You should never, ever, sleep in your gold chains. You’ve likely heard this many times before but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen badly damaged chains with someone telling me… “I didn’t do anything. It just happened”.

Your flat chains like a serpentine chain or herringbone chains are far more likely to get kinked or badly damaged if you sleep in them but even your link type chains can easily get caught and broken in your sleep. Here’s an idea of how to keep your chains tangle free and be sure and check out our ideas for what to do with broken chains if you happen have any.

Bakelite jewelry was extremely popular in the ’30s and 40s and has enjoyed a long history as a collectable and inexpensive jewelry. The hard part is identifying it from the many imitators out there.

Two tests can give you a good idea if your bakelite is real or not.

Test 1: Some collectors recommend you place the jewelry in hot water, then remove and sniff. Warmed Bakelite smells like camphor.

Test 2: Dip a cotton swab in 409 household cleaner and touch a small area of the piece, such as a back that won’t be visible when worn. If the piece is vintage Bakelite, the accumulated patina will show up as a yellow stain on the cotton swab.

Be sure to rinse the cleaner off the tested spot right away.

Ever reach into your jewelry box for your favorite piece of silver jewelry only to find it tarnished or stained with finger prints? Taking a little extra care when storing your silver jewelry can help to prevent this.

Humidity, chemicals in the air, and especially oils fom your skin will cause your jewelry to tarnish. The first thing you should always do before putting your silver jewelry in a jewely box or storing it is to carefully wipe the pieces with a soft, nonabrasive, polishing cloth to remove any oils or make-up from them.

You want your silver jewelry to be easily accessible but for those pieces that are only worn very occasionally, wrap them in an acid free tissue paper and put them in a resealable polybag before you put them away.

For silver jewelry you wear often, consider a separate jewelry box, perhaps one that is lined with an anti-tarnish material. Remember to wipe them clean and adding an anti-tarnish strip such as the ones made by 3M or Haggerty just may do the trick.

Keep your silver jewelry clean and away from the open air and humidity and the next time you go to wear it you’ll more than likely find it looking just as nice as when you put it away.

Are you thinking about reselling your jewelry? It’s very important to not only know what you have, but what you can reasonably expect to sell it for.

What you can expect to resell jewelry for varies greatly and depends on a variety of things such as where you you are trying to sell it, the market you’re selling it in, whether or not you have a proper valuation or appraisal, and more. In general here’s what you can expect…

To a friend, family member or the general public, around 125% of wholesale.

Through a jewelry store or auction house on consignment, around wholesale.

An online auction like Ebay, around 75% of wholesale.

To a jewelry store or dealer for cash, around 50% of wholesale.

A pawnshop for cash, around 20% to 25% of wholesale.

Many people find themselves in the position of wanting or needing to resell a piece of jewelry. Whether it be a piece of antique jewelry you’ve inherited from a family member or a diamond ring you no longer want or need, there’s a really terrific post in our jewelry forum about Reselling Jewelry with more information to help you out.

The short answer is no, tension set rings can not be sized.

A tension set ring is like a powerful spring. That spring pressure is what holds your stone in place. If the ring is cut to make it smaller, shaved to make it larger, or even heated too much, you change the spring tension of the ring and can run the risk of loosing your stone. We highly recommend that you allow the manufacturer of your ring to handle any sizing issues you may have.

But, there are some “tricks” that can be used that may help you. Having sizing beads welded, not soldered, in to your ring will make it more comfortable to wear if it is too large. Or a thin strip of gold or platinum can be welded to the inside bottom of the ring to make it fit better. To make the ring larger the only real option is to grind away some material from the inside of the ring and hope that it’s not too much that it causes problems.

These can be done by most competent jewelers, but we still highly recommend that you have the manufacturer handle these issues for you to maintain any warranty that you may have.

Most people insure their jewelry. And when they get their insurance the value is based on an appraisal that has been supplied by either the jeweler or an independent appraiser. Then they forget about it.

Unfortunately this can quickly lead to someone being under insured should they suffer a loss, theft, or damage to their jewelry. We recommend that people have their fine jewelry re-appraised every 3 years. This allows you to keep current with inflation, and more importantly, to keep pace with record setting gold prices.

Five years ago gold was just $312 per ounce. Today gold is selling at $655 per ounce. That is more than double in just 5 years. So get out those old appraisals and have them updated before it’s too late.

Discovered in 1834 in the Emerald mines near the Tokovaya River in the Urals of Russia. It was named for Alexander II since the crystals show the Imperial Russian colors of red and green. Alexandrite in its highest quality forms is very rare and displays the remarkable ability to change colors from green or blue-green in daylight to a purple-red in incandescent light. Synthetic Alexandrite has been available for almost 100 years now, but it is difficult to reproduce the stunning color change ability of natural Alexandrite.

A gift of Alexandrite can be considered a good omen and it has been referred to as the stone of longevity and health.

Other birthstones for June include Pearl and Moonstone.

Gold is sold in karat weights. Pure gold is very soft and to make it more durable for jewelry it is alloyed with various other metals to make it harder. The percentage of alloy added determines the karat weight.

• Pure gold is 24 karat is 24 parts gold.
• 18 karat gold is 18 parts gold (75% gold) and 6 parts alloy and is marked 18k (750 in Europe).
• 14 karat gold is 14 parts gold (58.3% gold) and 10 parts alloy and is marked 14k (585 in Europe).
• 12 karat gold is 12 parts gold (50% gold) and is 12 parts alloy and is marked 12k (500 in Europe).
• 10 karate gold is the lowest gold content that can be sold in the US and still be called gold. It is 10 parts gold (41.7% gold) and 14 parts alloy and is marked 10k (417 in Europe).

Buying jewelry online at auction sites such as eBay can be fun, and a great way to buy a neat piece of jewelry at a great price. But what can you do to make sure that you are buying from a quality seller?

The first thing to do is to look at the number of sales that a seller has made. A seller with 10,000 sales to their credit may be a safer person to buy from than someone with just 1. This is not to say that a first seller should be avoided, but they should be investigated further.

Look at the seller’s feedback rating. It may be impossible to have a perfect feedback score, but look at the negative feedback that has been entered. Why was the buyer unhappy? A great feedback tool can be found at Toolhaus.Org.

Finally, enter the seller’s name in a Google search and see what other people are saying about them on sites other than the auction site.

It’s all but inevitable that everyone who has gold chains is going to end up with broken ones or ones so badly kinked that repairing them is not an option. Instead of letting them sit in jewelry box collecting dust here’s a couple of fun ideas to keep getting use out of them…

If there are long enough undamaged sections of the chain make bracelets out of them. Have them shortened and reuse the clasp if it’s still working properly. Perhaps there’s even enough to make a multi-strand bracelet.

You can also make earrings or dress up a pair of earrings you already have. Take a short piece of the chain and solder it to an earring post or to the bottom of a gold earring. On the other end of the chain solder a gold earring back. When you put the earring on, the chain creates a small loop from the front of your ear and around to the back.

Stop letting those old broken chains collect dust and visit your local jeweler to find out what they can create for you!