Vintage Jewelry Pricing Guide: Sold Comps, Melt Value, Channel Fees (PDF)

ASKING PRICES LIE — and a price copied from another seller's unsold listing is a wish, not a price. This guide teaches the method working dealers use instead: two anchors and a net. A melt floor computed from today's spot. A dated sold-comp range — sold, recent, counted properly, median not mean. And the channel net, because the payout is the only number that pays your rent.

Written by Darren Robinson of Royal Regency Jewelry (RoyalRegencyJewelry on TikTok) — the dealer behind the Hallmark Decoder, Fool's Gold, Real Stone or Glass?, the Estate Sale Buyer's Guide, and Thrift Store Gold.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
• THE THREE LIES OF A SOLD PRICE: stale comps outside their window · eBay's Best Offer display (the public "sold" price is the ASK, not the accepted offer) · the gross price that ignores the fees between list and payout
• FINDING THE TRUE PRICE: eBay Product Research vs the public page · deep archives for the twice-a-decade piece · why Etsy publishes no sold prices and every tool figure is a modelled estimate · the buyer's-premium trap inside auction comps
• COMP DRIFT: read the window's shape — direction, velocity, sell-through — and never price or buy off the last print, the weakest comp in the set
• MELT MATH, DONE RIGHT: (spot ÷ 31.1035) × fineness, worked at a dated 15 Oct 2026 snapshot · the payout tiers under the floor · why condition squeezes price toward melt but never under it
• PREMIUMS THAT SURVIVE EVIDENCE: form beats brand (Rebag retention data) · per-maker signed-costume ranges · the attribution rule — a name you can't verify is a name you don't pay for · and the printed verdict that no condition % or era % table exists anywhere
• PRICING THE ONE-OF-A-KIND: the five-step no-comp protocol — ladder, floor, test, schedule, read the dials — instead of cost-plus, which the market has never once reimbursed
• ONE PIECE, FIVE PRICES: full fee stacks checked October 2026 (eBay jewelry 15%/13%, Etsy's real ~10.3% + the 15% Offsite Ads ambush, Whatnot's tiered commission, Mercari, Poshmark, your own site) — the same $100 keeps $75.05–$96.80 depending on channel
• OFFERS ARE DATA: the 26.45-million-negotiation study — the ~80% expected offer, the round-price penalty, send-offers before public cuts
• THE WAS-PRICE LAW: FTC fictitious pricing (16 CFR 233) and the stricter New Jersey rule — why the perpetual 75%-off pattern is a legal trap, not a strategy
• CHEAT SHEETS + WORKSHEET: melt per-gram table · channel fee card · comp-pull checklist · offer-response card · honest-limits card · the fill-in pricing worksheet and log

Pairs with the rest of the series (sold separately): The Hallmark Decoder (the marks), Fool's Gold (the metal), Real Stone or Glass? (the stones), The Estate Sale Buyer's Guide (buying at estate sales), Thrift Store Gold (the thrift-store system), and The Flea Market Buying Checklist (the $17 pocket version).

This is a digital download — no physical item ships. PDF, 54 pages, 13 chapters plus cheat sheets, phone-friendly. Instant download after purchase.