Antique Jewelry Wholesale
Most people think that online auctions, such as eBay is the way to go. While this is true occasionally, you will usually find that the seller knows the value of what they are selling, and the price is quite high. There are other ways to find antique jewelry at wholesale prices – or below.
Keep an eye on your newspaper for advertised estate sales and garage sales. Typically, at these sales, the people holding the sale really don’t know the value of what they have. You can literally purchase hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of antique jewelry for just a few dollars on a typical Saturday morning.
It is important that you not look too closely at the jewelry when you are buying it. If the piece is valuable, you don’t want the seller to know how valuable it is! Keep a straight face, keep your happiness and joy to yourself, and pay the fifty cents or two bucks that they want for the piece, get in your car and head to a trusted jeweler for an appraisal!
It is possible that the piece isn’t worth anything – but occasionally, you will stumble across some real finds! Even if the piece isn’t worth anything, if you make jewelry, you may be able to disassemble it for the parts.
Finding antique jewelry wholesale is very exciting. In fact, spending those Saturday mornings at the yard sales and estate sales may even become addicting! Yard sales and estate sales – especially estate sales where grandchildren are not interested in their grandma’s old ugly jewelry are the best sources for antique jewelry at wholesale prices –or below wholesale prices.
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t some real find on eBay as well, so don’t discount it. Keep an eye on the jewelry categories, as well as the antique or vintage categories. If the piece is very expensive, use the escrow service that is recommended bye Bay. Also talk to the seller quite a bit to be sure that you understand exactly what is being advertised!
Jewelry Appraisals
The whole reason people obtain jewelry appraisals is to document the dollar value of the diamond, whether it is for personal investment purposes, or in order to have a physical record of the gem stone for insurance purposes. It is also great documentation to have if you ever decide to sell your jewelry at a future date, or pass it down to family members.
It is wise to have your existing valuable jewelry appraised in case it is stolen, or in the event you go through a divorce or estate settlement. Before purchasing a new piece of jewelry you can also get it appraised to get a good idea what the market value is on the piece before shelling out large amounts of money to pay for it if it isn’t worth the amount of money they are asking for the piece.
Jewelry lab certificates and appraisals often go hand in hand, but the lab certificate is a document that describes information about an unmounted gem stone, like a diamond that has not been set into any piece of jewelry, while the appraisal provides detailed information on the market value of a piece of jewelry, whether it is unmounted or already set as a ring, earrings, or necklace for example.
When selecting jewelry lab certificates and appraisals on jewelry that you are considering to purchase, it is best to select an independent company that provides these documents rather than rely on the documents created by the company that you are planning to buy your jewelry from.
If you already have jewelry lab certificates and appraisals on your existing jewelry, but are unsure of their accuracy, it may be worthwhile to have your items appraised again to see what their current market value is.
Jewelry Certificates
Many people dither to bring their jewelry into the jeweler’s when they’re in need of repair services or cleaning. It makes people marvel how they’ll know for sure that they’ve received the same diamond back that they brought in. It is an extremely uncommon occurrence for a jeweler to purposely switch diamonds, however it could happen unintentionally. Diamond certificates act as an additional security measure in this case. They are like fingerprints stored in police databases; they contain all the data needed to match the person to the fingerprints, and diamond certificates have enough information on the diamond to match the diamond with the certificate and the owner.
It’s important that you use an outside source for diamond certificates, instead of the jeweler who is selling the diamond you are interested in, because the jeweler wants to make money on the sale of the diamonds, the certificates may be slightly biased and you could be paying more than the market value of the diamond.
You should receive diamond certificates (also called grading reports) from independent companies rather than a jeweler, to insure that your getting an unbiased reporting of the value of the diamond. Otherwise, you could be paying much more for your diamond than what the diamond is actually worth.
Diamonds are not the same kind of investment as buying stocks and bonds, but having diamond certificates gives you a better investment than just having the diamond. Diamond certificates make it easier to sell a diamond in the future, because you have documentation of how much the diamond is worth and why it was valued that amount.
When you go to a jewelry store, or consider making a purchase from an online retailer, the jewelry that has diamond certificates tends to sell for several hundred dollars more than diamonds that are graded the same that are without certificates. This is because the jeweler recognizes that they typically grade their diamonds one level better than an independent grading organization, like the Gemological Institute of America. The GIA is more conservative when grading diamonds because they do not gain anything from diamond sales.