Hello,

I have a lot of very old Native American jewelry, in these difficult economic times I feel I might need to sell some of them even though it breaks my heart. I would not ever have thought I would contact someone about these. I also have a huge collection of baskets, carvings, and original artist’s drawings & paintings. The jewelry is: one very large turquoise stone bracelet over 150 years old, a necklace on string that has large chunks of turquoise separated by black tubes of a stone the turquoise gets smaller as it gets closer to your neck, handmade silver beads held together with old silver chain, many other sets of Indian jewelry, rings, and bracelets from the 1960- to 1979ish times. Are you interested in the newer pieces from the 60-late 70’s? Thank you for your time. J

Yes, we do buy used Native American jewelry for our Internet Pawn Shop, but read this entire article to understand a little bit more about older Native American jewelry.

What Do I Do with My Wife’s Jewelry? - We are often contacted by people who either have inherited a relative’s collection or who have been collectors themselves and need to downsize. In both cases, often a person’s perception of the value of an item or a collection is influenced by their emotions and what they “feel” something is worth. In the case of a widower dispersing his wife’s jewelry, it is easy to see that there could be emotional attachment to the pieces. And if a collector has certain memories associated with a piece, that piece is worth more to that person because of the emotional element.

Factors that Affect Value of Native American Jewelry - Like other goods, Native American jewelry value is based on certain criteria. These include:

• Authenticity
• Documentation
• Hallmarks
• The artist’s reputation
• The scarcity of the artist’s work
• The age of the piece
• The quality of workmanship
• The condition (see specifics below)
• The weight of sterling silver and gold used
• The quality and size of the stones used
• The overall aesthetics of the piece.

Patina, the tarnish that forms on sterling silver, is not a problem, in fact, to many collectors it is an asset. So before you sell vintage pieces or get them appraised, don’t clean them up !

Cracks, broken stones, missing stones, loose stones, misshapen bracelets, missing fasteners and bent pieces are a different story – they all decrease the value of the piece. Repair of vintage Native American jewelry is usually cost prohibitive and the final outcome can leave something to be desired. To replace a stone in a squash blossom necklace from the 1940s and have it “blend” is difficult to do.

Before you offer a piece for sale, inspect it carefully with a magnifying glass for missing pieces, cracks, chips, and other defects. In the majority of lots we have purchased, although all might be said to be in undamaged condition, there are always a few pieces that have one piece of inlay missing or a couple of broken or replaced stones in a turquoise necklace or other such things. We assume they were just missed by the seller but the fact that they are damaged usually means that we value them very low or at zero when making an offer.

Establishing Value - Quite often a seller will contact us after they have taken the collection to a pawn shop or a precious metals buyer and learned that the only offer they will get there is scrap price (the value of the meltdown of sterling silver and gold) for their collection. They are heartbroken at the thought of seeing such fine and cherished work destroyed. In some cases like that we come to the rescue and find good homes for pieces in the collection!

In other cases, a seller will take their items to a knowledgeable person and learn that what they thought was sterling silver is not. Or that the items were made in Mexico or Asia and although they have a Native American look, they are not authentic Native American Made. Even if the seller does his or her homework, and in good faith sends what he thinks is a Native American collection, when we receive it, 20% of the items are either not authentic Native American made or have some damage that decreases their value. Those items usually go into our Bargain Barn which is like a garage sale on the internet –a place where things go where the origin is unknown or the item is in rough shape.

Have you ever watched Pawn Stars? Rick Harrison will call in an expert and that expert will authenticate a piece and give it a value in front of the seller. “You have a nice XYZ here and in a collectors auction, it could go for $2000” so then Rick will turn to the customer and ask, “So what do you want for it?” and the seller says “How about $2000?” Then we get Rick’s endearing laugh and he says, “How about $500?”

Don’t expect to get retail or close to it when you sell a collection or even a single piece. It just doesn’t work that way.

We are asked to appraise collections. We are not certified appraisers so we do not appraise per se. But we do evaluate collections that are sent to us. That is how we arrive at an offer.

The Buying and Selling Process - In a nutshell, here is how the process goes:

Send us an email briefly outlining what you have. Do not send unsolicited photos, they will go to SPAM and we will not see them.

If it sounds like something we might be interested in purchasing, we will ask for one or two group photos and your asking price. At this stage, if you send more than 1 MB of photos, your email will go to SPAM and we will not see it.

If it seems like the items would be of interest to us and are within our budget, we outline the following procedure:

1. The seller ships the collection to us at their expense, carefully wrapped and insured, and with a detailed list of contents.
   
   
2. Upon arrival, we closely inspect each item, research the documentation or hallmarks, and assign a value to each piece.
   
   
3. We make an offer on the collection.
   
   
4. If the offer is accepted, we pay promptly via PayPal or check.
   
   
5. If the offer would be rejected, we would ship the lot back to the seller, insured and at the seller’s expense.

Because of the above detailed process and the fact that we offer fair prices, we have come to an agreement with every seller who has ever sent us a collection – we have never sent a collection back. As they say: a win-win situation.