5 Ways Vintage Jewelry Adds Value to Your Collection

Do you love jewelry? If so, you may be missing out if you aren't adding vintage jewelry items to your collection. Why? Here are a few ways vintage pieces add value to any jewelry collector's efforts.

1. Financial Value
The financial worth of all jewelry pieces ebbs and flows depending on things like fashion trends, metal and gem prices, and availability. But if all your items are of the same era, style, gem, or motif, they'll all rise and fall on the same schedule. The answer to maintaining financial value in a volatile market is diversification. By adding vintage pieces with a wider array of characteristics, you hedge your financial bets.

2. Historical Value
As with many pieces of art, jewelry's value is affected by its history. A good story, a long history, an established provenance, or a quirky origin all add to both the monetary value and the pleasure of owning such a piece.

Modern jewelry, unfortunately for the collector, is often mass-produced and rarely has such sentimental value. It also has little history because it's new. Vintage jewelry is more often handmade by individual artisans and has been passed along among different individuals. All these characteristics can give a piece more of a role in jewelry history and more character for the collector.

3. Artistic Value
Jewelry aficionados usually get into their collecting for the artistry that jewelry displays. While it's one overall art form, it forms a wide range of individual techniques, tools, motifs, materials, and uses. But modern jewelry serves modern styles and uses, and it's always limited by what's in fashion at the moment.

Only by expanding into the past can you find new and fascinating artistry you've not seen or had accessible. Whether it's motifs used by past designers — like elaborate birds and plants — or the trend toward unusual cabochon stones found in the Arts and Crafts movement, the jewelry styles of the past include many elements that you simply can't find if you stick with modern pieces.

4. Rarity Value
No one wants a jewelry collection filled with the same pieces being worn by everyone else. So, why limit yourself to what everyone else has access to?

Instead, increase your collection's uniqueness and personality by delving into historical jewelry styles. More vintage items are handmade and personalized due to the lack of mass production on the scale seen today, so your vintage jewelry is more like to be one of a kind. And even if it's not completely unique, there are fewer other items like it in circulation every year.

5. Renovation Value
Not every piece of vintage jewelry, of course, is going to be worth a fortune. Some items have aged and worn down, some may not be wearable, and some may have little monetary value. But these can still add value to your collection in an unexpected way: they help create new pieces.

Consider vintage items in terms of their individual components. An inexpensive or unsuitable setting might hold a wonderful diamond or an unexpected gem that can be used to create something modern and exciting. Rather than pay for new versions of metals, settings, gems, and designs, start with existing ones and refurbish them into something of your own style and making.

Want to know more about adding vintage jewelry to your collection? Start by touring the inventory at 2 J's Pawn & Gun. We offer a continually changing array of jewelry items, including watches, rings, necklaces, tie clips, and brooches. Visit in person or online today to find items that bring your collection value in one or more of these important ways.