Many people buy antique jewelry as an investment, this is because like land its value will increase over time so the older the piece of jewelry is the more expensive it will be.

If you are lucky enough to have been handed down or have purchased a piece of antique jewelry whether it is a necklace, ring or broach it is strongly recommended that you insure your treasured piece.

You may assume that your antique jewelry is covered by your home insurance however this is not always the case, quite often your home insurance will cover your piece of antique jewelry is stolen but it may not cover your jewelry if it is lost or damaged.

Although you will never be able to replace the sentimental value of a piece of antique jewelry it may easy your mind if you can at least replace the item should it be lost.

It is wise to read your insurance policy very carefully or contact your insurance company to ask if you are covered for this type of event.

If your current insurance policy does not cover you fully for your antique jewelry then you may be able take out additional cover however it important to know and understand the cover you are going to be paying for.

Make sure your policy will cover you for loss and damage and also check if you will still be covered should the loss or damage happens when you are out of the country.

Check that you will be reimburse for the items full replacement cost and will you receive a replacement piece of jewelry or could you opt for a cash settlement.

Quite often your insurance company will ask for an appraisal before they allow you to take out the insurance to cover your antique jewelry. Check if this is something you can arrange yourself or if it is something your insurance company will need to arrange.

Will you have to pay an excess, if you lose or damage you antique jewelry and need to make a claim will you have to pay a sum of money before the claim can go through, how will this effect your existing policy and most important how much is the excess.

Before you start figuring out whether or not your antique jewelry is valuable, you need to define what the word valuable means. There are a number of different valuable things that people can take a look at and a number of different ways that value can manifest itself to different people. To some people, value simply means how good the actual jewelry itself is in terms of the sentimental value that it has to them and in that case antique jewelry is almost always very valuable. To most people though, value translates into money and in order to do that, you need to either be able to appraise your value yourself or alternatively get someone else to appraise the value for you.

Your first step whenever you encounter a situation like this should usually be to go online and see what’s going on. The reason for that is that there is a lot of good information online around a number of different websites regarding different types of jewelry from silver jewelry to sterling silver jewelry to gold jewelry and others that discusses exactly what you should look for when it comes to appraising your own jewelry. It will also usually have some good photographic aides for you as well as some specific information for different materials because different materials are treated differently when you are considering antiques.

If you don’t really want to do it yourself or want to but simply are not interested in devoting the time necessary to doing it, well then that’s what professional appraisals are for! You always have the option of taking your antique jewelry to a professional and getting them to look it over for you. Some professionals specialize in different types like silver jewelry and gold jewelry whereas others are more general in their tastes and expertise. Either way, you can get an appraisal from them pretty quickly, an appraisal that ultimately will help you figure out exactly how valuable your jewelry antiques might be. Once you know how valuable your antique jewelry is, then you can figure out exactly what it is that you want to do with it.