Gold jewellery shock

Pollycat

pinkshoes said:

Have you weighed it to see roughly how many ounces of gold it is? Then price this up against the selling price per ounce. 

Most of that £5000 value for the jewellery will be the hours of labour to design and make it rather than the raw price of gold.

When you have it valued they generally don't care about the design, but just the weight if the gold.

Do this.

Then check online gold buyers who will give you a price per gram depending if the item is 9 carat, 18 carat etc.
That will tell you roughly how much your gold is worth as scrap.

When you say "dealers" do you mean pawnbrokers/shops buying gold?

My niece I had a very fancy link heavy necklace in 9 carat gold.
I weighed it so knew roughly what she was expecting to get. (£575)
One place with over 150 shops throughout the UK (who also sell/buy currency) offered me £300, hen when I asked for the necklace back, upped it to £400, then £450.
I declined.
Another jeweller offered me £400.
We eventually sold it to another pawnbroker/currency buyer & seller for £525.

The £575 was based on the website of a jewellers who also buy gold which is 12 miles from me but my niece didn't want to wait for me to visit the shop.

Your expectations of what money you can realise from the sale of your gold is way too high.

sheramber

Put out into auction to sell as jewellery as posed to the value of the metal, and see what is offered.

DullGreyGuy

TELLIT01 said:

I lost my wedding ring which had been purchased in Hatton Garden. I claimed on insurance and a new one was made to the same spec as the one I lost.  It contains just over 5 grammes of 18ct gold, so bullion value of about £260.  Insurance valuation certificate which came with it is for £2450!  I've given that info simply to indicate that retail and insurance values have very little bearing on the bullion value.

"Insurance value" is simply the high street retail price (rather than shopped around and looked in all the sales etc price)

I was going to post a link comparing a high street jeweller's platinum solitaire diamond ring to one from a provider much higher in the food chain but I can't really because the diamonds the high street are using are too poor quality to be matched with inclusions being I1 or I2 whereas my preferred seller doesnt go worse than VS2 on anything other than giant stones. Still even with the big difference in quality the high street is asking for £20,000 for a 2ct solitaire platinum ring whereas the other retailer is asking £13,000 with a better stone.

Clearly the second retailer is making a profit despite being 50% cheaper or more. 

When you are selling your jewellery in most cases you are getting scrap value which is going to be a modest percentage of any retailers original price. Retailer paid 20% VAT for a start, then you have the cost of manufacture (much higher on a bespoke piece), cost of sale (shops arent free and staff demand salaries)

Doing a quick online valuation the high street ring comes in at £3,350 and the better retailers one at £7,823. So about 12.5% of the high street jewellers sale price. 

BowerBadgers

Ergates said:

BowerBadgers said:

When I was a student, 38 years ago, I won a short-story writing competition in a glossy women's magazine. The prize was advertised as £5,000 of gold jewellery designed for me by a high-end London master jeweller. I chose and received a necklace, two bangles - one with several tiny diamonds in - and a brooch. I didn't receive a valuation certificate, as had been promised.
Gold jewellery isn't really my thing, though so I never actually wore it.
Nearly four decades on, I've decided to try to sell it. Two dealers have valued my jewellery at just over £2,000 - quite a shock considering how much gold has soared since 1987 (about eight times as much, I think).
The original master jeweller is now retired but his daughter has since taken over the business and put it in her name. Unfortunately she is not responding to my emails or phone messages. The magazine is no longer published.
I think I will have to shop around for valuations and accept what I can get, even if it's less than half the original value and a fraction of what it should be worth. 
Does anyone have any better ideas? Thanks in anticipation! 

Putting aside the above mentioned detail of you have no possible come back against anybody after 38 years (and certainly not against an entirely different person who quite possibly wasn't even born at the time) - the value of jewellery isn't only based on the precious materials it is made from.

As such it is entirely possible that the items in question were worth £5000 at the time but is now worth less - fashions change over time.

As for: "....even if it's less than half the original value and a fraction of what it should be worth.."
A thing is worth what people are willing to pay for it.  Nothing more.   If the people willing to buy your items say they are only worth £2000, then that is what they are worth.  If you aren't willing to part with them for that, then you are obviously free to keep them.

Moreover, to be blunt, the fact that you even tried to contact the original jewellers daughter on this matter is... odd.  I'm not surprised she's not responding to you!   Why did you do that?  What, exactly, were you expecting her to say or do?

I told her it was lovely to meet her Dad and I thought she'd be interested in something he had made. I also offered her the option of buying them before I sold them elsewhere. All she needed to say was "Thanks, that's interesting but I won't buy them back."

BowerBadgers

Emmia said:

BowerBadgers said:

When I was a student, 38 years ago, I won a short-story writing competition in a glossy women's magazine. The prize was advertised as £5,000 of gold jewellery designed for me by a high-end London master jeweller. I chose and received a necklace, two bangles - one with several tiny diamonds in - and a brooch. I didn't receive a valuation certificate, as had been promised.
Gold jewellery isn't really my thing, though so I never actually wore it.
Nearly four decades on, I've decided to try to sell it. Two dealers have valued my jewellery at just over £2,000 - quite a shock considering how much gold has soared since 1987 (about eight times as much, I think).
The original master jeweller is now retired but his daughter has since taken over the business and put it in her name. Unfortunately she is not responding to my emails or phone messages. The magazine is no longer published.
I think I will have to shop around for valuations and accept what I can get, even if it's less than half the original value and a fraction of what it should be worth. 
Does anyone have any better ideas? Thanks in anticipation! 

