Cleaning out your closet is a breath of fresh air.

You worked hard to organize your purses, arrange blouses by color, and fill up trash bags with too-small jeans. It leaves you with a renewed sense of accomplishment.

Now it’s time to hit up Goodwill, Plato’s Closet, or The Salvation Army with your unwanted clothes.

But what about selling the jewelry you no longer wear?

If you’re planning on tossing jewelry in the donation box too, you could be missing out on extra cash.

Depending on what you have, there are a few steps you can take to get paid for old, broken, or unwanted jewelry–like that herringbone chain that’s twisted beyond repair. Don’t lie, we all have one.

Here’s what we tell our customers, so they know what they have, what it’s worth, and how to get paid the most.

1. Know What Type of Jewelry You Can Sell

While costume jewelry is versatile, vibrant, and trendy, it doesn’t have resale value like real gold or silver jewelry.

In short, you can sell any jewelry that is gold, silver, platinum, or has diamonds. So, 10K, 14K, 18K, sterling, 900 Plat….you get the picture.

However, jewelry that is gold-filled, gold-plated, or 1/10 12K, is not real gold. So, it falls into the same category as costume jewelry.

You can read through a complete list of jewelry we buy here.

2. Divide and Organize Your Inventory

Turn on your favorite Netflix original, pour a glass of wine, and let’s get organized. While we can do this for you, showing up ready-to-go can save you time in our store.

To do this, you need 4-5 sandwich bags and a sharpie.

Separate your jewelry into piles based on the markings on each piece. For example, most people have:

• 10K gold jewelry

• 14K gold jewelry

• Sterling silver jewelry

• Costume Jewelry

• Unknown (unmarked pieces you think are real)

Label and fill each bag accordingly. Only put jewelry you know, like 100% know, are costume jewelry into the costume jewelry bag. You don’t want to miss out on any moolah!

If you aren’t sure, put those pieces into a bag labeled unknown. We can assay them.

Take the bags of jewelry with you when you’re ready to sell.

3. Skip the Polishing and Sell Your Jewelry As-Is

Put down the $5 jewelry cleaner you bought at Target. The condition of your jewelry doesn’t affect the resale value–we promise. A sterling silver ring is worth the same whether it’s sparkly or dull.

4. Get Paid and We’ll Donate the Rest for You

We pay cash based on the following:

• Type of precious metal (is it gold or silver?)

• Purity (is it 10K or 14K?)

• Weight (we can do this in grams, pennyweight, or ounces)

• Spot price (current market price of precious metals)

• Value of diamonds/gemstones

We’re next door to Goodwill, so if anything you have is costume jewelry, we can donate it for you. Or you can drop it off after leaving our store–with cash in hand, of course.

Want to see a behind-the-scenes look at what jewelry assaying looks like? Watch our how-to video here.