House clearance: the gold and silver to pull out before the skip

The sort

Two piles, done in the room. Anything you are unsure about goes in the first, because an unidentified thing costs nothing to send and a great deal to throw away.

The right-hand column is where the disappointment lives. A canteen of EPNS in a fitted oak box looks exactly like the thing everyone hopes to find, and its silver is a skin a few microns thick that cannot be recovered. Silver plate, EPNS, A1 and Sheffield plate shows how to spot it before you carry the box down two flights of stairs.

If a whole jewellery box turns up, a box of jewellery you cannot identify sorts it into six piles. What to have looked at before you sell names the four kinds of object to set aside before anyone treats them as metal.

Where it actually is

In a house being cleared, the gold and silver is rarely all in the jewellery box. These are the places worth checking before anything goes in a skip.

• The bedside drawerLoose teeth wrapped in tissue, in a matchbox or a 35mm film pot. Dental gold looks like rubbish, which is exactly how it ends up in a bin bag.
• The button tinSnapped chain, one stud earring, a bent ring, a St Christopher with the loop gone. Nobody keeps a button tin because of the buttons.
• The bathroom cabinetA wedding ring in a tooth mug, worn thin and slipped off for the last time. Also spectacle frames, which are usually rolled gold rather than solid, but are worth a look.
• The garage and the shedCigarette cases, hip flasks, trophies and christening cups, black with tarnish and assumed to be junk. Tarnish is what silver does; it is not a verdict.
• The sewing boxThimbles, needle cases, stiletto and bodkin sets. Small, silver more often than not, and invisible in a bin bag.
• The loft and the top of the wardrobeA canteen in its fitted box, a tea service in a carrier bag, a christening set nobody used. Keep a set together; complete, it is a different thing from its parts.
• The bureau and the writing deskMedals, a sovereign in a coin purse, a signet in an envelope, cufflinks in a matchbox. Paperwork drawers are where small valuable things go to be forgotten.

Two checks you can do standing up

Neither settles anything. Both are fast, and between them they sort a bag well enough to decide whether it is worth posting.

1. Get light on the markA phone camera held close, with the light from the side, reads a hallmark better than most eyes. You are looking for a three-figure number and a punched symbol beside it. Letters spelling something, such as EPNS, A1 or GF, mean the opposite of a hallmark.
2. Put a magnet on itA fridge magnet is enough. Gold and silver are not magnetic, so a firm pull means steel somewhere. That alone proves nothing: clasps, watch backs, pins and knife blades are steel on otherwise good pieces, which is why their weight is left out.

What settles it is a weight and a test on the bench. Testing and XRF sets out what each method can and cannot establish, including why a surface reading on a plated item is not the last word.

Sending a mixed lot

1. Photograph the pileBefore it goes in a bag, on a plain surface, in daylight. It takes a minute and gets you a useful answer on whether the lot is worth posting. If anything is ever in question, your photograph counts as evidence beside ours (clause 8.5).
2. One bag to a propertyNever two houses in one bag. Label each bag and send one property's lot together. A second parcel on a later day is a separate lot with its own offer, unless you ask us in writing to hold the first (clause 3.3).
3. Leave the unsure inDo not throw away the things you cannot identify to tidy the parcel. The parcel does not need to arrive sorted; it needs to arrive complete.
4. Say roughly what you are sendingA clearance lot is usually heavier than a jewellery parcel, so give a rough weight and a rough idea of the contents when you ask for the label (clause 7.4). The service and its cover level are confirmed to you in writing before anything is posted.
5. Pack it so it does not moveSmall items in a sealed bag inside the box, not loose; nothing rattling; nothing on the outside that says what is inside. Posting gold and silver safely has the packing detail.
6. Keep the receiptHand it over at a Post Office counter and keep the receipt with its tracking number; it speeds a trace. The risk in the post is ours, and so is any claim, so losing the receipt costs you nothing (clause 7.3). See security and cover.

What happens when the bag is tipped out

The parcel is matched to your reference and photographed unopened before anyone cuts it (clause 8.1). If the packaging looks tampered with, or the contents are not what you told us, everything stops and you are told first (clauses 8.2 and 8.3).

• Everything is sorted into groups: gold from silver, marked from unmarked, solid from plated, metal from what is not. Nothing is taken apart, cleaned or polished to do it (clause 4.4).
• Each item is numbered and described, and keeps that number through weighing, testing, the offer and either the payment or the journey home.
• Weight that is not precious metal is estimated and left out while it is still attached: blades, springs, watch movements, stones, resin, cork, the loading in a candlestick.
• Anything that may be worth more whole than as metal is pulled out and flagged before any figure is put against it.

How it works follows a parcel the whole way through, and what we buy lists the items with the exclusions against each.

What you get back, in order

Seven undertakings. For a clearer the first and the fifth do most of the work: one saves the carriage on a bag of plate, the other means a wrong guess costs nothing.

1. Ask before you postPhotographs from the doorstep, an answer from a person, no obligation. For a lot that might be all plate, this is the step that saves you the afternoon.
2. Everything is itemisedEvery piece listed as it comes out of the bag, including the parts worth nothing. A bag does not become a heap; it becomes a list.
3. One written offer for the lotOne amount for the whole lot, in writing, with every item on it. No haggling on a doorstep and no figure read out over a phone.
4. Nothing is sold until you say yesYou accept by the button on the offer or in writing, and nothing lapses into a sale (clause 6.2). That matters most when you are clearing on somebody else's instructions.
5. Free tracked returnDecline the lot and it comes back tracked and signed for, at our cost, including the parts that turned out to be plate (clause 6.3).
6. Worth more whole? We say soThe medal, the signed brooch, the sovereign with a scarce date, the canteen worth more as a canteen: pulled out and named before anything is priced as metal.
7. A person handles itAssaypost is one person, so whoever handled your last lot handles the next, and by the third you are not explaining from scratch how you bag things.

If you clear houses every week

There is no account to open and no scheme to join. What makes a repeated arrangement work is duller than that.

• One reference to a propertyAsk for a reference per house rather than per week. Two clearances on one reference produce one list, and a list that mixes two properties is no use to whoever is accounting for either.
• Authority settled onceIf you clear for a client, a landlord or an estate, we need the owner's written authority and the owner's identity as well as yours (clause 9.3). Settle it properly at the start rather than at every parcel; see responsible sourcing and AML.
• Know which pages to hand overWhen a family asks what you did with the contents, the page for executors and offers, returns and payment answer it better than you will at the door. If the clearance follows a death, inherited jewellery is the page for the family and selling jewellery before probate is granted the one for the executor. Dividing jewellery between beneficiaries helps when the family has not agreed who has what.

Worth reading alongside: silver cutlery and flatware for canteens and patterns, and weighted and loaded silver for why a heavy candlestick is mostly not silver. Where a clearance turns up a tin of coins, the tax position on inherited gold and coins is the page for whoever inherits them.