Most of us love shopping for antique pieces from stores. When it is antique jewelry, hurray! But most of us who want to own antique jewelry know little to nothing about it. Antique jewelry is mostly buying second-hand jewelry. Therefore to get good at it, material-wise and price-wise, one needs to have at least a few years of experience. We are often into delirium when we plan to buy antique jewelry. We do not know who to reach, how to get there and where we can find good prices. A little advice hurts no one.
Here is a complete guide to buying antique jewelry:
- Experience: Buying and selling is a tough affair. Dealing with the right vendors and understanding the price of materials is always a rather tough job. Hence it requires a lot of experience. Many fraud vendors simply want to con you. They fix huge prices to fake stocks and most people fall for that. The more one can handle second-hand products, the better they get at it, says jeweler Hartley Brown. Therefore, examining the jewelry, looking for hallmarks are very crucial to understand what you are buying into.
- Look: If you are planning to buy, for say, an antique black stone nose-pin, the material should look old and rusty. If it looks like a relatively newer design, then you should be sure that it is not an antique piece of jewelry. For many, collecting old gold jewelry is a niche. If your gold nose pin designs with price are relatively affordable, then you could be sure it is not antique jewelry. Gold always has hallmark onto it and it can surely tell you the time and era it belongs from.
- Weight and size: A good indicator of antique jewelry is the weight and size of the jewelry. In India, most gold jewelry before the independence era was heavy and was of huge stature. The sleek, light design was mostly conceived in a newer age and era. Therefore jewelry’s weight and size can help you to understand its age.
- Passion: Many sellers would want you to buy different pieces of jewelry in the shop but it is always better to follow the passion. If you are passionate about a particular piece of jewelry, like a gold necklace set, then you would want to spend your money into it. If, you might be repenting your piece of jewelry for your entire life. No matter what collecting antique jewelry is more of a passion.
- Money: Money is the one and the most important factor of all. If you find a piece of jewelry to be too high priced and does not have enough history to go with it, then you should probably not buy it. One should always remember that at the end of the day, it is a business that sellers are feeding on and one should understand what is best for themselves.
Buying antiques from antique stores is a lot different from buying antique jewelry. When you buy antique jewelry you don’t just buy it but also you are fully involved in the history that it beholds. Therefore, a passion for antique jewelry is not just unique but has a lot of relevance. With this guide, anyone can find themselves starting on with the hobby of buying antique jewelry.