What To Do With Old Gold, Beaded or Even Costume Jewelry

Lately the skyrocketing price of gold has had a lot of my friends (myself included) raiding our old jewelry boxes for old gold and silver pieces that we no longer wear so that we can sell them for top dollar. Even if they don’t advertise the service many jewelry stores will take your old gold chains or jewelry, weigh them, and then give you cash on the spot for it!

Some of my old jewelry that I can recycle, sell or even donate!

But what if you have some old jewelry that isn’t made of precious metal or what if you don’t like the idea of someone melting down your old pieces? There are lots of things you can do with your old jewelry, whether it’s bead jewelry, manufactured jewelry, costume jewelry or otherwise!

Recycle Your Jewelry- When you sell precious metal jewelry back to a traditional jewelry store they are typically not going do anything with the metal other than melt it down. Yes, for exceptional pieces they may slightly refurbish them and try to sell them as estate pieces, but generally they are more interested in the metal than the craftsmanship of most jewelry. You are actually doing the environment some good when you do this because it means less mines and less pollution in the long run. Your gold is being recycled and used for someone else! The online store greenKarat goes one step further: they will not only buy your gold, but they offer a service which will make rings out of your donated gold for you! There’s a lot of good information here about how gold is properly recycled and how it’s best used! If you have lots of gold jewelry hanging that you’re willing to part with, definitely check them out!

Restore or Reuse Your Jewelry – Just as sometimes the best bead jewelry is put together with left over beads, sometimes you can create some truly stunning new jewelry out of the forgotten pieces of old jewelry. There’s an art form to this and lots of things to consider, but we sometimes forget that as bead jewelry artists we can not only put together jewelry, but also take it apart! Taking old jewelry apart and then mixing the materials with new or different pieces doesn’t require a lot of skills that are different from creating a piece of bead jewelry from scratch. Not feeling creative or up to the challenge? Then check out VLouise Designs on the web! They offer to take your old forgotten jewelry pieces and make something new and irresistible with them! They have a few “before” and “after” shots of how they’ve made old bead jewelry look new again! Don’t forget that you can always take those old pieces of jewelry and mix them with non-traditional beads and even junk to make all sorts of new inventive jewelry pieces as well!

Donate Your Jewelry – There are lots of different ways you can donate jewelry, depending upon what kind of jewelry it is. If it’s gold or silver you may be able to donate it to a school or non-profit organization that is having a gift auction or fund raising sale. If it is costume or bead jewelry you may be able to donate it to a local theater (they always need props) to a senior citizen center (some use them as gifts for the residents) or even to an organization that helps provide prom dresses and accessories to inner city kids who can’t afford it. One such organization is The Glass Slipper Project, but there are others as well.

Sell Your Jewelry on eBay or Craigslist – Yes, you could always simply sell your jewelry to someone else who may then wear it or may use one of the previous methods to do something new with your jewelry. Don’t expect to make much money this way (there are literally thousands of people selling old jewelry every day online, so there’s plenty of competition) but you may be inadvertently helping someone less fortunate than you by selling your jewelry for a low price.

Host A Jewelry Trading Party – I have a friend who attended one of these and she had a blast. Everyone was invited to bring all their old jewelry that they didn’t want anymore to a person’s house and they all laid out everything they had. Then they all went around trading pieces back and forth for hours! This is a great way to get rid of some of those broken pieces of jewelry you don’t feel like repairing, too! Some of the pieces my friend came home with were absolutely beautiful as they were, and some she later took apart and remade with new beads and some stronger chains than were originally used.

Depending on what type of old jewelry you have and how much you want to help others or yourself you have lots of different options you can take advantage of when it comes to old unwanted jewelry. Don’t let it just sit and collect dust in some drawer! Bring your old jewelry out the to light of day and sell it for some extra cash, give it to someone who needs it or simply use it to make something new!

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