Jewelry Sellers: Please Test Your Gold and Silver Before You Sell it:

[mstcwrld7]

            There is a kit available on ebay for about $25. which will enable you to test what you are selling. 

We have one, and we use it to test every item we buy,   If  the item does not test as described, we return it.    Usually times we do not file a SNAD case and we  almost never leave negative feedback for this.  But we could.

         We test professionally by rubbing, not cutting, and no delicate piece of jewelry is harmed or marked by our testing.    . 

[18704d]

Not all jewelry sellers know how to test for gold or silver.

I think it'd be helpful if someone created an eBay guide on how to do this properly.

jmtcw,

Lynn

[mstcwrld7]

Lynn, how do you create a guide?

[mstcwrld7]

A lot of people who sell jewelry say they took it to a jeweler. I have not known many jewelers who want to give a lot of free advice but there are some.
Some people who mis-describe their costume pieces are precious metal say "someone" told them it was gold or sterling. If this is true..., you can't believe everything you are told. Usually a marked piece is what the marks says it is, but even then there are a few mis-markings.
And many wonderful old pieces are not marked at all. You need to do better than guess about them.

[maxine*j]

My opinion, for the small amount it's worth:

If you mean by "jewellery sellers" people who sell lots of jewellery exclusively, day in and day out, on eBay, then I agree they should be testing what they sell.  After all, that saves them the headaches of returns from buyers.

If you're talking about people who sell jewellery casually, once in a while, among other things, including costume jewellery, then I wouldn't expect them to test.  Mom or Boyfriend or Great Aunt who gave it to them said it was gold or silver.  Or the person they bought from on eBay said it was gold or silver.  It looks gold or silver.  It may even be marked as gold or silver, and a casual seller has no reason to authenticate the mark. 

This is a  huge marketplace and much of what is sold here is misidentified or misrepresented, more often innocently than intentionally.  If you want to be sure you are buying gold and silver, then I think you pretty much have to buy from the full-time, expert dealers, and pay their prices.

If you're finding wonderful, unmarked old pieces then you're probably getting them at pretty good prices, no?   That's your reward for knowing your stuff.

[webuyitt]

well

[webuyitt]

maxine,

         are you saying it is OK that 30% of jewelry being sold on ebay is misrepresented?   \

         This raises the general question of whether ebay sellers are obligated to research what they are selling before they list it. 

      We have been acquainted with antique and jewelry dealers for over 40 years and the good ones generally reserch everything they sell to the best of their ability.     Dealers who love what they do, seem to enjoy the research.  Before the Internet it was difficult   Now it is not so difficult, because almost all the info you need is onlne.

     Except you do need to spend the $25. for a gold and silver test kit if you are going to sell items as precious metals.  Is that so burdensome?    I do not think so.  The sale of one inexpensive sterling piece will pay the cost of the kit. 

      Ebay policy seems to support  a buyer's right to receive items that are described correctly. 

If a by-the-book buyer wants to leave a seller a negative for a misdescribed item that buyer is entitled to do so.  

     Many of us who buy are kind enough not to do that if it seems we are dealing with a seller who appears genuinely ignorant, but well meaning. 

      I have almost never left a neg or neut for a SNAD jewelry item.  Maybe one or two in the many hundreds of purchases we have made of misrepresetned items.  

       But we do resent the time wasted in buying and returning misrepresented items.   We test jewelry we buy as soon as it arrives in the mail and we find out what it is.   We could get fed up and leave a neg if we wanted to. 

     Here's a brilliant idea: 

             if you don't know for sure what you are selling, why doesn't your listing say you don't know what it is?   I don't believe that is against ebay rules.   

      A lot of buyers wont' bid on the item but at least you won't be cheating anyone.   

[joesoucie22012]

Fake, Fake and more fake. There are punches for sale all over the place. For 10K, 14K, 18K and Sterling 9.25. Ive been burned many times with this Fake junk

[18704d]

" Except you do need to spend the $25. for a gold and silver test kit if you are going to sell items as precious metals.  Is that so burdensome?    I do not think so.  The sale of one inexpensive sterling piece will pay the cost of the kit."

----------

How does one properly use this kit?

I have handfuls of Southwestern coin silver jewelry I wish to verify.

AND

I took it to a jeweler 2 years ago.. he told me it tested as "coin silver"  90%

Then... 6 months ago, I took one back to him.. he tested it.. and he said "no silver"

Same piece.  Professional jewelry store.

Isn't it more than dropping 25 dollars?

Isn't it knowing how to properly use such a kit?

Thanks!

Lynn

[maxine*j]

No, I don't think it's right that any jewellery is misrepresented.  Misrepresentation is even higher than 30% for art, antiquities, antiques, and collectibles.   I think the per cent should be zero in every category.   But this is eBay, a rough and tumble marketplace where anyone with an email account can sell, so we're never going to get even close to that zero ideal.

