12 Old Necklaces That Look Worthless But Are Secretly Worth Thousands

The ugliest necklace in your jewelry box might be the one worth the most, and that is not a coincidence, it is exactly how this category works. In this video I walk through twelve old necklaces, the tangled, unfashionable, slightly tarnished ones sitting at the bottom of the drawer, that families sell for a few dollars at a yard sale table while a specific mark, a specific clasp, or a specific stone setting was quietly worth thousands. I am Roy Danforth, and for thirty-eight years I have been buying and pricing estate sales, flea markets and antique mall booths across the Ohio Valley and the Midwest, and necklaces are one of the categories where looks lie to you the most. The pretty, sparkly piece is very often costume jewelry worth almost nothing, and the dull, heavy, old-fashioned one sitting next to it in the same box can be worth more than everything else in the drawer combined. I will be honest with you from the start, most old necklaces are exactly what they look like, and I am not going to inflate that for you. But real gold, real gemstones, and specific maker's marks hide inside pieces that look identical to costume jewelry at a glance, and the test that tells them apart takes less than a minute once you know exactly what to check. For every necklace on this list, I will show you what to look for on the clasp, the setting, and the metal itself, so you can tell within a minute whether what you are holding is worth keeping, selling properly, or simply worn and enjoyed. Do not sell anything by weight, do not toss anything into a costume jewelry box, until you have gone through this whole list. If you find this useful, consider subscribing, because I go through a new jewelry box every week. And stay to the end, because the necklace at number one is the one people mistake for junk more than any other piece I have ever priced.