the GTA.

Silver Hallmarks

Silver jewellery can either be made of silver, coated with it, or in some unfortunate cases just a knock-off. The value of your silver jewellery is determined in a similar way to gold pieces – by checking for markings (or hallmarks). Typically, the silver content of jewellery comes in at 50%, 80%, or the most common purity level of 92.5% (which is sterling silver).

Sterling silver is commonly used to make items like jewellery and silverware because it is strong and tarnish-resistant. When trying to determine the silver content of a piece, check the item for these markings:

• .500 (50% pure)
• .800 (80% pure)
• Sterling/Ster/.925 (92.5% pure)

Use a Magnet

If no markings are present, you can also use a strong magnet to test for precious metal content. That’s because they are not magnetic, so if you run a magnet over your jewellery and it is attracted to the magnet, then chances are your items have no precious metal content. That being said, sometimes plating can interfere with this test, so it could still be attracted even when gold or silver is present. That’s why at the end of the day it’s always best to bring your items into our store for a free evaluation where we will professionally test your items to accurately determine purity levels.

Take Advantage of Our Expertise

Doing tests at home will only get you so far: to truly know the value of your items, get in touch and send in your jewellery so that we can use our XRF Machine to accurately test its precious metal content. You can either visit our store at 14 Prince Arthur Ave in Toronto (nearest intersection is Avenue and Bloor) or contact us at info@muzeum.ca to learn about our convenient mail-in service. All you need to do is package your items using our simple and free evaluation kit, send it out, and our experts will take care of the rest!

We are your trusted source for selling precious metals, coins, paper money, jewellery, vintage toys, collectables, and war memorabilia. No one else offers better prices for your items – guaranteed. That’s because we are committed to our reputation and want to make sure that you will keep coming back for our services. So if you have any old jewellery lying around, what are you waiting for? Stop by our store and see just how much your unwanted items might be worth!