Some eBay sellers are crooks, period.  However, most of the misidentification and misrepresentation is innocent, from casual sellers, from people who are a bit ill-educated in general and certainly are uneducated in metallurgy, say, or art history.  As for research, many of them couldn't research a snake through a drainpipe, as you'll see if you stick around these boards. 

As a buyer, it's probably best to just sort the wheat from the chaff, seller-wise, and avoid headaches.  Find the sellers who are obviously knowledgeable, reliable, and honest.  They, too, abound on eBay.  Buy from them for a hassle-free, time-saving experience.  (Of course, if you're trying to buy always below market, or for resale yourself, you can't do that;  but nor can you complain that people aren't making it easy for you to find inventory.) 

I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't know.  I guess I'm just saying we all pick our battles in life.  And trying to reform eBay is way too big a battle for me.

[mstcwrld7]

Believe

[mstcwrld7]

       Believe it or not, one reason I started this thread is to caution jewelry sellers about selling from ignorance.   

    Buyers are fairly well protected here.      

    But if you are a seller and you misrepsresent --  you are not well protected from the consequences of your mistakes, innocent or not.

    About using a typical test kit, it is pretty simple and directions come with it.  There is a pumice stone, you rub the jewelry on the stone until you get a noticeable deposit of metal on the stone, but do not go deep enough to mark the stone.

      There are little bottles of nitric acid in the kit.   Do NOT get it on your fingers! 

Squeeze a little bit of acid on the rubbing,  NOT on the piece. 

       If the rubbing disappears with the nitric acid drop on it, that means the jewelry is NOT made of the metal you are testing for.

       One trick to identify sterling -- this is better than using the red acid marked for sterling testing:

   use 18k acid on the metal rubbing.   If it is sterling the rubbing will turn a very bright blue-white.  if it is not sterling, the rubbing diappears.   The difference is very easy to see.

       I learned this method on the ebay jewelry thread, years ago when they had one. 

[sonomabarn67]

I didn't get that from what Maxine wrote. I took it as an acceptence of the reality of this marketplace. Where did the 30% figure come from?  The stark reality is that no matter how much we want everyone to think like we do,  literally millions of ebay members...don't. No matter how heated we get that aunt Sally does not know the difference between 14k and 750 gold, she just lists it. To her, it's gold that she found in the attic and it's going on the ebays! You guys sort it out and pay what you think you should. I have never heard of anyone returning money to a novice seller on ebay because they didn't pay enough. 🙂

[bnbsellingtime]

This is sound and fair advice for jewelry sellers but will only further confuse the poor souls who think they have struck it rich with their 18 size gold filled pocket watch case because it says "Warranted 14K" inside the lid and a simple rub test would seem to support that when in the complex world of early watch case markings this is a rolled gold case all day long(although to be fair, it will test 14k on the outside). To be clear I never advise testing cases, one must have an expert examine the markings. To test a pocket watch case one must remove the movement and sample from around the opening there to be done correctly if the content is in doubt. Not exactly something a novice can do. Most quality cases are clearly marked if you understand the markings. There were some early intentionally fraudulent cases of suspect make that show up on occasion and it takes years in the field to spot them quickly and I often see them sell for gold prices sadly.

[mstcwrld7]

          Some folks will describe what they are selling by guesswork and always will.

          If they do not care about possible consequences that is their decision. 

I posted this thread on inmpulse to try to be helpful to buyer and sellers but I am not losing sleep about it, I am used to the ebay status quo.

         I have neve heard of,  or experienced , a situation when a seller listed his piece as costume jewelry and it turned out to be gold or silver. 

         That has never happened to us.  Not on ebay.  At estate sales and yard sales, yes. Because in a F2F sale a buyer can examine the piece and maybe notice it looks better than costume jewelry.

On ebay that isn't possible.

         We sometimes sell items that are not in our specialties.   Like I have sometimes sold a purse or piece of clothing.  I don't figure my non-fashionista status entitles me to misrepresent a purse, for instance.

         If I listed a counterfeit fashion item as authentic, both ebay and the buyer could come down on me with both feet.   "Aunt Sally said it's reaL" would be no defense.

         So if I can't be bothered to authenticate an item I want to sell,  I don't list it.   Sometimes  authentication is "confusing", as a previous poster describes the work of authentication.    Well, that's life, we are all grown-ups here. 

          We all make mistakes too but IMHO it's advisable to minimize the mistakes you make selling on ebay. 

         If you don't know what you are selling but want to sell it,  you might consign it it to a professional seller who takes consignments.   There are professional ebay sellers who do, and some antique and jewelry stores take consignments.