Jewelry has been with mankind forever, and the number of designs and options available continues to grow at a furious pace. If you need help to find the perfect piece of jewelry, the advice in this article will help you choose.
Don’t clean your jewelry in harsh household chemicals like ammonia, bleach or turpentine. This can cause your stones to turn and dull in color, along with eating away any enamel on the pieces.
Be careful when storing all your jewelry together. Jewelry should be stored in an organized way in a box, a jewelry holder or hung on hooks. Tossing all of your jewelry into the same box is a bad plan. Heavy pieces should not be placed in the same compartment with fragile pieces.
Precious Metals
Be sure that you store all of your jewelry safely away from air and humidity. To protect your jewelry it is important to secure it in a small bag with a drawstring, or in a jewelry box that remains closed a majority of the time. Humid air affects the metals in jewelry and causes tarnishing. Precious metals can often be polished to remove most tarnish. Non-precious metals often have a single coat of metal. Therefore, polishing them can remove the coat and show the copper that is found underneath.
If you are shopping for sterling silver jewelry, you’ll need a magnet and an eye for the real thing. You can detect fake sterling silver with the magnet, since non-precious metals are drawn to magnets. Look for the hallmark stamped on the piece of jewelry to determine what percentage sterling silver it is. If the piece that you are looking at is not hallmarked, this is usually the sign that it is a fake.
A piece of jewelry should be long lasting. To ensure you are buying a quality piece, refuse to deal with anybody but the most reputable of jewelers. High-quality jewelry is durable and displays excellent craftsmanship. A jeweler should know about each piece he sells, including the person that made it, the origin of precious stones or other materials and other history, such as previous owners for antique or estate pieces. It is important that your pieces are high-quality if you want them to last a long time.
Pay attention if they usually wear studs or hoop earrings, white gold or yellow, and any other typical jewelry that they wear. Doing this will provide a good basis for where you should begin so that you can purchase a special piece for that special someone.
This advice makes choosing suitable jewelry easy. Reading jewelry tips like those shared here can help you feel more confident in your selections.
