Gold and silver parties are excellent venues where you could sell your unwanted jewelry. You get to mingle with friends and fellows who also have jewelry to sell, while at the same time making extra money that you could use to pay bills, fund a vacation, or whatever it is that is on your mind. However, if you are going to attend gold and silver parties without the faintest idea of how your jewelry are classified, you may be duped and underhanded to sell your goods at much-lower values. Arming yourself with knowledge about the market rates for your prized possessions will give you a good hold of your position before proceeding with the bargaining process.

The best way to determine the value of your jewelry is to, of course, consult an independent jeweler, somebody to whom you are not going to sell your jewelries to, but only for appraisal purposes. You may be charged appraisal fees here so another way to go at it is to attempt to sell your gold and silver jewelry to these jewelers and take note of the amount that they are willing to pay. From there, you can already get a clear idea of how your possessions currently measure in the market.

Suppose that you do not have this easy access to your local jewelers aside from the dealers in the party that you are about to attend, you can have a good idea of your jewelry's value by consulting websites that detail the price-per-ounce of these items. This would require you, however, of good knowledge of the quality of the material that make up your jewelry.

For example, if you have a gold bracelet, you should know its purity, say 22K, and its exact weight in grams. Through this information, you could already check out websites to find out the per-ounce value of 22K gold. Use that figure and multiply by the weight of the bracelet to get a good idea of the price.

Note, however, that prices are not uniform globally. So the prices that you see on the Web may not always be the same as the prices you can expect at home. At best, they are only indicative and should be only taken as a guideline.

For measurements, you can purchase weighing scales specifically built for jewelries. These are high-precision scales with a wide metal platform on which you can put the jewelry to be weighed.

The purity of gold, meanwhile, can be measured either through acid tests or electronic tests. Acid tests come with solutions labeled depending on the purity they represent. Just make a small cut through the jewelry in an inconspicuous place and put a drop of a solution. If there is no reaction for, say, the 18K drops, then that means the jewelry is at least 18K. If there is a reaction, such as the cut turning brown, then you will have to use a lesser solution to determine exact purity. Because of the minimal losses in gold content, electronic testing for gold purity is becoming more popular.

So, now you are prepared to host gold and silver parties with confidence knowing that you and friends can make good money and have a great time.