Were you seeking/expecting a multiple of the magazines stated £5k value - so £40k+ as "that's what it should be worth"?

Unfortunately as other posters have said, it doesn't work like that. You'd probably have got closer to the £5k if you'd sold it at the time you won it -  even then it would have been secondhand, but the styling should at least have been in fashion.

Also contacting the daughter repeatedly, is weird - we don't know what the messages are, but do they demand she buys it back at least £5k (or more)?

This is like taking a pair of Jaeger trousers bought in the 90's but unworn, back to M&S today as they own the brand now, and demanding a refund.

I told her it was lovely to meet her Dad and thought she'd be interested in seeing something he designed. I gave her the first option of buying it back. All she needed to say was "Thanks, that's interesting but I won't buy them back."

BowerBadgers

sheramber said:

Put out into auction to sell as jewellery as posed to the value of the metal, and see what is offered.

Good idea.

Pollycat

BowerBadgers said:

sheramber said:

Put out into auction to sell as jewellery as posed to the value of the metal, and see what is offered.

Good idea.

But bear in mind that you'll probably have to pay a seller's fee.
If your items are one-off or really intricate designs, they may be worth more than the scrap gold price, then you may get more than scrap value at one of the gold buyers.

I found this on one website:

Auction houses make their money charging a buyer’s premium and a seller’s fee. As the name suggests, the sellers fee is payable by the seller. The amount payable is based on the final sale value of the item, calculated a percentage, usually around 20 – 25%. The auction fees also attract VAT at the standard prevailing rate. The buyer’s premium is added to the final auction price and is paid over to the auction house by the buyer.

Emmia

BowerBadgers said:

Ergates said:

BowerBadgers said:

When I was a student, 38 years ago, I won a short-story writing competition in a glossy women's magazine. The prize was advertised as £5,000 of gold jewellery designed for me by a high-end London master jeweller. I chose and received a necklace, two bangles - one with several tiny diamonds in - and a brooch. I didn't receive a valuation certificate, as had been promised.
Gold jewellery isn't really my thing, though so I never actually wore it.
Nearly four decades on, I've decided to try to sell it. Two dealers have valued my jewellery at just over £2,000 - quite a shock considering how much gold has soared since 1987 (about eight times as much, I think).
The original master jeweller is now retired but his daughter has since taken over the business and put it in her name. Unfortunately she is not responding to my emails or phone messages. The magazine is no longer published.
I think I will have to shop around for valuations and accept what I can get, even if it's less than half the original value and a fraction of what it should be worth. 
Does anyone have any better ideas? Thanks in anticipation! 

Putting aside the above mentioned detail of you have no possible come back against anybody after 38 years (and certainly not against an entirely different person who quite possibly wasn't even born at the time) - the value of jewellery isn't only based on the precious materials it is made from.

As such it is entirely possible that the items in question were worth £5000 at the time but is now worth less - fashions change over time.

As for: "....even if it's less than half the original value and a fraction of what it should be worth.."
A thing is worth what people are willing to pay for it.  Nothing more.   If the people willing to buy your items say they are only worth £2000, then that is what they are worth.  If you aren't willing to part with them for that, then you are obviously free to keep them.

Moreover, to be blunt, the fact that you even tried to contact the original jewellers daughter on this matter is... odd.  I'm not surprised she's not responding to you!   Why did you do that?  What, exactly, were you expecting her to say or do?

I told her it was lovely to meet her Dad and I thought she'd be interested in something he had made. I also offered her the option of buying them before I sold them elsewhere. All she needed to say was "Thanks, that's interesting but I won't buy them back."

It's possible she doesn't have a good relationship with her father, or really doesn't want to discuss her family with someone who is a total stranger to her.

It might have come across as fraudulent or dodgy. 

Undervalued

Art and antiques fluctuate wildly in value as fashions change. Plenty of things that were of considerable value 40 years ago are next to unsalable at the moment. "Brown" furniture (even good stuff) and lots of types of ceramics are good examples. They might become popular again in 10 or 20 years, who knows?

As others have said when something is made of precious metal there is a (sometimes very significant) residual value for the metal itself. That too fluctuates but in a completely unconnected way. However with furniture or ceramics etc there is no scrap value at all.

Pollycat

Undervalued said:

Art and antiques fluctuate wildly in value as fashions change. Plenty of things that were of considerable value 40 years ago are next to unsalable at the moment. "Brown" furniture (even good stuff) and lots of types of ceramics are good examples. They might become popular again in 10 or 20 years, who knows?

As others have said when something is made of precious metal there is a (sometimes very significant) residual value for the metal itself. That too fluctuates but in a completely unconnected way. However with furniture or ceramics etc there is no scrap value at all.

I sent messages to my friend about the price of gold per gram (9 carat) 
4/3/2024 £18.90
12/4/2024 £22.19

Today is just under £28.00 (at the place I mentioned above).
925 silver doesnt fluctuate much.