This is the only category on the site where part of the answer is a public number and the rest is what you can show.
The floor
For plain gold and silver, weight and purity set a floor that moves with the market and that every serious buyer already knows. That is not your price — it is the number below which nobody should be selling.
Weigh the piece. Read the hallmark. Those two facts do most of the work. How hallmarks work in practice.
What sits above the floor
- Workmanship and design
- Maker, where there is one
- Stones, and whether there is a laboratory report from a named laboratory
- Age and condition of the setting
- For a watch: whether it runs, what is original, and whether there is service history
Why two of the same differ
One has a hallmark shown on camera, a weight on a scale and a report with an issuer's name. The other has an assurance. The first is worth more, and should be.
How to find out rather than guess
Weigh it, establish purity, and treat that as the base. For anything above the base — a maker, a period piece, a watch with papers — compare completed sales of the same thing in the same condition, and discount hard for anything you cannot prove.
Never price a stone you have not had tested. Describe it instead.
What is not worth what people hope
Plated items, costume pieces and anything where the metal is not precious. They have value, often real, but it is not metal value and treating it as such ends in disappointment.
Questions people ask
Is an old family piece worth more for being old?
Only if age brings a maker, a period style or workmanship with it. Age alone is not value.
Should I melt or sell?
Melt is the floor. Anything with workmanship, a maker or a story is usually worth more sold as it is.
Does a broken clasp matter?
A little, and much less than hiding it would. Declare and discount.