Sorting & Selling Jewelry on eBay During the Covid Years

One good thing about the COVID pandemic years - I finally had time to start going through the boxes and boxes of stuff in my basement. There were no more excuses for me to delay. I had accumulated loads of items over the last 25 years from estate sales, moving sales, garage sales, antique and consignment shops. My Mom was a collector of vintage jewelry and we used to have so much fun looking for it. She encouraged me to start selling on eBay so I started selling some of her jewelry and I got hooked. This was my method for sorting thru the jewelry items. I would take a box of jewelry and empty it out on the table on a piece of foamboard so I could easily move items around. Then I'd sort by type - necklaces,earrings, rings, brooches, bracelets, etc. Next step - start looking for signed pieces and group them together. Signed pieces sell the quickest for me on Ebay but unsigned beauties will also sell. Oftentimes at an estate sale, you have to act quickly. Occasionally I will offer to buy the whole table of jewelry or the whole box. Sometimes some of the pieces have missing rhinestones or pinbacks. If so, I list them for crafting, harvesting of stones and/or repair. Then on to photographing your items and listing. This is the time-consuming part. Take photos of the front and back as buyers are looking for jewelry marks and also they want to see the quality of the piece. Sometimes I group similar items together in a listing - for example, all figural cat pins for cat lovers. Or perhaps I'll do a collection of big bold modernist jewelry. Or Victorian replica jewelry like 1928 Jewelry Company's. (This jewelry was very popular in the 1970's and I was crazy about it. If it is not marked 1928, then look for the characteristic scroll marks on the back of it to help identify it.) I separate earrings by style - clip-on or pierced. I really love the vintage earrings made in West Germany and Austria, especially the art glass ones. Then, I will check out the rings. If they show a 925 mark, sterling silver (Yaaay), then I clean and polish them. Native American rings are my favorites. Researching jewelry makers is fun too. I recommend reading some jewelry collector books before you start selling just to get an idea of which pieces are collectible. Have fun collecting and selling! Visit my eBay stores, too. They are Debs Discoveries Vintage Jewelry on eBay, website www.DebsDiscoveriesVintage.com And also A Vintage Jewelry Lover on ebay, website www.AVintageJewelryLover.com.