Inherited items can sometimes be worth more than people expect. There are several reasons for this:

Rarity and collectability - Items that are rare, unique, or have historical significance can be valuable. People may not always be aware of the rarity or historical importance of an item they inherit.

There are times when you inherit a piece of jewelry or a watch that holds great value for you because it belonged to someone you loved. When that happens, you put it away somewhere safe and take it out and wear it on special occasions. You would never think of selling it. 

Items that contain the most gold by weight are those that are made from 24-karat gold or are as close to pure gold as possible. However, these items might not be very common due to the softness of pure gold. (Pure gold is 24 karats, but it's very soft and malleable, making it less suitable for jewelry that needs to withstand daily wear.)

Forty or fifty years ago, men were apparently wearing a variety of small jewelry items that are no longer very popular today. 

In a moment, we will list what some of these items are and how you can recognize them when you go hunting for gold, silver, and platinum items that are worth recycling. But before we give you a list of these items, we would like to mention the following fact . . . 

“I have a collection of jewelry that belonged to my grandmother,” a precious metal investor wrote us recently. “It is a mix of costume jewelry and nicer items that are made of gold and silver. I suspect that the value of the collection exceeds the dollar value of the precious metals it contains, because many of the items are interesting historical pieces.”

If you look for business liquidation auctions in your area, you will find an interesting variety of businesses that are closed and that have hired auction firms to liquidate their equipment and supplies. 

In a recent search, we found auctioneers that were liquidating exercise equipment from health clubs . . . ice cream freezers from scoop shops . . . welding equipment from a muffler shop . . . and stoves from a pizzeria. 

One of the Most Amazing Metal Detector Finds in History Reminds Us of the Value to be Found in Gold Wedding Rings

There are metal detector finds . . . and then there are metal detector FINDS that go down in history.

One of those extraordinary finds happened in 2019 when a man got a new metal detector and, on his second outing with it, found a gold wedding ring by a path. What makes this ring so extraordinary? According to a story reported in CNN:

Your son or daughter will graduate high school or college in a few weeks. And you’re thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I gave that grad an old item of family jewelry that’s been sitting around for years?”

It could be grandpa’s old gold pocket watch, or a wedding ring that once was worn by your mother. Well, aren’t you being generous? Yes, you are. But before you make that generous gift, here’s a piece of advice:

Frankly, we do not completely understand why the Metropolitan Museum in New York, one of the greatest art museums in the world, has chosen to host its annual Met Gala. The coverage of the event is extensive, with news crews outside the museum shooting video of some of today’s biggest celebrities as they arrive and walk up the staircase into the event. But why is this happening at an art museum? It doesn’t have anything to do with art really, so it must have something to do with money. And sure enough, the event raises money for the Museum’s Costume Institute.

Have you visited a jewelry factory recently? Or the business place of a jewelry maker who repairs jewelry?

If you have, you have noticed that they are noisy places. Grinders, polishers and other pieces of machinery are whirring away. And do you know what? The specific places where that noise is coming from are the same places where you are most likely to find small amounts of gold, platinum and silver dusts and powders that can be worth much more than you suspect.

We think you will like – and profit from – the information we will give you in today’s post.

We will tell you about sources of gold and silver that many people overlook when they are looking for precious metals.

Marie Antoinette apparently wore a lot of jewelry. When you jump ahead to our century, you see that gold has hardly lost its popularity among celebrities. A few decades ago, Mr. T of The Mod Squad wore huge gold necklaces and medals.

Although you might think that the current cancellation of big-scale social events like the Met Gala have driven celebrities indoors, current new stories reveal that today’s A-List celebrities are still wearing a lot of gold jewelry when they go out and about, even just to buy a bag of bagels on the weekend.

If you like to hunt for old gold jewelry that’s worth recycling, chances are you have seen some items that match this description . . .

“It’s an old ring that’s just a piece of costume jewelry. It’s got a big fake stone in it that’s probably just made of glass. Why should I pay attention to it, when it’s probably worthless?”

Recently, a man wanted to sell some old gold filled jewelry that he had inherited from an elderly aunt. There were actually quite a few items - a bracelet, a few old rings, a necklace with a pendant attached, a small decorative pin, and a few other items. So the man put all those items in a Manila envelope, got in his car, and drove to a store that displayed the sign, “We Buy Gold.”

Today is an especially good time to make money by refining older pieces of jewelry that were crafted in white gold.

Why? Here’s a bit of history that could come in handy if you are interested in making money by reclaiming and recycling gold scrap . . .

Is nostalgia standing between you and a lot of money?

We apologize if that question is rude, or of we are being impolite by asking it. But the fact is that many people are losing money (or delaying getting it) by remaining stuck in the past.

A client of ours recently found an interesting piece of gold jewelry. It was a brooch, probably more than 100 years old, that he found in an estate sale. He bought it for $40.00, took it home, and tested it using a gold testing kit.

“My grandfather was a master jeweler and jewelry repairman,” a caller told us recently. “Unfortunately, he recently passed away, and now we have the job of emptying his workshop. Can you give me some advice on what we should be looking for?”

You go looking for gold and . . . you find some! Maybe you go to an antique store and find a piece of jewelry that looks like pure, shiny gold, but you find out later that it is only covered with a thin gold plating. Or you discover a gold nugget and find out that it is only a cheap collectible that has been created to look like the real thing, but isn’t.

Not long ago, we had a call from a man who had bought a box of 16 rolls of gold-plated jewelry chain at an auction where the assets of a closed jewelry manufacturer were being sold to the public. “I weighed the box,” he told us, “it weighs about 12 pounds . . . so what is it worth?”