It can be well worth your while to thoroughly research any jewelry you are planning to buy or sell. This can make it hard to know where to start.

Polish your jewelry regularly with a jeweler’s polishing cloth. This method ensures your jewelry stays shiny without having to use any chemical cleansers or solvents. You use the special cloth to polish your jewelry just like you would polish your silverware. Use one side of the cloth for polishing, and the reverse to make it sparkle.

Store your jewelry collection carefully. It is best to use holders, compartments, boxes, and hooks so that everything is kept separate. Don’t just box all the pieces together in a pile. Fragile jewelry could easily be damaged by doing this, not to mention the nuisance of having to untangle necklace chains that could get caught together.

Precious Metals

Be sure that you store all of your jewelry safely away from air and humidity. It’s best to store it in a closed box, like a jewelry box, or a drawstring bag. Humid air affects the metals in jewelry and causes tarnishing. Precious metals can often be polished to remove most tarnish. Non-precious metals often have a single coat of metal. Therefore, polishing them can remove the coat and show the copper that is found underneath.

Jewelry should last for years to come. When buying jewelry, only buy from dealers with good reputations, so that you don’t buy a piece that seems durable, but really isn’t. High-quality jewelry is durable and displays excellent craftsmanship. The person selling the piece should know its history, including who made it and the source of the stones. When you chose a high-quality piece, you know your jewelry will last forever.

Going through a day wearing the jewelry will let you get familiar with how it hangs and whether or not it will be comfortable. This also helps you to see its durability.

When you are buying new jewelery, think about the stones you want to get. The stone will look best on you if it is complementary to your skin tone, eye, and hair color. Your best bet is to choose a natural color to match any outfit. Don’t even bother to buy something that doesn’t function properly.

Costume Jewelry

Costume jewelry does require some special care. Costume jewelry is generally bound by glue rather than settings and is therefore, a lot more fragile. Do not dip your jewelery in chemicals that may harm them. Use a gentle cloth, like microfiber, to clean it. One wet, then another, dry. This method will keep your costume jewelry stunning and beautiful.

Gems are given chemical treatments in the process of cutting, polishing and setting. When you are thinking of buying, ask what treatment a stone was given. The kind of care your stone needs is dependent on what it was treated with. For example, you should avoid cleaning a gem that has been treated with a certain solution that could peel off the treatment because this could harm the gem.

Jewelry is definitely not an item that you want to restrict yourself based on brand name. Most people won’t know where you got the piece, and you will probably pay too much because of the name on it. There are thousands of quality brands of jewelry available for purchase.

Gold Jewelry

Of course, higher gold prices also increases the cost for new gold jewelry. If you decide you must have real gold jewelry, you may want to save money on the karats instead. The best combination of price and quality is an 18k piece made without less than 75% pure gold.

You can earn a little cash from your solid gold necklaces and bracelet without selling them. Remove a small amount from the overall length while retaining enough for the piece to still hang properly. The excess you trimmed can then be sold. When gold prices are high, a little bit of scrap metal can earn you a nice amount of money.

As you can see, it does indeed require some knowledge and effort for both the buying and selling of jewelry. If you use these suggestions you can be a winner!