Do nothing for a week.
There is no clock on this and there is no market event you are going to miss. The single most common regret I hear is from people who sold quickly during a difficult month. Put the box somewhere secure and come back to it.
Do not clean anything.
This is the one instruction worth following exactly. Polishing antique silver removes patina that collectors pay for. Ultrasonic cleaners loosen stones in old settings and destroy fragile enamel. Cleaning a vintage watch dial can take most of its value off in a minute.
If a piece is going to be cleaned, it should happen after it has been identified, and by someone who knows what the surface is worth. Dirt is reversible. A polished-out hallmark is not.
Sort into four piles.
- 01
Obviously precious
Anything stamped with a karat or silver mark, anything with real stones, anything with a designer name. This pile gets looked at properly.
- 02
Watches, separately
Watches are valued on completely different criteria from jewelry and often by different people. Keep them apart, and keep any boxes and papers with them.
- 03
Costume and unknown
Do not throw this away. Signed costume jewelry from the right makers sells well, and unmarked precious pieces hide in here constantly.
- 04
Paperwork
Receipts, grading reports, insurance schedules, service records, old photographs of someone wearing a piece. All of it adds value or answers questions later.
What goes wrong most.
- Mailing it to an online buyer. Once it is in the post it is out of your hands, and declining an offer means shipping it again.
- Selling the lot by weight. Signed and antique pieces get paid as scrap, which is exactly the outcome to avoid.
- Cleaning first. Covered above, and worth repeating.
- Splitting between family before anything is identified. Someone always ends up with the valuable one by accident.
- Treating an old insurance appraisal as a price. Those are replacement values and are typically far above what anything sells for.
Where the value actually hides.
- Broken chains and single earrings, which are still precious metal by weight
- Old wristwatches that look unremarkable, particularly steel sports models
- Sterling flatware in a complete named pattern
- Loose stones in envelopes at the bottom of the box
- Coins, foreign currency and small bars mixed in with the jewelry
- Signed costume pieces from makers like Trifari, Miriam Haskell and Schiaparelli
Keep, wear, remake, or sell.
Selling is not the only option and it is often not the right one. A ring nobody will wear can be reset into something someone will. A worn chain can be repaired for a fraction of what a new one costs. If you need money now but do not want to part with a piece, a collateral loan lets you keep it.
Bring the whole box. It costs nothing, you keep everything if you decide not to sell, and you will at least know what you are holding.