Whether your purchase jewelry for friends, get it as a gift or receive valuable heirloom pieces, you need to know how to buy, sell and care for jewelry responsibly. This article offers some basic guidelines for preserving the most from your jewelry.
Use a soft cloth on your jewelry pieces. This is a very easy way to make them shine and not have to use any type of your jewelry without relying on abrasives or solvents. Use the dual-sided cloth to polish your jewelry just as if you were cleaning glass. Use one side to shine it and the other for improving its shine.
Keep your jewelry stored safely and away from both air and humidity. Air and humidity will make the metals of all types. Precious metals can easily be polished, but non-precious metals coated with a finish will never get back to their previous state.
Sterling Silver
When you are shopping for jewelry in sterling silver, take along a good magnifying glass, and take along a magnet for metal testing. If an item of jewelry is attracted by a magnet, it will be attracted to the magnet. You can identify sterling silver by its markings, or alternately, it might simply say, “STERLING”. If the piece that you are looking at is not hallmarked, you might be looking at a cheap imitation.
Know the distinctions between kinds of gems before you are buying with your jewelry.Gems can be natural, synthetic and natural. Natural gems and synthetic gems are real gemstones, but imitation is just plastic colored to look like the real thing. Natural stones are dug up out of the ground and synthetic gems are grown in a lab.
Pay attention if they usually wear studs or hoop earrings, sizes, and any other typical jewelry that they wear. This will give you a great place to start when picking out that special item.
Always check with your jeweler about an insurance policy before buying a new piece of jewelry. If your jewelry gets damaged or broken, you can return it to the source and have it repaired. Some jewelers even offer insurance for jewelry that might have been misplaced or lost.
Costume jewelry can be very expensive and a great investment, but pieces that are damaged aren’t worth much and aren’t worth the time to restore. A piece in excellent condition will be much more resourceful to you in the future.
Costume Jewelry
You need to pay special care when caring for costume jewelery! A fair amount of costume jewelery are set in. Don’t immerse costume jewelry in water or clean it with abrasives. The best care is to wipe them clean with a damp cloth and then dry with another cloth. This will assure that you costume jewelry look great.
Before you buy, it is important that you learn about the treatment process it underwent. The kind of care your stone differs greatly depending on what it was treated with.
Jewelry that has been cared for properly retains its sentimental and economic value. You can protect your jewelry by understanding how to care for your jewelry. As you learn more about jewelry, you will be able to protect your jewelry even better.