Please Don’t Scrap Your Estate Jewelry

It really is heartbreaking. Antique jewelry isn’t just “old gold” — it’s history you can wear. When gold prices spike, the melt value starts to overshadow everything else, and suddenly pieces that survived wars, migrations, love stories, are reduced to their weight on a scale.

So much antique jewelry was made by hand, often with techniques that are rare or entirely lost today: repoussé work, hand-cut stones, closed-back settings, alloy formulas specific to a region or era. Once those pieces are scrapped, that knowledge disappears with them. You can melt gold again, but you can’t remelt provenance, artistry, or human touch.

What makes it worse is that many of these pieces aren’t being scrapped because they’re damaged beyond repair — they’re scrapped because it’s easier and faster. A jeweler or estate buyer can get immediate profit from melt, while restoring, researching, or reselling an antique piece takes time, expertise, and care. High gold prices reward impatience.

There’s also something deeply unsettling about the cultural loss. Antique jewelry reflects social history: mourning jewelry from the Victorian era, hairwork pieces tied to intimacy and remembrance, Art Nouveau designs inspired by nature, early engagement rings that tell us how ideas of love evolved. Scrapping them flattens all that meaning into a commodity.

And ironically, the destruction often happens just before tastes swing back. What’s “old-fashioned” today becomes highly collectible tomorrow — except the supply is permanently smaller because so much was melted when gold hit a peak.

Yes, gold is valuable. But antique jewelry is irreplaceable. Treating it like bullion is a short-term gain that leaves a long-term cultural void. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever — and no gold price, no matter how high, can justify that kind of loss.

We strive to preserve antique jewelry by carefully repairing damaged pieces and thoughtfully repurposing those whose designs have fallen out of fashion. By honoring their original craftsmanship while giving them renewed relevance, we allow these pieces to be worn, loved, and treasured for decades to come.