1) Weight of Gold you have – grab yourself a set of scales and weigh your items

2) Current price of gold – grab it from kitco.com its quoted in $ per troy oz

3) Carat of the gold – get this by checking the hallmark ( we have a post on this already )

Once you have got all this information you can work out the value of gold in the item. The formula below will tell you the current value per gram for the carat of gold you want :

( Carat of Gold /24 ) * Gold Price $per troy oz ) / 31.1

Then just multiply this by the number of grams of gold you have in dollars. Viola you know the value of the metal in the jewellery. Its imporant to note that if you jewellery is set / enamelled etc you can include this in the weight as its not gold and people offering to scrap it for you will not pay out for extra weight thats not gold.

Now you can go in with you eyes open as to what price someone should be willing to pay for your scrap.

Quartz is a naturally occurring stone type which is readily found throughout the UK.  It is a relatively inexpensive, but absolutely beautiful form of semi precious stone which can be cut into fantastic crystals.  Quarts crystals will refract light creating wonderful colours when light is shone through the crystals.  You can buy quartz at many art stores, gem stores, jewellery stores, tourist shops and art galleries throughout the UK.

You can get your ring size measured by any store which sells engagement or wedding rings for free.  Sometimes you are able to print off do-it-yourself ring sizers, but there can be huge inaccuracies with these due to printing resizing etc (and remember, if you’re about to buy a wedding or engagement ring you really don’t want to get the size wrong!).  There are a few factors you should consider before getting your ring size taken as your fingers can swell up on cold and wet days, but also on very hot days.  The best thing to do is to get your ring size done a few times before you commit to buying, and average it out.  Remember if you do end up with the wrong size its not a disaster, most jewellery shops selling wedding and engagement bands will be able to change a ring size by up to 2 full UK sizes.

Chemically “precious metals” are less reactive than other metals, although there are some notable exceptions for example polonium, radium etc… Financially “precious metals” also have tended to attract higher values than other metals, although again this is not always actually the case, for example the price of silver is generally lower than that of germanium and rarely fluctuates much higher than the price of gallium or indium. In the case of silver and gold they are very renowned precious metals because of their historic use in coinage and jewellery. Being less reactive they are ideal for this purpose, their rarity and demand has pushed their price up and they have become popular investment metals. Similarly all the metals within the platinum group of metals, including rhodium, ruthenium, and palladium are also considered “precious metals”. In the UK only four metals have an official hallmark: gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Palladium is the most recent metal to receive a hallmark and since 2001 it has attracted considerable attention as an investment metal (it is widely used in catalytic converters in the car industry). These four metals are also the only four metals in the world which have an ISO 4217. This is a 3 letter currency code which banks use to place trades. There are therefore several “precious metals” but these four: gold, silver, platinum and palladium are perhaps considered the most tradeable metal commodities amongst the precious metals set.

Like all highstreet brands Links of London probably spend a lot of money on marketing and advertising. This pushes the price of products up because companies which spend a lot on advertising have to recoup the money they spend somehow. Similarly they probably have shops in very expensive locations and the cost of this rent also has to be recouped. This is the same with all major brands across all industries. They also have a brand name and can therefore possibly get away with charging more for their jewellery as some people are more interested in where you have bought a bracelet or a pendant than what that bracelet or pendant actually looks like, or the skill or craftsmanship which has gone into that bracelet or pendant. There is nothing wrong with buying an item because you like the brand name, but you should bare in mind that what you might be paying for is not necessarily a better piece of jewellery, but rather you might be paying for the marketing, advertising and rent costs, and also because the brand feels they can get away with it.

An opal is a type of precious stone which mainly comes from Australia. This compressed stone contains a very high level of silicone and when all the silicone molecules line up in a certain way it reflects different types of light. Opals are known for their many bright colours and seem to shimmer or sparkle. They can vary radically in price with the clearest solid black opals fetching several thousand pounds, but with what are called triplet opals (where a thin slice of opal is layered onto a black background and then topped with glass or quartz) can sell for only a few pounds. As with any other precious stone they are popularly set into rings, earrings, pendants, necklaces and bracelets.

