When you go to your jewellery box, do you often wonder what it’s all actually worth? I don’t mean the price that you payed for the item, I mean the price you would get for your jewellery if you sold it at market value now.

Trying to get that number is no simple task, simply because there are a number of factors that you have to take into account. You have to remember though that when you bought that lovely piece of silver jewellery, you payed the price that the shop was selling it for, which is not the price it’s worth.

When you buy a piece of jewellery from a store, you end up paying the manufacturers fee, plus the mark up that the store puts on to make a profit. This figure is not easy to get hold of, but the mark up that the manufacturer puts on the product is even harder. The manufacturer of the item will put their own mark up onto the jewellery to ensure that they make a profit on the cost of materials and labour that it took to make the product.

Due to all of the above factors, you never pay the true value of the jewellery, so what is it really worth? The largest factor that affects the price is the value of the raw materials that have been used to make the item. Say you have some silver gemstone jewellery or silver pendants. You can weigh the materials and once you have the weights, you can find the scrap value for these metals which will allow you to figure out the raw materials value. You should also look at other materials that are on the piece, jewels are a big one, a local jeweller will be able to value these for you.

Once you find the value of the raw materials of your jewellery, it can come as a bit of a shock because often the scrap value of your jewellery will only be a maximum of 15% of the retail price. However, there are a number of other things that will drive up the value of your jewellery.

Some other factors that need to be considered, one being sentimental value, this will increase the value you think the jewellery is worth. Another one would be whether the jewellery was made by a popular or famous name, this will add even more value to the piece. This is a very hard value to judge because the manufacturer may be popular because a celebrity was seen wearing it, or just that they have a high quality of craftmanship.

Overall, the value of your jewellery will be less than the original retail price, unless the manufacturer has gained any reputation that would increase the price. Unfortunate, but true.