The only way to be absolutely certain that a diamond is real is to take it to a certified gemologist, however there are some basic tests which you can use to be certain that you have got a real diamond as opposed to buying quartz, glass or cubic zirconia all of which can often look like diamonds to the untrained eye.  There is an old wive’s tale that you can test for a real diamond by seeing if it will scratch glass, and in fact there is a restuarant in Paris near the old jewellery market whose mirrors are covered in scratches for this very reason.  This, however, is by no means fool proof, and will damage your diamond (yes diamond’s are hard, but they are also very intricately shaped in jewellery and you risk damaging the very thin edges of the diamond and devauling it).

A basic rule of thumb is look at the price, as with all jewellery if it seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is, especially from a pawn brokers, many of whom have years of experience of selling precious stones, diamonds and jewellery.  If the diamond is set then look at the back of the setting, most diamonds are open-set which means there is nothing on the underside of them and you can see right through from the other side of the ring.  Lastly look for inculsions, almost all diamonds save very rare ones, have some imperfections which are not common in quartz and do not exist in cubic zirconia (it is a man made mineral).  Glass may have some imperfections, but they are most likely to be bubbles, instead diamond imperfections will be other minerals that have been compressed into the diamond as it formed.

In terms of tests there are two important ones to use.  Diamonds are very good conductors of heat, and are made from very tightly packed carbon molecules.  Both these factors mean that if you breath on them they will not “fog up” in the way that glass and most other minerals which look like diamonds will.

Secondly diamonds, again because  the carbon molecules are so tightly packed, do not refract light in the same way.  If the diamond is not set, why not try placing it over a newspaper, you should not be able to see any print through the diamond.  If you have a small torch or light, like the one attached to many car keys, place this behind the diamond and the diamond should seem to glow with that colour.

If you are in any doubt, however, the only way that you can truly tell that your diamond is not fake is to put it through a thermal diamond tester which most jewellers of repute should have on the premises.  This testing will verify whether or not the diamond is real, but deciding on whether the diamond has been mined, or has been artificially manufactured is a lot more difficult.  It is now possible, although very expensive, to artificially recreate the conditions under which diamonds are formed underground, these diamonds are rare however, and currently no less valuable than mined diamonds.

Many people thoroughly enjoy making their own jewellery, whether to wear themselves, or as gifts for friends. It is quite natural therefore that you should want to take this skill you have, and given the opportunity, to turn it into some form of career, or at least to earn some form of income from it (even if it is just enough to cover your material costs). That said, it can be very difficult to find outlets for selling your home made jewellery, but there are some. Firstly I would say that you should appreciate that what is normally a hobby can become really very frustrating if you start trying to eek a living from it, and it has led some of my friends to give up making their own jewellery altogether. If you are determined to succeed, however, and you have a gift for both making jewellery and marketing yourself then you needn’t worry.

The easiest way to start is by trying to sell to your friends and their friends. Obviously you are mates so you don’t want to be pushy about it, but if they like the jewellery you make and show an interest in wearing it, then why not suggest they give you a little bit of cash for it. Even the most popular of people will run out of steam if they could only sell to their friends however, and if you are looking to reach a wider market then you will need to find different people to sell your home made jewellery to.

There are hundreds of little market stalls and new-age style shops throughout most cities and towns in the UK and these can afford fantastic opportunities for jewellery designers and those who make their own jewellery. Why not pop in to all the shops that seem to currently sell handmade jewellery and ask them about it, you might have to speak to a manager. Most shops are normally willing to sell stuff on a sale-or-return basis whereby you don’t sell it directly to the shop, but you let them borrow it and try and sell it, and if they do you get some of the proceeds, and if they don’t then you get the handmade jewellery back. This is a very good option if you have never tried selling anything before, although remember that it means you would have to make a lot of jewellery before you might be able to sell any, and this might be expensive both in terms of your time and your own materials costs.

There are also many craft fares which you can get a stall at, either full time or at the weekend, or even for one-off occasions like at music festivals etc…

Some people manage to sell handmade jewellery on ebay and through their own websites, but it is very difficult to make much money from ebay especially given the amount of time you might put into individual pieces, and running a website can be very costly and there is no guarantee that you can get anybody to visit the website without spending lots of money on marketing.

Lastly if you really enjoy making jewellery and you think you have got what it takes then why not consider a career as a jewellery maker and training with one of the many jewellery stores throughout the country who take on new designers.